The archnemeses of war rugs

Aron remembers seeing the colors. The rug in front of him depicts a map of Afghanistan surrounded by guns and tanks, woven with fluorescent pink, green, and blue thread. The Afghan weavers' textile traveled all the way from Pakistan to the UK in a battered cardboard box.

Davies says he thought they were interesting, and that it was a weird idea to put on a rug.

A large Afghan refugee community and a center of the country's rug trade can be found in the city of Peshawar. Davies was told that his store had been removed from eBay and that he was having difficulty moving his rugs. Is Davies interested in buying some war rugs in bulk and selling them? Davies placed a bet and ordered 30 rugs.

Three years later, Davies became an accidental war rug dealer and also worked as a carpenter on TV and movie sets. He is the proprietor of Silver Tongue War Rugs and Exotic Supplies. Davies buys around 10 or 15 rugs a month and sells them for between $130 and $330 through a number of websites and online marketplaces. 5 percent is donated to Afghan Aid.

The business was doing well. Problems began in April 2021.

Some of Davies' listings were being taken off of sales platforms due to complaints. Over the course of the next few months, Davies appealed each of the removal because he was unable to copyrighted the Afghan rugs. He waited 10 days to see if a court order would be filed and then re-posted his rugs in the online shops.

The listing was reported and removed again.

More than 40 rugs piled up in Davies' house, and his website and social media accounts were taken offline because of legal complaints.

A pattern had emerged by that time. Images of drones were shown in all the rugs. Kevin Sudeith, based in Brooklyn, New York, was the person who was behind all the complaints.

Davies says he was blown away by the fact that an American man owned a copyright on an Afghan rug.

The rugs were made in Pakistan. Davies wondered if someone in New York owned the rights to an indigenous art form.

Central and western Asia has a long history of carpet-weaving. In the grave of a Scythian prince, there was a rug that was frozen in ice. griffins, deer, lotus flowers, and men on horseback were depicted in this picture.

The fascination that continues to this day is due to the fact that these rugs were brought to the West. Turkish rugs were used as tablecloths in the Middle Ages. The styles of the carpets were named after the artists who painted them. In the 19th century, American magnates amassed their own collection of Oriental rugs.

The interplay between buyers and weavers has always been complex. One of the most enigmatic elements is the afghan war rugs.

An anthropologist asked if they came from the initiative of the weavers or if they came from a middleman looking for new markets.

Russian planes, tanks, and guns are depicted in geometric patterns on early war rugs. Some shows maps of Afghanistan with phrases in capitals like: "DEATH TO RUSSIA" and "AK-47s", which are labeled with their Afghan names.

The owner of a rug shop in Berkeley remembers seeing war rugs in the 1990s.

The nomads would travel from Afghanistan to sell their rugs at the market. The nomadic people have been weaving rugs for thousands of years. New stories were told when war broke out in Afghanistan.

They began to see helicopter flying over them. Children were being bombed. They would describe their lifestyle in those words. The western part of the world is where theserugs are going. They were just leaving it behind.

The Ersari tribe is an ethnic group renowned for rug making. Khan and his siblings fled Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion and settled in Pakistan. Khan joined the rug business with his father. He used to sell war rugs in his shop in Pakistan.

The main buyers were people from the West. The rugs were usually small enough to fit in a suitcase. According to Khan, when rug sellers realized the combat designs were popular, they commissioned weavers to make more and provided designs on graph paper for the weavers to copy.

The situation has become more complicated after the first war rugs were created. Men and even children have had to work in the rug-making industry in Afghanistan because of the economic downturn. Two Western travelers saw families make war rugs in Pakistan in 1989. Afghan children as young as six years old are working in the carpet industry.

War rugs' origins are often shrouded in mystery when they reach the west. In order to put on an exhibit of Afghan war rugs, Max Allen had to purchase most of them himself on eBay.

I can't say where the rugs are from. I can't say who made them. I can't tell you where, I can't tell you when and I can't tell you why.

There were a lot of rugs after 9/11 showing two planes crashing into the Twin Towers, sometimes with a dove of peace copied from an American propaganda leaflet.

Some rugs seem to support the American invasion while others are more critical. According to Khan, these rugs probably reflect the opinions of the manufacturers rather than the weavers.

They show the tanks, bombs, and guns of modern warfare.

The newest weapons of war were depicted in a rug.

Kevin saw a war rug for the first time in 1996. In an interview with The World, he described the piece, which had a traditional border but a field full of tanks and helicopter, grenades and rifle. The interplay of traditional design with modern imagery caught the eye of an artist who makes rock carvings.

He started collecting rugs and selling them at flea markets and on his website.

He told The New York Times that he didn't think New Yorkers were ready for them.

There was a lot of interest. The price of the rugs had doubled within a few years. There are rugs for sale in the price range of $300 to $12,000.

In the years since he began collecting, he has risen to prominence as an expert on war rugs, appearing in multiple stories in The New York Times, Forbes, and on NPR. He is quoted in a number of publications.

Sudeith spoke to many news outlets about the new theme of drones. He told NPR early the next year that his last order of rugs had threedepictions of American drones in a sort of geometric design. He told another outlet that he wanted to meet the weavers of the rugs someday.

He wants to know what motivates them to combine their contemporary life with their ancient patterns and traditions.

The pilotless weapons were used by the US military in Afghanistan. More than 4,000 Afghans died in drone strikes by the time the US left Afghanistan last year.

There were articles in The Atlantic, The Guardian, and Fast Company about the appearance of drones.

He insists that he was involved in designing the designs, even though they didn't come naturally into the market. He collaborated with a group of weavers to create the designs. In December of last year, he filed a copyrighted work featuring drones.

The most important and significant artworks I have worked on are the drones rugs. WarRug.com designs are what they're called. They were made by me. I made a name for them. I own the intellectual property. It's full stop.

He didn't know the drones would go viral. He says that the artwork has struck a nerve with people around the world and that he is happy to be a part of the public discourse. It was my artwork that made it a worldwide phenomenon. I want to make sure it's protected.

This is the reason why he has been taking down people. The drones were listed for sale in 2021. The dealer in Pakistan, Imran Khan, says that the listings were taken down because of the claims made by the man.

After Davies continued to re-list his rugs, which, at one point, included a modified version of the drone design featuring big block letters spelling out "FUCK Kevin", the situation got worse. He filed a lawsuit against Davies in New York in September of 2021.

The Afghan creators are not included in the distribution fight. According to Zamira Saidi, a Fulbright Scholar specializing in intellectual property law, the original makers are vulnerable when it comes to copyright due to lack of education and poverty. Saidi grew up in Afghanistan. She wants more Afghans to know that their ideas and works are protected.

Saidi says there are a lot of gaps in the lawsuit, including no information about the intellectual property rights of his Afghan partners.

Both Afghanistan and Pakistan require a written contract from the work's creator in order to transfer copyrighted works. His lawsuit did not include a contract.

The collaboration with the weavers was not provided by the man. WarRug, Inc. is listed as the author of the design, but also as a work for hire.

According to Kenneth Kunkle, an attorney specializing in copyright cases, if the drones were works for hire, they were originally authored with another creator.

Kunkle says the important question is if the work is an original one. Is it a new and creative thing?

Saidi says there is something uncomfortable about watching two people fighting over a rug while others suffer.

She says that the producers who made those rugs may be hiding because of the intellectual property case. That makes it incorrect.

In 2015, a radio show called The World asked a contributor in Pakistan to find and interview weavers about the new drones. Women between the ages of 20 and 80 are living in a refugee camp.

One of the older local weavers, now in her 80s, told me that the reason for weaving drones on carpets by women here is to show the West that their brutal killing machines are never far away.

The war rug industry is under threat. The country has been in economic decline since the US withdrew.

There has been an uneasy truce between the two people. Davies apologized and promised to stop buying and selling drones.

Davies wrote that they would no longer be arch-nemeses in the War Rug world.

The person didn't reply. He dropped his lawsuit against Davies in January of 2022. It can be refiled at any time.

There are five different styles of drone rug. The owner of the drones says he will enforce his ownership.

An artist's life is not a stroll in the park. He says that protecting what he has made is important to him.

Noor Khan has been selling rugs for thirty years and he says that it is impossible to enforce copyrighted works. He doesn't believe anyone should try.

He says that fighting over rugs is pointless.

They have souls. There are some stories to be found in these rugs. He says they are gorgeous to be around. Why fight for something?