Friday, May 15, 2009

Success is 99% other people's inspiration

I'm usually a person who supports the proliferation of greater amounts of Hayley Mills merchandise. But this image from a users' personal online store of Hayley and a Sleestak on a t-shirt caught my attention this morning.

The image of a Sleestak posing with Hayley Mills that is used on the shirt and poster is from a quick-and-dirty photo manipulation I did for the for the blog back in back in November 2005. The only change to the original image I posted is the addition of some text at the bottom commemorating a fictional band and concert. I don't know how long the t-shirt and poster have been for sale. The seller information says 2007 but I regularly search for Hayley Mills and Sleestak references and this is the first I have seen of it.

While I don't own the original image of Hayley Mills and her father that I pasted a Sleestak head into, I don't make any money off of it either. I use it for review, parody and unabashed fan purposes. The image isn't a secret as you can find the original on the web. Heck, there is even a colorized version a friend fancied up for me.

This guy is charging a lot of money for a t-shirt where 99% of the product is from work done by someone else. The thing is, anyone can make their own customized t-shirt at much less expense. The website he is using is only one of many custom clothing sites that are available. Furthermore, anyone with a printer and an iron can make their own and far more original hipster pop-culture t-shirt at home for even less.

Now I know how Tony Abruzzo must have felt.

8 comments:

  1. Definitely not cool. Have you contacted this guy?

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  2. Haven't said anything yet. He may notice the increased traffic and take steps on his own. I'll give it a bit.

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  3. There's a "report violation" link on that website — and "copyright violation" is one of the possible violations. As I understand it, the things you Photoshop are yours. You might as well report the violation to the people that manage the website, at the very least.

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  4. damned impertinance!

    that's why I bought the special make-your-own custom t-shirt ironing kit thing to make my tshirts.

    may that cheating cad be cursed by a thousand witches.

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  5. Had a guy lift an image I manipulated on my blog and stick it on T-shirts and mugs and stuff for sale, supposedly to aid a sick child. He wrote after the fact about permission and I reminded him that the original image was what he would probably have a problem with and that it was owned by someone else entirely! The products looked cool, though. Mixed feelings.

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  6. The image on the shirt is definately yours, I recogonized that Sleetak neck. As I recall, the original image wasn't very big. Than means that when put the image onto a shirt it is going to turn into mess of giant pixels. It's not going to be a good shirt at that size.

    People steal my stuff all of time, and even take credit for it sometimes. I used to get mad, but I stopped worrying about it. When I make a "collage", I am stealing the original images anyway. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

    The one thing that I can say about mwaddams7's stuff is that it is sadly uninspired. I doubt that he will sell a single shirt.

    On the other hand, if you were to start to make your own mugs and T=Shirts and stuff, I would bet that you would have a wealth of great ideas. You could promote them on your blog.

    I have actually been thinking about doing exactly that with my own stuff. I have started by making artwork for coffee cups. Maybe we could even collaborate on few things. (?)

    The best way to get even with this philistine to ignore him and do a much better job than his lame attempts at humor. Just leave him behind you in the dust, where he belongs.

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  7. Pretty much what I'm doing, Doc.

    And I have no doubt your stuff would sell like crazy.

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