[voice type="Jerry Seinfeld"] Release the hounds!

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*checks the grenade launcher* General, Sir! Ready when you are, Sir!

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sell that bastard out.

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yanno, the physical store that they have is in austin... i could go kick some butt and take some names. i'm not making a living off of my work but I still think that stealing another's intellectual property is shitty. I mean, the least they could do is come up with their own design...

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I'm sure complaints from customers would find more receptive ears than my meager attempts to communicate.

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I doubt it. From what you said it seems that his entire product would have to be taken down to make the customers happy, thereby eliminating the customer. And the customers money.

Did he thief the image itself? The only other RfV shirt I found was on the ebay, and looked like it was originally yours being resold with a markup. I doubt you would be upset if that was the case.

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If you look carefully, you'll note the eBay shirt doesn't have the Goats.com URL in the design.

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Consigliere, we must talk.

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They snagged the design and are printing them themselves, they are not reselling them. I'd have no problem with that.

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Huh. What an asshole. Can we have him tortured?

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That depends. Does the land he's living on contain oil?

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Apparently he's in texas, so... yes!

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Last resort; let lose your fans on his website, Im sure they would tear'em appart.

Copyright infringment is never cool.

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googled looking for the dirtbag...is it the ebay guy?

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i think that's him... the shirt design on those ebay auctions looks slightly... off.

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This guy deserves to have his ass handed to him, so he can wear it as a hat and live up to my opinion of him. Barring that, someone should smear honey in his jockies and then dump in a cup of fire ants.

...Hm? Me? Mean mood today? What makes you ask that?

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I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that you own the rights to the design, regardless of the fact that you are using the name of a trademarked character.

If not, check in to Hate Song next week for "Republicans for Voldemort" shirts at $2 less than goats.com!

Seriously though, try writing eBay about it. Tell them that you are the copyright owner to that design and that this person's items are violating your copyright.

Maybe this page will help?

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The road to hell is paved by dumbasses who don't understand copyright law.

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well i was on the fence before but i'm definitely going to buy one of your shirts now. yay

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I bought that shirt for my g/f (from you of course)

death to anyone who steals from goats.com

You do realize we are your army, waiting for your word to attack this thieving bastard, don't you?

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I do realize that, but we must wait until we see the whites of their eyes, so to speak.

It's best to do these things in proper order for maximum enjoyment.

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Just say the word ;-)

I, your humble servant, await your command.

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I sent him a question on the ebay page... it said "why are you stealing from goats.com? I hate you, you're a douche..."

I bet it will make him cry.

I mean, I stole some of your artwork for user icons, but I credit you on my icon info page... and I've told like 500 people about goats since I started reading... oh, and I don't make money off it. That, at least to me, is the lamest part of the whole thing.

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I like it when people use the art for stuff like LJ icons, it's for personal use and like you said, you're not selling it to other folks and passing it off as your own. There's a huge fundamental difference.

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Awesome. I always imagined you'd say something like that... Or at least I'd always hoped but was too afraid to ask since I thought you'd tell me to piss off and stop using your (awesome) art ;-)

I had to redo some of the text on the JLD icon, when I shrunk the frame to 100x100 the text was too garbled, but it's the same text as the original.

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I'm all for calling the guy on the carpet, but you might want to avoid verbal abuse and bad language lest he report you for violating eBay policies.

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eh I don't care... the ebay account I used is one I haven't used for purchasing/selling in years.

Frankly, I'm surprised I even remembered the password. I'm sure it won't make any difference, I just wanted to voice my displeasure... and of course, I can't do that without profanity (I'm not very eloquent ;-))

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You know, if someone starts making a case for one guy to stop selling these Voldemort shirts/stickers to Warner, don't you think it could backlash and you BOTH might have to stop? I'd hate to see you get in trouble as well.

Yours are cheaper, yours are first- I'd just let the guy go screw.

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Certainly something I've considered, which is why I plan on pursuing a more.... roundabout course of action.

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Oooh! Evil plans!

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Hey- I took a look at the guy's site it looks like most the stuff he's selling on his site are iron-on decals from the Bang-on company out of Canada- and as such, probably are copyright clear.

Doesn't mean he isn't a dick.

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I hate pirate merch. I shut down an operation out of Seattle that was not only printing Fetus-X t-shirts, but using a picture of Fetus-X for their corporate logo. One of my readers at the art institute thre saw somebody wearing one of the shirts ...

... the really stupid thing about your situation is that they could have easily put just the slightest twist on it to make it not a total rip-off. Republicans for Sauron. Republicans for Green Goblin. Republicans for Satan. Republicans for Leatherface. Environmentalists for Hitler. Whatever.

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interestingly enough, someone else has done that with the whole "voldemort votes republican" merch available of cafe press. however, that at least has original graphics.

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is this something you could take to the BBB? Or is the issue of the use of the name Voldemort something that would potentially backfire and affect you as well?

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btw.. the ebay dude responded with the following:


Nah, it's a complete and utter rip off of a bumper sticker I saw a few months back...I had never been to goats.com until I got an email from him the other day, asking me to license the design from him. I was intrigued, because I wasn't aware that he owned the copyright to the character Voldemort, and thought he had quite a large lawsuit on his hands against that JK Rowling person if he wanted to pursue it. He informed me that he did not in fact own the right to that character, at which point I asked him to bugger off.
Life is funny sometimes...
If anyone is interested in representing me, I swear I was the 1st guy to come up with the 'I'm with stupid' shirt design, and everyone owes me a whole lot of money.

dunno if that's something you can use in your efforts to get him stopped, but just drop me a line if necessary. I think the guy is a bit of an asshat because the bumper stickers have the website on them as well. (I saw one on a car a couple of weeks ago. It made me smile)

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god too many replies from me, but when i get curious, well... according to the US Patent and Trademark Office, "Lord Voldemort" is a registered trademark. However, I was unable to find anything for "Voldemort" by itself

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To: legal@wb.com

Hello-
I was wondering if you were aware of the site- www.goats.com , which carries a line of Harry Potter "Republicans for Voldemort" T-shirts and bumper stickers. I ask this, because he has contacted sites also carrying "Republicans for Voldemort" product (all boot leg, I'm sure) demanding a licensing fee.

Now, I do understand you guys turning a blind eye to someone making a parody-type t-shirt based on one of your properties, but for someone to demand a licensing fee for something that doesn't belong to them, and in fact is based on one of your properties in the first place, seems a little over the top.

I thought I should draw this to your attention.

Thanks-

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Parody is not Infringement.
and it's been made clear the license was for the graphic design, not the character name.

you cowardly nameless asshat.

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To: Dingbat@dumbass.com

Dear Fuckwit:

Obviously you haven't read the above Livejournal post, which states that Warners and Scholastic are not only aware of what Goats is doing, but has actively purchased the shirts in question, stating that Rowling would enjoy them. No doubt you lack the reading comprehension skills for this. My condolences to your parents, who are no doubt aghast at having produced such an illiterate lunkhead as their offspring. One can only hope they are still young enough to try again.

As to the rest of your asinine comments: the artist has contacted one, count it, one seller of t-shirts--t-shirts which use his idea and his design. He has had to do this because some troll with micropscopic genitalia and an IQ to match doesn't seem to understand the difference between fair use and intellectual theft. This is presumably because the perpetrator of this inanity has no intellect to speak of, hence his having to resort to thievery. You may wish to look these concepts up in a legal dictionary. This means you'll have to learn to read first, but I'm sure you'll manage.

It is one thing to borrow a name from a book and create a T-shirt using an original idea of one's own. That is fair use, and in this case it has the tacit approval of the author. It is something else again to take that individual's work as one's own and sell it without their knowledge or permission. That is intellectual property theft. That is what the seller of these shirts is guilty of doing.

I presume you are that individual, since your wheedling, sniveling little missive above matches the snot-nosed, childish tone of the email quoted above almost perfectly. And really, you should be congratulated. In a world of liars, cheats and thieves, you have mahanged to distinguish yourself as a true prince among sleaze. So even though you have neither brains nor talent, you do have your inestimably slimy nature going for you. Way to go, you thieving little turd.

Die In A Fire,
_xenognesis

PS: You may wish to know that LiveJournal records the ISP addresses of commenters...even anonymous ones. So the odds are that Jon Rosenberg is now in possession of yours. He knows programmers...lots of programmers. Enjoy thinking about that while you steal other people's hard work.

Oh, and one more thing: eat shit and die. Or eat dye and shit, whichever is easier for you.

_x

(Jon, you can delete this if you want; I just had to get that out of my system. It's been a really shitty day.)

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Your use of this is fair. His use isn't fair. Let us know if we can write anywhere to help against him.

Some people will use any quirk in the legal terms and definition to compensate for their own lack of creative imagination.

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UPDATE: The owner of the company in question has emailed me to tell me that he's taken down the bootleg t-shirts. I consider the matter closed at this point. Thanks for all your support and kind words, but please don't bug this guy anymore, he has done the right thing.

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Excellent. I shall call off the death squads.

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But...dammit...I went and paid big bucks for the high explosives and everything! Now what am I going to do with all these WMDs?

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yay! that's spiffy!

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