Sportsgirl Stole A Threadless Design
As a follow-up to Johnsee’s article “Sportsgirl Stealing Designs or about to sell Threadless?“, I decided to go and get photos of one of the stores, tell my side of the story, and give my thoughts on what happened.
The Situation
My girlfriend and I were shopping at a particular shopping centre in Brisbane last week. She and I have become avid Threadless browsers and buyers over the past year, so we’ve become pretty familiar with all the designs that have been printed. As we went past a Sportsgirl store (a popular young women’s clothing franchise here in Australia) she noticed in the display window a “kissing birds” sticker that looked strangely familar:
The last picture is from a Threadless shirt called For The Birds, and, like all Threadless prints, was designed by a member of the Threadless.com community. It was created by Travis Matthew Stearns and submitted on 25 July 2005, so there’s definitely no confusion as to which one came first.
There was a large one on both display windows, as well as smaller versions of the design inside the store and on the promotional posters (like on the Sportgirl website).
The designs seem to be a promo for their Spring season fashion. None of them are being used on any clothes, as far as I could see (yes, I braved a girls-only clothes store for the purpose of web-journalism). Not that it justifies it. It was still a design that they quite obviously did not come up with themselves.
I only managed to take three photos before the girl working the register came out and told me, “I know it looks really pretty, but I can’t allow you to take photos of it. It’s actually illegal.” So many comebacks ran through my head at the time, but I just nodded and smiled sweetly. No need to give shit to some poor girl that had no say in the decision making process of the store’s advertising.
“I’ll let you keep the ones you just took, but I can’t allow you to take anymore,” she told me. What was she going to do otherwise? Ask me to delete them? Pfft. Illegal my ass. My brother jokingly said that they probably knew that I was onto them about the stolen design, and wanted to keep it quiet.
My Thoughts On It
I seriously doubt that Sportsgirl are going to become Threadless resellers. While it is possible to become a Threadless vendor, Sportsgirl is a national chain, not just one store. Besides, if they were going to be selling Threadless shirts, I’m sure Threadless or Sportsgirl would have made some kind of announcement about it.
According to the legal mumbo-jumbo on Threadless, if Travis Stern did (and I use this sentence very hypothetically) decide to sell his design to an Australian-only female apparel chain for a promotion that would last, at the most, one season, he would had to have told Threadless first, and they would have removed the shirt from their website. No sir, I do believe that design was stolen, if not by Sportsgirl then by the company that manages their marketing.
In regards to the other designs in the shop window, though they do have a certain style to them, most are so universal that it would be hard to say if they were copied. As for the I Heart NY logo, that doesn’t even make sense. It’s an Australian franchise, in an Australian city, selling to Australians. Why they feel they have to resort to American logos to promote themselves is beyond me.
With Threadless becoming quite popular, yet still remaining largely internet-based, it’s hard for them to keep track of copyright infringements themselves. But with such a strong and worldwide community base, it makes it very difficult for hack-designers to get away with plaguarism like this. Power to the Internets!
Alex said,
August 23, 2006 at 3:15 am
You would think a chain clothing store could come up with their own designs instead of stealing from a smaller internet company. The marketplace is most definitely a cutthroat world of its own.
Anonymous said,
August 23, 2006 at 12:55 pm
WOW - SUCH IMPORTANT NEWS…who cares. Designs get stolen all the time - if they dont want it to happen take out a copyright otherwise stop complaining.
Doc said,
August 23, 2006 at 1:39 pm
@ 2. Anonymous
First of all, I find it funny that when ever an insulting comment is made, the person always remains “anonymous”. Always willing to offend, but too cowardly to put a name to it.
“who cares.”
Threadless Customer Service enquiries seemed to care; they sent me an email back along with a US$5 voucher to their store for letting them know.
“Designs get stolen all the time”
Of course they do, but if you seriously think that justifies it, you are as deluded as the person that thought they could get away with this. The difference here is that this is a major clothing chain, and they should have much more integrity than this. Plus I really love Threadless.
“if they dont want it to happen take out a copyright…”
Don’t want what to happen? Have their designs copied? I’m not sure how taking out a copyright is going to change things, since all their designs are already under copyright.
“…otherwise stop complaining.”
I’m not complaining, I’m merely looking out for the interests of a company that I feel very much a part of because they are built on the strength of their community.
Maddy said,
August 23, 2006 at 1:54 pm
Hey Anon!
Unless you can get off your ARSE and pull something awesome together like Johnsee, Doc and Julz have here, have a cup of shut the f*** up and piss off.
Anonymous - but with a positive comment said,
August 23, 2006 at 2:44 pm
To put a serious spin on this, not just insults and crap:
As a law student I point this out to “anonymous” - in Australia there is no registration of copyright. i.e. you can’t “take out a copyright”…it just occurs. So for example, if I write a book, I don’t have to take it to the Office of Intellectual Property, it automatically gains copyright.
As for Designs, which is different from Copyright, if Threadless registered it (and yes Designs you can register), then they can actually sue Sportsgirl. So if their Design is stolen all the time, they can register it and get obtain protection that way.
anon 2 said,
August 23, 2006 at 5:47 pm
I (heart) N Y DOES have a copyright. tsk tsk sportsgirl
Chaff said,
August 25, 2006 at 12:20 am
With a prominant design like “I N Y” it is quite likely that they have considered the implications and taken steps to keep it all above board. Why the hell an Australian clothing company would want it on their store is somewhat harder to work out….
Maybe they are advertising their “Summer of Copyright Theft” line?
Anonymous - but with a positive comment said,
August 25, 2006 at 9:08 am
hey, how long does it take for threadless to ship a shirt to brissie (as in from the day you order the item to the day it arrives, not just the literal “shipping time” which doesnt include packing time, etc)? 3-4weeks?
johnsee said,
August 25, 2006 at 9:29 am
I ordered some at the start of the most recent sale. I got them yesterday. About 9 days I think. They have taken up to 3 weeks for me in the past though.
Doc said,
August 25, 2006 at 1:06 pm
I ordered at the end of the sale (which was 8 days ago now). It still hasn’t been shipped, but at the end of sales they always have a huge backlog of orders to get through (mainly because they’re just so cheap! $18.20AU each for four shirts including shipping, and it gets cheaper with every extra shirt you order. And the quality of the designs! Don’t get me started).
When they haven’t just had a sale on, I’ve found it normally takes around 2-3 weeks from making the order to arriving at your door.
Btw, if you ARE going to buy anything, use my very special Threadless Street Team link and use the coupon code “rubberdanpants” to get $3US off your order!
Be warned though, buying Threadless shirts can become addictive. ;)
Prussia said,
August 25, 2006 at 7:13 pm
This link works better
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Jess said,
September 12, 2006 at 3:50 am
Most stores I’ve been in refuse to let you take photos inside. It seems to be pretty common practice.
Doc said,
September 12, 2006 at 8:56 pm
Jess -
I wasn’t inside the store, I was standing taking pictures from outside the store, in the mall. Secondly, “refuse to let you” is a bit different to “illegal”.
I just thought it was funny that she was telling me it was illegal, when the store she works for had illegally stolen the design I was taking a photo of.
Hippocrates said,
January 5, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Cool.
Neophytos said,
February 7, 2008 at 8:13 am
Cool…
Vasileios said,
February 12, 2008 at 8:13 am
Cool!
Anastassios said,
February 14, 2008 at 3:50 am
Nice…
Sasko said,
May 26, 2008 at 4:44 pm
A couple years ago I bought a Miso and Ghostpatrol(two local wicked artists) stencil from the Melbourne stencil festival. A couple months after that a new design came up on Threadless that was identical to picture I bought and it wasn’t submitted by either one of the artists. It turned out some chick took a photo of the stencil and slightly photoshoped it and posted it as her own design. Suffice to say it didn’t take long for someone to cotton on and alert the artists and Threadless. Threadless sorted the matter out quick-smart and the true artists were compensated. Sadly enough this sort of shit happens all the time. Too many graphic designers. Not enough designs too go around it seems. Good spot mate, it’s people like you that keep the shifty ones looking over their shoulder