The crossroads: Mildly cool or illegally lame? Stealing your art and doing it poorly on a Surf T Shirt.
The crossroads: Mildly cool or illegally lame?
My wife, daughter, and I went to the Festival of the Wales to kill some time, check out some of the art booths, people watch, see the paddle board scene, and maybe see a whale. What is great about the Festival is you hardly ever see whales. In order for that to happen you should take a charter boat out and hope for the best. I heard some girl on her cell phone talking to a friend, "No I haven't seen a whale yet." You can hear that a couple of times every Festival.
As my daughter was in between having a conversation with her ballon parrot and sprinting in any direction other than where we were going, I saw my first ever Festival Whale! Oh the majesty of it! The look was more than I would have ever expected.
You see that whale? Well the shirt he has on is mine. Let me say it this way, he didn't steal the shirt from me..per say. Well actually he did. This is a knock off, scam job, counterfeit, fake, what ever you want to call it. That is a painting I did, and the name of my t shirt company, Define Surf. In fact that is a design on a t shirt. Except me nor my printer (that I know of) printed this out.
Fake shirt above and real shirt below. Notice my signature is not on the fake one above.
At first I saw this guy wondering how to broach the subject and asked, "Hey bud cool shirt, where did you get it?"
He replied, "Huh?"
I repeated, "Cool shirt, where did you get it?"
"Dunno. Maybe a thrift store... a dollar ninety-nine?" he said.
"Dollar ninety-nine? Well, that is my art, and my company and I didn't make it. So I want to know where you got that?" trying to remain civil I decided to read his body language. Did this guy have a back pack full of em? Was he selling them here? Looking up and seeing neither my wife nor my daughter I scanned around for them among the dogs, art booths, and blue hair. I turn back and the whale was gone. Just as quick as he came. This can't be happening! I am in the toddler stages of my t shirt company's life and I already see a fake!
I scramble to catch up to my family. I tell my wife immediately what I saw. For a moment we don't even know what to say.
This is where I had a crossroads.
This little marketing gnome on my right shoulder whispered how cool it was...how someone liked my design so much...my art...my branding..my whatever and put it illegally on a t shirt. I mean I have seen Hendrix or Marley knock offs, even a couple of fake Quiksilver tees over seas. But my shirt? Kinda neat the gnome implied.
Then on my left shoulder the little elf of justice was coaxing me to go look for him. Get a cop. Call my printer. Do something you ingrate! How could I not want to find out who dares use my intellectual property without my permission. How lame! and not to mention illegal!
You can see from the difference in quality in the photo I am not too worried about the short term conflict. But what of the future? Can I compete against my own designs at $1.99? I will put myself out of business. I am not even completely done reprogramming myDefine Surf website with surf t shirts and other designs I have created. Could the web be an accomplice? The real shirt retails for around $19.99. One friend who heard later when I put the experience on Twitter asked if I signed the shirt for the guy.
After I heard that, I thought maybe I should have. The guy probably didn't care who the hell I was though. It wasn't like I was Ben Harper finding some guy playing burned CDs of my music from the black market. "Oh hi Mr. Harper, I know this is a pirated CD, but can you sign it?" Hmmm...a whole other perspective there perhaps.
So as we walked back toward the car, I started forgetting what just happened ready to resign the experience to a low grade fever or some food poisoning hallucination I didn't know I had. Then luckily for me my wife needed to use the restroom. We stopped in front of a Mexican restaurant. Just then for the second time in my life I saw a whale at the Festival! Oh the luck! That is how I got the picture above and confirmed it was not food poisoning.
Mildly cool? or Illegally lame?
-Nathan Gibbs
