Aaron Colter at Comics Alliance rounds up the latest news of T-shirt makers ripping off artists for ideas without paying them, including the granddaddy of them all, Todd Goldman, whose idea thievery is notorious — his huge David and Goliath novelty company has a long, well-documented track record for necoming “majorly inspired” by other artists’ ideas and then paying a little hush money when caught. We had a whole bunch of posts about Goldman’s past sins up here once, but his lawyer made us take them down. Let’s hope AOL has a few more resources to keep this story up, because he’s a total ______ and a ________ too.
Or as Colter put it:
What we will say is that Todd Goldman’s art, if you can even call it that, is, in our opinion, uninspiring, soulless, and potentially damning to the human condition, and we feel bad for anyone who has wasted their hard-earned money on such talentless crap. Again, just so we’re clear, we did say that. We’re saying that now. And we think you should say something like it as well.
A copy of the C&D letter can be found here:
http://travelswithjesus.com/todd_goldman/
(But don’t scroll down and look at the images which D&G does not want you to see.)
Is Goldman somehow related to Bob Kane?
I would totally buy a Goldman shirt that ripped off Bob Kane ripping off someone else…
“We had a whole bunch of posts about Goldman’s past sins up here once, but his lawyer made us take them down”
Seriously? Under what legal theory? Or are you just telling us that you got bullied into silence regardless of the law?
i think he just has a crush on Jess Fink.
I’m starting to think it’s a new meme to steal this design. Here’s another:
http://www.regretsy.com/2011/03/17/flag-day-glitterbiscuits/
I worked a full time job designing graphics for the fashion industry for three years and I can tell you that ripping off artists is standard operating procedure.
There were times when a merchandiser would tell me to make something “like this” and give me some “inspiration.” I’d make something similar, and it would get rejected until it was nearly a carbon copy of the original. I’m not proud of this, but I’m just saying it happens – mass-market fashion puts intense demand on the producers – you’d be responsible for probably 15 designs a week.
These companies do respond to lawsuits though, don’t let them get away with it.
This &*$# is still in business? Damn.