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alexandraerinLast year, pop "artist" Todd Goldman exhibited paintings and related merchandise that were a blatant rip-off of a panel from an online comic. Evidence suggests he does this a lot, either taking another artist's work or using artist-unidentified clip art from the web. Of course, a lot of times the reason the artist is unidentified is because of the lax attitude to attribution which permeates the internet, but that's another story.
Anyway, it's happened again, this time with a t-shirt design company which provides t-shirts for Hot Topic. Said designer took a popular (and much-copied) image of an anthropomorphic bar of soap saying "Rub Me On Your Butt!", created by an indy t-shirt designer, and slightly altered it for a t-shirt which is now available at Hot Topic.
When pressed by the original artist for comment, the design company (Newbreed Girl) responded that they get ideas from freelancers and can't vet the blah blah blah blah pass the buck. Hot Topic has yet to respond.
The fact is that legal options may be limited, if only because of disparaties in finances. If Hot Topic were selling the original soap bar shirts and an indy created a shirt showing what was blatantly the same character in a slightly different pose with a slightly different punchline, Hot Topic could sue them into the stone age. Even the threat of a protracted legal battle would probably be enough. On the other hand, how does David take on Goliath?
(The essential facts about the matter here.)
It may be that the only option here is bad press, lost sales, and general public ill will. Yeah, I know a lot of people don't shop at Hot Topic, anyway... but if you do, consider searching the web for truly indepedent creative sites which embody the spirit of individuality that Hot Topic tries to manufacture.
Let Hot Topic know. Bitch about Hot Topic (more so than you do already) and Newbreed girl on your blog. Be bold. Use headlines like "Hot Topic Hates Independent Artists" or even "Hot Topic Shits On Individuality." No, these aren't meant to be real newsflashes. The idea is to have them be the sorts of things that come up when you do blog searches/web searches for Hot Topic. Companies track that sort of thing.
I'll confess that I occasionally shop at Hot Topic for *ahem* Tinkerbell memorabilia. Now, though, that's off the table. I'm not setting foot in their stores again unless this gets resolved and they put a policy in place to guard against this sort of thing. In other words, I'm probably not going to shop there again... and of course, that goes for their sister store, Torrid, which I'll probably miss a bit more. Oh, well. I guess I have to stop being a mallrat sometime.
There's also a banner that's been produced to highlight the issue. I personally think it could go a little bit slower and do more to introduce the facts of the matter... as it stands, it's not much more than preaching to the choir, but I'm posting it here anyway:
Anyway, it's happened again, this time with a t-shirt design company which provides t-shirts for Hot Topic. Said designer took a popular (and much-copied) image of an anthropomorphic bar of soap saying "Rub Me On Your Butt!", created by an indy t-shirt designer, and slightly altered it for a t-shirt which is now available at Hot Topic.
When pressed by the original artist for comment, the design company (Newbreed Girl) responded that they get ideas from freelancers and can't vet the blah blah blah blah pass the buck. Hot Topic has yet to respond.
The fact is that legal options may be limited, if only because of disparaties in finances. If Hot Topic were selling the original soap bar shirts and an indy created a shirt showing what was blatantly the same character in a slightly different pose with a slightly different punchline, Hot Topic could sue them into the stone age. Even the threat of a protracted legal battle would probably be enough. On the other hand, how does David take on Goliath?
(The essential facts about the matter here.)
It may be that the only option here is bad press, lost sales, and general public ill will. Yeah, I know a lot of people don't shop at Hot Topic, anyway... but if you do, consider searching the web for truly indepedent creative sites which embody the spirit of individuality that Hot Topic tries to manufacture.
Let Hot Topic know. Bitch about Hot Topic (more so than you do already) and Newbreed girl on your blog. Be bold. Use headlines like "Hot Topic Hates Independent Artists" or even "Hot Topic Shits On Individuality." No, these aren't meant to be real newsflashes. The idea is to have them be the sorts of things that come up when you do blog searches/web searches for Hot Topic. Companies track that sort of thing.
I'll confess that I occasionally shop at Hot Topic for *ahem* Tinkerbell memorabilia. Now, though, that's off the table. I'm not setting foot in their stores again unless this gets resolved and they put a policy in place to guard against this sort of thing. In other words, I'm probably not going to shop there again... and of course, that goes for their sister store, Torrid, which I'll probably miss a bit more. Oh, well. I guess I have to stop being a mallrat sometime.
There's also a banner that's been produced to highlight the issue. I personally think it could go a little bit slower and do more to introduce the facts of the matter... as it stands, it's not much more than preaching to the choir, but I'm posting it here anyway: