Guinness Time again. But this time it's an Intellectual Property issue

I have written before on here about Guinness advertising across London. One of the signs I've photographed most often is the broken Millennium clock on the corner of the Archway Tavern, London N19, announcing GUINNESS TIME with a repair man balancing on the heads of an ostrich and a sea lion. Here's wider view from Google streetview in 2008, which is the same year I took the following photo:

This cropped (and squashed) version was until recently available on my Jane's London Etsy site as a greeting card and in various print formats. It has been available on there for ten years*. However, last week I received an email notification informing me that the listing has been removed for Intellectual Property reasons after Etsy were alerted by 'VP of Enforcement' via DiageoGB/corsearch.com. Etsy's response to this is to immediately remove the listing without discussion. Oh great. Thanks. 

Here's one of the montages from my listing showing the formats available with my accompanying description for that listing in italics underneath:

My photo of the Guinness promotional clock on the corner of the Archway Tavern public house on Navigator Square, N19, taken in May 2008 when the sign was still complete. Sadly, today it's in a sorry state as many of the letters have fallen off. Let's hope the new owners fix it.

It's rather ironic that the sign depicts a repair man because, during the subsequent years, it started to literally fall apart. There is hardly anything left of it now. 

Back in April 2017 it looked like this with almost half the letters already missing and others hanging on for dear life:

The Archway Tavern, 8th April 2017 ©JaneAmeliaParker/Janeslondon

In September of that year, I was talking about it to a lady I know who works at a shop near the Archway Tavern. She told me that she had rescued one of the fallen letters having found it on the pavement. At that time the pub was completely closed and in a state of flux. We discussed how surely it was possible for someone with a tall ladder or access to a cherry picker to repair the sign and replace or reinstate the missing parts. Getting the mechanism to work would be a bonus. Keen to get it fixed, I wrote a blog post – Save the Guinness Sign and sent a link to that within an email to Guinness' brand management at Diageo.com. 

I was pleased to get a fairly swift response from Josh Spooner who said that they were glad I had brought it to their attention and they'd look into it, but he said they didn't have the budget to repair it. He asked if I knew who might undertake the repair work (er, if I knew that I wouldn't be having this email exchange, duh!). 

The matter was then passed on to someone called Francesca Hillman at freuds.com (who? more info about this company is needed). She followed up with this email on 28th Sept 2017, saying that the sign is the responsibility of the landlord:

Eh? From this we glean that Guinness are more than happy with the free advertising but they don't want to have anything to do with the upkeep of their own installation. I am befuddled as to why their brand people are now getting their knickers in a twist about a sign they have shown no interest in for decades. 

It's worth pointing out that my cards and prints were available on Etsy during this email exchange yet Diageo and Freuds didn't flag up any infringement back then. 

I let the matter drop and hoped that when the pub finally reopened that the new owner would repair the  sign. But no, the sign continued to fall apart as is shown here:

The Archway Tavern, open again, 15 July 2022 ©JaneAmeliaParker/Janeslondon

I've just wandered up there to take some pics of how it looks today:

The Archway Tavern, 26 August 2026 ©JaneAmeliaParker/Janeslondon

As you can see only one letter now remains – the I from GUINNESS at the very top. 

It's evident that nobody cares but me. I'm going down the garden to eat worms.

Re the removal of my Etsy listing, there is no facility for me to make a counter claim or provide any explanation or back story. Etsy have simply acted in this way because a corporate giant has roared. Ooh scary!  I wonder if the Archway Tavern has been told to remove what's left of the sign for the same reasons?! I doubt it.

The removal notice included the name and email the person at Corsearch/Diageo so I wrote to him including a condensed version of the sign's history. I also made a point that the internet is awash with fake Guinness products and perhaps they ought to go after those plagiarists rather than pick on someone who truly cares about their historic advertising, signage that Guinness themselves admit is not their property or responsibility! If I get a response I will add it here.

The Archway Tavern, 26 August 2026 ©JaneAmeliaParker/Janeslondon

This is not the first time I have trodden on toes re Intellectual Property – in October 2018 had another image removed from my Etsy site because it was said to infringe London Transport's rules. The joke is that this was also an image of part of the Archway Tavern – one of the tiled doorway thresholds that depicts a toucan and a pint of the black stuff on a roundel – yet, in all these years, Guinness don't seem to have been bothered by that one. 

Actually, whilst I'm on the subject of IP... on the flip side, I have myself reported some sellers on Etsy for blatantly copying my clay pipe jewellery. Some of these 'designers' even had the cheek to also copy and paste my written descriptions.  I messaged these people directly and asked where they got their inspiration from. Most didn't have the nouse to realise who I was. One woman told me she'd come up with her ideas quite recently yet she couldn't explain why her necklaces were almost direct copies of mine, even down to the way they were photographed. Worth noting that she had nothing similar or original for sale. Many of the other copyists didn't have the nouse to work out who I was until I included a link to my own work. 

My complaints about this to Etsy fell on deaf ears. They as good as ignored me and did not remove those sellers or their products. I do not have the weight of a corporate giant. 

These people continue to trade on their site. Add to this that most of those sellers are also contravening the PLA's strict rules about mudlarking, specifically making money form items made from Thames foreshore finds – you need a special Creative Permit to do this, and I have one.

*I've not sold many of this image, except to Archway local residents. Please get in touch with me direct via jane@janeslondon.com if you are interested.