Threadless and David and Goliath
The shiznit’s going down on Todd Goldman and his company, David and Goliath. Essentially, Goldman decided to hire some artists to rip-off Threadless t-shirt designs.
For those who don’t know about Threadless (or D&G), it’s a community-based web site where t-shirt designers submit their work and people comment on them and then buy the final designs. They encourage participation by offering deals like if you upload pictures of you wearing their t-shirts, then you’ll get a discount. Great idea, very successful, and, best of all great, t-shirts. (I own a… Bunch.)
Since this has blown up on the Internet, Goldman’s lawyer has been e-mailing bloggers who are discussing this issue–”We have acquired articles posted on your website which contain defaming, derogatory and malicious statements about Mr. Goldman“–asking them to remove posts from their blogs. But now it looks like his lawyer is apologizing at least to the artists for the rip-offs.
Here are some of the rip-offs, posted on Penny Arcade:
