Stealing artwork and putting it on a t-shirt...

[Macneil]

My mate's an artist and she sells her work on Etsy. She discovered that a guy in her town was printing them onto t shirts and selling them in his shop and online. She challenged him and he apologised and promised not to do it again.

But he has started again. What is the best way to stop him? My ideas range from a solicitor's letter to simply walking in and taking every shirt with her work on it and daring him to call the police.

Any suggestions?

[MJ85]

Hammer frozen sausages into each t-shirt. The animals will rip the t-shirts to threads when they thaw, whilst all the evidence will have been eaten.

[markjmd]

He starts giving her a 40% cut of the proceeds from each shirt, or she gets legal on his @ss.

[mmm-five]

Macneil said:

My mate's an artist and she sells her work on Etsy. She discovered that a guy in her town was printing them onto t shirts and selling them in his shop and online. She challenged him and he apologised and promised not to do it again.

But he has started again. What is the best way to stop him? My ideas range from a solicitor's letter to simply walking in and taking every shirt with her work on it and daring him to call the police.

Any suggestions?

The police won't be bothered with what the 'printer' is doing, but may be very interested in you stealing his t-shirts.

The gov.uk site on copyright says this...


...so it sounds like a letter and follow-up court action would be the correct path.

[konark]

Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

[nikaiyo2]

The police (quite rightly imho) wont want anything to with this.

It is a copyright issue and in my experience enforcing copyright will end up costing so much money and causing so much stress that its not worth it unless it is really costing her a great deal of cash.

Can she not collaborate with him? Sell her art where she is but also stock some of his T shirts on consignment, or maybe link to his store, do some T-shirt only art that will only ever be available through him etc? Make it a beneficial relationship to both parties.

[blueg33]

It needs letters from a solicitor making threats, and/or an agreement on royalties

Actual protection of IP through the courts is very expensive. We just spent £60k to get confirmation from and IP lawyer that we weren't infringing someone elses IP. His bill estimate it it came to court was >£500k

[Truffles]

This looks like a pretty simple copyright case, and the advice above that it is a civil matter rather than criminal is correct.

I suspect that he will stop if he receives a lawyer's letter, and these are usually not expensive. for a small business you could go down the pro bono route (which will not cost you anything). There is a specialised gateway for this at https://www.ipprobono.org.uk/

[Z4MCoupe]

Get a friend to go in and buy one so you can prove he was selling them.

[FunkyNige]

Kind of off-topic, but reminds me of this article -
People Astounded To Learn How A Bot Is Stealing Everyone’s Art On Twitter, Decide To Trick It Into Getting A Lawsuit
https://www.boredpanda.com/bots-t-shirt-design-art...

[elanfan]

Set up a fake email address and order 500 t shirts :lol:

[anonymous-user]

Isn’t banksy having/had similar problems? Slightly different situation tho.

[Jazzy Jag]

When your mate put her work on etsy, did she watermark it?

[Jazoli]

MJ85 said:

Hammer frozen sausages into each t-shirt. The animals will rip the t-shirts to threads when they thaw, whilst all the evidence will have been eaten.

FFS just yawn off, it wasn't funny the first time or the subsequent 35 million times its been posted since, if you can't think of something original then don't bother posting.

[steveo3002]

maybe time for your pal to set up selling t shirts , i believe theres a few sites you submit the design and they handle the printing and sales and give you a cut of the sale

[konark]

If you sell an original artwork to someone aren't you also selling the copyright to it's use?

[Chris32345]

Jazoli said:

FFS just yawn off, it wasn't funny the first time or the subsequent 35 million times its been posted since, if you can't think of something original then don't bother posting.

They can't the people that post this sort of stuff tend to have the mind of a 12 year old
Many probally are 12 year olds

[JeffreyD]

blueg33 said:

It needs letters from a solicitor making threats, and/or an agreement on royalties

Actual protection of IP through the courts is very expensive. We just spent £60k to get confirmation from and IP lawyer that we weren't infringing someone elses IP. His bill estimate it it came to court was >£500k

If the op's friend doesn't have any dough that could be difficult, but it's definitely the way to go

If they are skint send the offending shop and invoice for an appropriate amount and then sue via moneyclaim online.

[robuk]

Aware of issue locally where a lad who does great art had it ripped and put on canvas and sold by a business nearby. He asked nicely and they stopped... then restarted.

His route then was to embarrass the hell out of them on social media with his mates helping, and the firm stopped it sharpish.

Depending on the situation the number of sales could be very very low, so complicated and costly licence agreements would be a waste of time to create, and in effect are based off trust (who is to say how many were sold?) which does not seem to be there.

If its decent on Etsy I would guess it is being ripped worldwide sadly. On that note it is worth looking at reverse image search as it is probably easier to get stuff removed from ebay / etsy / amazon than an offline biz in the UK.

[4rephill]

Chris32345 said:

Jazoli said:

FFS just yawn off, it wasn't funny the first time or the subsequent 35 million times its been posted since, if you can't think of something original then don't bother posting.

They can't the people that post this sort of stuff tend to have the mind of a 12 year old
Many probally are 12 year olds

I bet the 12 year olds have better grammar though, and can spell the word "probably".