I’ve deliberately avoided talking about the whole Todd Goldman mess up ’til now, mainly because it’s such an unbelievable clusteryouknowwhat that I knew it would take more blogging power than poor little me could muster. But now, circumstances compel me to speak up, namely because other people are being told to shut up.
But first, a bit of background. Todd Goldman is the designing wizard behind David & Goliath, a multi-million dollar company that designs T-shirts and other apparel you find at places like Hot Topic. The folks at the Something Awful forums noticed a strong similarity between one of his cartoons and one by David Kelly.
And how did Mr. Goldman respond to these charges? Why, by calling Kelly a pedophile. What a nice fellow! Of course, this just encouraged a bunch of Internet-savvy folks to discover many, many more instances of David & Goliath designs that look very similar to other people’s designs. You can see a long list of the alleged thievery here (warning: it’s not a pretty sight).
Now it appears Goldman has decided to stop the nasty name-calling and sic his lawyers on anyone who dares talk about him or his high-quality, certainly-not-stolen designs. Already a number of Web sites have reportedly received “cease and desist” letters (you can read Fleen’s here) and a few sites have taken down their articles about the affair, including Wired, Juxtapoz and The Beat. Without casting any aspersions on Heidi or Publisher’s Weekly, I find it very disturbing when someone accused of stealing feels they can bully their way out of trouble.
Want to learn more? Yeah, me neither, but why should I suffer alone? You can find out much more about the Goldman scandal here, here, here and here. You can buy a funny T-shirt mocking him here. You can read an amusing, apocryphal story about him here.
PS: A tip of the hat to JK for the subject head.
April 27th, 2007 at 9:23 am
Nice. Nice call. Joe Rogan would be proud.
April 27th, 2007 at 9:29 am
Is Goldman trying to out-lawsuit the lawsuits? Because I’m guessing he has his fair share headed his way.
April 27th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
One–I like the punishment of chopping off a thief’s hand.
Two–calling someone a pedophile is a very hefty slander/libelous remark that could ruin a man’s life–Todd Goldman must be a completely seeping colostomy bag of a human being to say/print something of that nature.
Three–Carlos Mencia (or “Ned” as I now refer to him) is a thieving piece of garbage.
April 27th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Now that is just sad
April 27th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
This Goldman guy really needs to be smacked around by the rule of law.
April 27th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
HE CAN’T STOP EVERYBODY.
Please spread the word! Blog about this. Link to examples of TODD GOLDMAN’S SWIPES. Post it on Livejournal. Friendster. Multiply. MySpace. Anywhere on the internet. Do not let this issue be buried.
It is in the interest of every artist, every creative person, in originality and creativity, every person who believes FREE SPEECH,- to see that plagiarism is exposed.
April 28th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
His legal team must have advised this maneuver to see what kind of chilling effect it would have–along the lines of saying: “I’m exploring my legal options…” (as a means to sound like one intends to sue, when they know they have no case…). Karma is a bus that Goldman will unexpectedly step in front of one of these days.
April 29th, 2007 at 9:06 am
Great sum-up of the situation.
April 30th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Nail the bastard to the wall. Period.
January 17th, 2011 at 3:48 pm
This blog was unbelievably helpful. Your the man. lol