Oh dear!

Legal action?

Doubt I'll go that far, but I'll see if I can contact those behind the shirt.

if they only produced 300, it's not a /huge/ deal... you shuold get a C&D order regarding any future production though, then demand a shirt, and a cut of the profits :)

Wha???

Jesus Christ....this is second, I've become aware of, T-Shirt made based on someone else's art work. So fucking pathetic.

Take 'em for every damn cent!

What r u talking about? What happened?

uh...??

well... I guess contacting them about it and saying you're the actual creator would be the logical course of action... dunno if they'd comply though...

LOL...That bird is going to have one helluva headache...

That t shirt doesnt even make sense.

I mean geez, if your gonna steal....But then again people who have to steal dont have talent or brains anyway now do they.

It would be a good idea to check into it and get it taken down. Its not good to let people think they can just take things like that. Especially if they're selling. Thats just bullshit.

Wow, I can't believe someone would throw Amy on a T-shirt for drugs and whatnot. If it was Danni, or any of my other characters, I'd be pissed, Kick Their Ass, Man!

THEY COULDNT EVEN FLOOD FILL THE SECTION BESIDE HER EYE WITH HER COLOR INSTEAD ITS THE BACKGROUND!
XD...

Dude, this just provides material for your comic strip..
HUNNY! LOOK AT THIS! IM A DRUG DEALER!

It's like they googled "Sexy squirrel" and just pasted it onto a $32 t-shirt. Makes me wonder if Starfinder did the design for this one.

Google image search: the lazy shirt designer's best friend!

Too bad it wasn't Shepard Fairey that did this one, at least then you could have had a pretty neat design. This one is janky as hell.

Woah - no! They are making actual money off your work. Time to bring in the sledge hammer and the telephone book!

ugly shirt.

no disrespect for the original material meant.

Two words.

One is litigation.

The other: hospitalization.

Just don't send them to the hospital Amy works at, eh?

... bad joke.

Contact a lawyer. You'd be surprised how many would be willing to work pro bono for such an obvious case of infringement.

Yeah, when I look at Amy, first thing I think is "I bet she can sell me some coke."

Ho, yeah.

Geez, my condolences, even if it's not the worst thing in the world. Never fun when weird stuff like this happens.

That doesnt look like your character. it's production quality is too shitty.

as he stated its actualy from an old animation did back in 1991...wich is actualy on youtube if i am not mistaken.

First thing's first: e-mail em from the contact link on that site and ask they stop using your image. Then legal matters should be taken if they don't stop.

Bill Watterson had the same issue, I believe, when Calvin and Hobbes stickers and shirts were made without his permission.

I've heard Bill Watterson never took legal action against those stickers, which is why they have proliferated so much.

I think it's the Mike Posner guy your after based on this statement from the site:

"Inspired by HiBlogTV stoners doing their Mike Posner imitation, Dope Couture works up a comical new collabo t-shirt with Posner featuring the Drug Dealer Squirrel character."

Seems he is a Duke college student and published musician. It's only 300 shirts, but I think you could easily reach a settlement with Dope Couture, Posner, and/or his label if you felt like trying. If their reasonable, you could possibly avoid using a lawyer, but I doubt it...

You could get in some free publicity though! A few choice calls and posts to the right places, and the Net will be buzzing with your name...right along side his.

Dope Couture is the one to blame. They made the shirt. That Mike Posner guy made the song the shirt is based on.

*blink*

I... huh.

I guess one would have to be stoned to make the connection. G'luck with however you handle this.

She looks more like a badly-drawn squirrel version of Minerva Mink from Animaniacs...
=o.o=

It's more likely that Minerva was inspired by Amy (the squirrel) whom Eric has been drawing since the late eighties. The image on the shirt is badly drawn 'cause it's old! As Eric stated in the original post, it's from 1991.

You learn something new every day...
=^^='

When Minerva Mink made her appearance, it was rumored that they'd used Amy Squirrel as the model. Minerva came after Amy, time wise.

Nail them to the wall!!

Find out who did it and kick 'em in the Jimmies. It's the grown-up way of solving problems.

You have to protect your character or she won't belong to you any more.

Also, these guys are making money off it, so..

Hey he admitted using a reworked Gucci design. Tell them and let them sue him. :) That is a strange one though.

"the Drug Dealer Squirrel"...

That's a new one on me.

Then you haven't seen "Chronic the Hemp Hog"

I'd actually be surprised if that didn't exist... Just wasn't aware Amy was the Drug Dealer Squirrel.

HA!

Who did that? Todd Goldman?

I'd contact a lawyer on this.

Is your journal title another family guy reference?

Nope. King of the Hill reference, I believe. "BWUUHH!!" is Hank Hill's expression of shock and/or disgust.

Reminds me of the time at Otakon when I saw someone selling rabbi Tom's shirts without him knowing.

Those guys have a death wish?

Dunno. I vaguely knew Rabbi Tom from AC the year before by his characters, so when I told him at the next con (it was either MFM or MFF) he kinda blew up.

only kinda?

That's... Very odd. It's almost amusing, just because it's so confusing.

The stoners have now been informed of their stupidity.

how very doosh of him, I say ither get him to get rid of those or take legal action.

@__@ wtf? Wow, I would love to see legal action on this

Honestly...thats just bs. why would anyone do something soo stupid knowing very well that eventualy you would find out? Me thinks they have partaked of their products one too many times. Personaly i would kick some ass for that

Wow. That happened to someone else recently too. You could try to sue. Or just ask to either not sell anymore shirts or to give you money from the sells.

But if that is a pirated Guchi logo I doubt the brand would let this slide. As for retro Amy It's all up to you, odds are if Guchi could care less then it's lost cause. I'd take a screen grab and send it to them just incase.

Drug dealer? Amy?! Who knew?

Shit. This is just like when some douche stole some of Shawntae's artwork for their RPG. ~shakes head~ The nerve of some people. At least this guy had the decency (yeah, notice the sarcasm there....) to screw up the image a little to try and hide the fact he was stealing from you. Have you contacted him about this, yet?

wow..just...wow..

Ok, there is parody then there is blatant copying. The Gucci logo is parody, but the artwork of Amy is obviously copied. You have to enforce your copyright or you lose your ability to do so in the future. Also, the last thing you want are the words "Drug Dealer" near your character if you have no intention of associating your character with that. According to copyright law you are entitled to every dime made from your stolen work and you need to investigate who inspired the shirt to see if they have been ripping you off too.

That's not cool. I know if anyone stole my character and made something like this there would be hell to pay.

I have one thing to say about this......SHOOT 'EM NOW! SHOOT 'EM NOW! lol

I'm with Kath on this one.. and good luck, guy. Keep us posted.

Hope you get some kind of check for this. Or at least someone gets in serious trouble.

Well, to be fair, she's been around since like 1930. Thus, pretty saturated on the Web and inevitably became disconnected from her original creator, unless of course you're in the fandom. So some guy saw these old pix of Amy and were like HOLY CRAP what a funky fresh design for my new T-shirt. Very strange how stuff like that happens.

That is pretty sad. and definently a wth moment.

Wow... You think you know a person...

Anyways, I agree with sue their asses.

Lol, omg i want one! XD

I concur. Take legal steps, as you need to maintain the copyright on Amy.

Guess what, they closed the comments and erased the two comments calling teh origin of the character into question.

Yeah... dunno if you saw, but they're charging outrageous prices for that shirt

http://www.dopecouture.com/oscom/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=128_130&products_id=262

Even if they only sell a couple hundred, that's some substantial profit at your expense. And as Archae observed, they deleted/closed comments on the item, so you have to go after the creators themselves. Probably want to do it soon; if they sell out and/or take the item off their site, you'll have a harder time proving they stole your shit.

Most Hip-hop couture stores do. It's stupid I know, but it's all to do with "nigga syndrome".

I think it could get very worse!

http://www.dopecouture.com/oscom/ca.....dopeycrown.jpg

Oh yeah.
Disney is not known for being "live and let live."

Gotta agree with the majority, protect your copyright and punish those who'd try to steal from you. NVM every penny they made off Amy, take 'em to the cleaners for stealing! Send a message to other unscrupulous mfrs that they won't get away with it!

They stole Amy for a drugs T-shirt? That shirt doesn't even make sense...

In any case, sue sue sue!

Avoid lawsuits like the plague, if a Cease and desist letter doesn't work then maybe but I'm guessing this is some guy in his garage so you likely wouldn't get much but who knows.

Exactly!

:O

I'm shocked and appaled, sir!

i think a legal action is in order...

Interesting what can be tracked through the interwebs.

It does look like the "DOPE Couture" clothing company got the rapper to OK the shirt (and probably give him a cut). (See the autographing video at the DOPE Couture blog for 14 Feb.) He is unlikely to have any idea where the cute squirrel came from. The original video-blog parody guys parodied the rapper's lyrics from a different song: "...baby girl" became "...baby squirrel" in the parody. So the rapper had a different tune, "Drug Dealer Girl" -- Rapper &/or clothing company shifted that to "Drug Dealer Squirrel". (Maybe concerned about having clear copyright control? Now *that* would be ironic.)

The money amount might be small potatoes (if they really only do 300 shirts, and if it doesn't become a meme that inspires knock-off merchandise). Preserving your trademark rights to the images of Amy is the main thing.

You should mention the new 'image-search' webengines to DOPE Couture's designers. For the nice.

Wow, if that isn't copyright infringement then I don't know what is

That is kinda amusing, but it's also kinda disturbing

reminds me of a time when some dutch afterschool program used a picture of me for a crafting workshop ad


weird

That's really weird.

I love how everyone thinks "this image is on the internet, therefore it's free."

Including most major corporations.

Dont forget email names too. Ive had a company try telling me that I have to forfit my account name to them because they need it for part of their marketing rep

told them that if they want it, they have to buy it

I don't care if it is 300 or just 3, they are using your work without permission and with no intention of paying you. NAIL THEM!!!!

I was amazed and appalled by this. Then again, when you go into hip-hop fashion stores this is the norm.

A label named Lot 29 toted by the group, Clipse, splatters everything with Looney Tunes. Eventually, Warner Bros. got in business with them and they get a cut of the profits.

At least Amy wasn't covered in bling, door-knocker ear rings and a bandanna was put over her mouth.

If this were happening to me, I would be more offended by the hideous shirt design than the art theft. If you're going to steal someone's art, at least have the courtesy to use it in a design that is actually good.

Sue him. I'm serious, hire a lawyer.

You must persue these guys, or you might lose your copyright to amy.

Somewhere out there, Jerry Collins is laughing his ass off.

Guess it was a matter of time, right? I recommend fire, as usual, but I'm sure you'll take the boring route proper and more legal action to resolve this.

WTH?!?!?!

Seriously that's totally not right at all!

They didn't get permission from you at all?!?!

I would never do something like this, I would however use someones character with permission for a drawing that's suitable but who would ever do something like this?!?!?!

What were they thinking?!?!?

...?!

But at least it didn't take a collab to come up with copy-pas.... Oh wait.

its da boobs

finaly famous enough to get boot legged : )

Doesn't even make sense. Why would a squirrel deal dope?

I just don't understand what goes on through peoples heads. -_-. Good luck man, I hope you can get this thing situated.

Whaat the hell does a squirrel with knockers have to do with dealing drugs?
Oh yeah, they were high. NEVER MIND!

After seeing the t-shirt, all I can say Eric is this: Sue the bastard into the next century.

ok?...So now she sells drugs...I didn't know that.

But yeah, you gotta do something about it...hope it goes well for you.

Okay, these guys are horrible. At about 39 seconds into the current video posted, the 'mike has dreads?' one, featured beneath the artwork, they mentioned, "my baby squirrel." I looked further into it... and that's one of their inside lyrical things they use - thus the decision to probably do a google image search on "squirrel chick" or whatever it is they wrote in to find your work.

The sad part is, they probably were too stupid to think it was anything more than a doodle found on Google Image Search, like it's supposedly public domain if they find it in the top ten and didn't have to pay anything for it, LOL.

Since they only made 300 shirts, you won't make enough money to pay a lawyer. But you can slap'em with a cease-and-desist order to keep'em from making more, that's for sure.

This is hysterical yet sad. Hey, if I buy one, will you autograph it? J/K.

Seriously, you KNOW at least ONE FURRY is going to bring this to a con. Maybe they'll be clever enough to change the patch to say, "AMIGA DEALER" and put Mitchy's paw prints all over it, instead of the little black rose / nautical wheel designs they're using, LOL. Or maybe some colorful check marks!

Send Amy to rehab, call Thomas and tell him she's at Betty Ford, and KickStart these guys in their ass. They're quite unprofessional; I'm sure having the piece up on your website will be more than enough proof to scare them. But you know what they say about people who do this kind of stuff - and that it's the biggest form of flattery. Too bad they probably can't give away those t-shirts, because they're non-talent non-musical morons and the half-percent of the population who would want to buy something that labels them as a 'drug dealer' is the same half-percent of the population that can't utilize a computer well enough to find that website.

If they don't make money, you can't take (very much) money. :(

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_XnTGMQhoB...../PicardWtf.jpg

That was you, mirite?