Did Todd Goliath (Goldman) Steal His Art?
April 10th, 2007 by logan hicks
Reposted from Neatorama.com – http://www.neatorama.com/2007/04/09/did-todd-goliath-goldman-steal-his-art/
Neatorama reader Lady Cooper wrote:
Todd Goliath of David and Goliath tees was recently caught directly stealing art from Dave Kelly (Shmorky on Something Awful). He didn’t just copy the image, he traced it! The full story is in the link, there’s already a well-dugg article (http://digg.com/celebrity/Todd_Goliath_Goldman_Art_Thief) , as well as on Metafilter (http://www.metafilter.com/60099/Plagiarists-are-stupid-throw-rocks-at-them)
Todd who? He’s the creator of “Boys Are Stupid, Throw Rocks at Them” t-shirt.
Link (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2416213) – Thanks Lady Cooper!
(114 votes, average: 4.95 out of 5)
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Tracing art? That’s a pretty new low.
it`s stolen. that`s bad.
but i like it more than the original. that`s sad.
a.
i wonder how many of his other ideas are total rips
Weird, this was posted the day before…
http://www.pvponline.com/article/3253/mon-apr-09
I wonder if the copied/derived work would be considered a breach of copyright? My understanding is that “copy” is illegal, but “derived” is legal. Are there enough differences between the images to say that one is an artistic interpretation of the other? Or is it just a copy?
the article said it was traced though, bovril. that seems pretty copied to me rather than derived. if you check out the link down there (where it says “thanks lady cooper!”), there’s a superimposed version that shows how it was traced.
While I do agree it’s low to copy paste without any aknowledgements,
I do think that stealing a punchline of a joke, or the image (not both at the same time) shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
I’m not a copy fighter, but if someone can take your work to new levels then you should have thought of marketting it yourself that way, don’t go after them for money.
Copyright should never ever be “unlimited” (and somewhere i read the original is 5 year) after a while everyone should be totally free to do whatever they think fit with your image (may it be copy it like here)
twopeak, it’s obvious you’re not much of a content originator, or else you’d realize the value of a new idea, and you’d feel differently if someone were to steal from you. Don’t be an idiot, or in your case, stop being an idiot.
And as for “derived” being legal: it’s not. You have to go pretty far into making something your own before it’s not actionable. The only people who ever try to make such an argument are the talentless thieves who poach work from other people, usually for tee shirts and club flyers. And don’t forget advertising.
If you can’t create your own ideas you’re in the wrong business and you should get the f ck out.
If it was directly traced, that’s pretty bloomin’ obvious that it’s stolen. There are starting to pop up more and more (less blatant but still obvious) art thefts he’s done, including even from Schoolhouse Rock!
As soon as I caught wind of TG being such a plagiarist I scoped the net for other looky-likies.
For one, I noticed how similar his “this sucks” fish and Liz Greenfield’s “Blinky” are.
Also, makes me pretty miffed when I read all the articles praising him for his “witty humour”.
I don’t get how people can ever justify it (twopeak….)
Anyway, frankly, TG – what a w***er.
Roman Dirge, one of the artists who may be affected by this (he draws Lenore, who TG tries to pass off as his own as Eve L.) offers up some more comparisons between TG’s works and other copyrighted images – http://taxidermied.livejournal.com/42521.html
OH THE IRONY!
As a music Copyright holder I have been very ambivalent about the copyfight going on. It seems that the idea of owning an artwork is losing ground. Art, photos, songs, videoclips, beats and tracks are all being nabbed and posted on websites without a thought, and it seems like this generation is going to eliminate all notions of royalties to artists.
Here’s the counterargument to all of the copyfighters. What a pure, simple example it is…
Thank you Mr. Goliath
There was something alot like this on a webcomic called PVP online. Here’s the URL: http://www.pvponline.com/article/3253/mon-apr-09
The difference is that it’s a cat bed and it’s part of the strip.
the face of the fox is the same, just flipped:
http://www.jackgallery.com/golddigger/paintings/index.htm
http://www.csaimages.com/results.asp?image=762284&wwwflag=3&imagepos=2
Wanna know what I think?
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but methinks this is merely a well-designed hoax, concocted to generate press for both artists. (I had no knowledge of either of them whatsoever until I saw this story.)
Either way, they’re both going to benefit greatly from all of the free press.
-Andy
another one? flip the image, change the face?
http://www.csaimages.com/results.asp?image=80190&wwwflag=1&imagepos=11
http://www.davidandgoliathtees.com/index.php?mode=DETAIL&parent=HWT&pid=7211&page=5&perpage=16
This story is actually about 4 years old. If you go back through the forum chats. So its fine to link to it, but what actually happened in the end?
The Todd Goliath website seems to be running without any problems.
andrew, i think you’re seeing the member join date, not the post date. it looks to me like the action’s all been within the last few days.
There is an EPIC archive of some of the countless ripoffs he’s been making money from at his former myspace site:
http://www.myspace.com/toddharrisgoldman
This is a beautiful mess he’s gotten himself into.
person, if you read up on the something awful forum as i have, that pvp comic is a strip supporting dave kelly. it’s part of a growing movement of webcomic artists banding together to show their support for david kelly. many other webcomics featured the joke in this week’s batch of webcomics. you can read about it in the pvp blog on that site. i think it’s really nice. i’ve never read the pvp comic before or many other of these webcomics before (including purple pussy). but it’s been an intriguing phenomenon to witness.
Mark, copyright music and art issues are completely different, the difference is the money made.
It’s already okay to save art on your computer for personal enjoyment whenever you want! That’s not the arguement.
You can view Shmorky’s art for FREE already online anytime you want. That doesn’t mean you can make the same image, put your name on it, and then profit from it.
This is not the same as the music battle going on, get your head out of your arse.
David and Goliath, Inc. Customer Service (727) 210-1112 ext.107
Public Relations (american rebel pr) (323) 656-5020 chris@americanrebelpr.com
Enjoy!
I have always heard that people on the internet can be ruthless… I have never seen it in action though.
David and Goliath, Inc. Customer Service (727) 210-1112 ext.107
Public Relations (american rebel pr) (323) 656-5020 chris@americanrebelpr.com
Enjoy!
Harassing goldman, d&g, or their PR Firm is an exercise in stupidity. By rushing these guys and harassing them you’re only going to make it harder for those artists ripped off to get any kind of justice, due to negative publicity on the following of this case.
That said, spreading the story around, and making people genuinely aware of the dealings of goldman, and any others out there like him, is what everyone needs to continue doing.
post about it in your blogs, on message boards you frequent, in letters to a newspaper editor, your local circle of friends, your parents, whoever.. just cite sources and be sure you can generate enough interest in the whole deal to get people reading about it. Should you not do this, the vast majority of people will pass this off as “internet nerds getting angry for no reason” and ignore it.
I thought David & Goliath was like Cafe Press — they’ll put your designs on shit like shirts and mugs and sell it, while taking a cut
Over the years I’ve paid witness to quite a bit of plagiarism on the net. I may have never heard of the artists or the art (not in this case); but it still infuriates me to know worthless hacks are using other people’s original ideas to profit themselves. Then have the flaming audacity to tell reporters outrageous stories of how creative they are and how the ideas just “come to them”. Yeah they come to them alright, at 500k a second on nice fat bandwidth from someone else’s website where you can view the art for free, where it was original.
I hope this douchebag goes down hard. I’ve been enjoying Purple Pussy for as many years at they have been drawn. I’ve seen his art and shirts before and the ideas that are actually his own are complete shit. He needed to steal to be of any worth at all. I am going to spend every night hating him to death in hopes that he will die from it. (and telling all of my friends to spread the word and boycott his shit)
the pvp thing is funny, penny-arcade did a strip too. i’ll be surprised if legal action is taken against todd, unfortunately. maybe his image will be tarnished from bad buzz, but then again do the people generally buying his product really care what goes on here? it’s too bad.
This is depressing, I was just at a huge Todd Goldman art gallery, it’s sad such a thief can get such fame and reknown and his own gallerys… while so many great artists can’t scrape together $2 for lunch.
Here is an excerpt from the article written about Todd on the Las Vegas Sun
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/do/2007/feb/19/566679623.html
notice the number – 2.5 MILLION.
“But nobody more so than Goldman, who’s been laughing all the way to the bank since his first foray into the art world two years ago. That’s when Jack and Carolyn Solomon of S2 Art Group agreed to do a small showing of the Florida artist’s canvases.
The gallery has since sold several hundred paintings, bringing in a total of $2.5 million.
Who knew that a cross section of the population would clamor for paintings of stick figures with erections, talking poop, fart jokes, insults and nonsensical phrases matched with cute and cuddly characters?
“I don’t think anyone expected it, even myself,” Goldman says. “
Also, update from the Something Awful forum
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2416213
“April 11th 7:30PM UPDATE: Keep the nerd rage down until we get more information. Story as it develops. Please be patient.
April 11th UPDATE: I talked with the reporter. She will wait for Todd to make his statement. Someone at the company said Todd was “remorseful.” We’ll find out later this afternoon.”
“but i like it more than the original. that`s sad.”
Are you being serious?
also, this was worth nothing. When the story broke, many people had emailed todd directly to get his take on the story, and to see what his side was. Instead of explaining himself, he fired off an irate email with some gibbberish about a pedofile and his inspiration. very odd to day the least, but goes to show the guy is not exactly the most understanding.
Here is a copy of an email todd was sending people who contacted him through his website.
[...] There was a recent, shall we say, hubub over Todd Goldman’s company David and Goliath Tees. It would seem that certain paintings by Mr. Goldman bear more than a superficial resemblence to works by other ar-teests (in other words, people are accusing him of being a thieving bastard). This, as you might imagine, has not gone over well with Goldman, and he crafted an intelligent, well-reasoned, calm response that politely and respectfully refuted the accusations levied against him. [...]
[...] Thief, thief, thief, thief, thief, thief, thief, thief, thief, thief, pussy and thief. [...]
check out this:
http://sirive.livejournal.com/146743.html
Gutes Neues Jahr 2008.!
My opinion is a bit another how it is possible to talk to the author, for example on an e-mail?