No pics? Nope. And, I’ll tell you why.

Anyone posting pictures of Urban Decay’s newest palette, Urban Decay Electric, gets an ‘intellectual property’ notice slapped on them which essentially tells anyone posting that they have to take it down or risk further action. I would assume further action means getting legal.

This is really interesting and hasn’t happened for quite a long time in my experience (the last one I can remember was Ciate). The trouble is, is that the picture is already leaked (I understand that UD are urgently sourcing the leak) and is readily available on line to view. I get it 100% that brands want to protect their own products and release them as and when they seem fit. It’s totally their right to do that, but in a case, such as this one, where you can’t unsee a thing once you’ve seen it, and they don’t seem to be able to cap the images from propagating across the world wide web, it seems a not very graceful move to get legal and heavy.

I like Urban Decay products a LOT – they do what they do really, really well – shimmers that are unbeatable, formulas that really work (I am never without my UD eye primer – it’s in daily use and in my view is the very best out there) and of course, the Naked Palettes.

Blogs allow you to see behind the brands sometimes so what consumers don’t get is the front-facing, overly PR’d messaging, but more the real thing, warts and all, with honest and open discussion about products. There are many brands who’d love to get the blog love that UD does, so it’s a move that won’t make many bloggers very happy. The wider implications are that other brands follow suit and then literally all that consumers will get is the front-facing edit and that’s not what blogs are about at all. UD will have put a lot of resources into getting beautiful imagery so it’s understandable that the pictures circulating are not the ones they would like to appear all over the internet – but there is a slender two weeks between what is available now and when they’re prepared to release what they’d prefer us to see. It seems churlish given that time-line to garner negative attention at this stage when a more friendly damage limitation exercise would have been to supercede the poor images with absolutely beautiful ones as soon as possible. Can you imagine the amount of on-line activity that would occur as the result of a court-case against a blogger? I imagine it would far outweigh any of the normal coverage and leave a very nasty taste in the mouth to boot leaving the brand and the product tainted for ever.

So, what do you think? It raises all kinds of interesting questions about where blogging is going and brand attitudes on how they attempt to utilise bloggers. I’ll go back to my stock phrase that blogging is the gift that the beauty industry was waiting for – it generates intense activity around the beauty arena and without it, brands would sure notice! Let me know your views on this hot potato.

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All products are sent to me as samples from brands and agencies unless otherwise stated. Affiliate links may be used. Posts are not affiliate driven.