Tired of bots appropriating their art for print-on-demand T-shirt companies, some artists on Twitter have struck back. After figuring out that the companies were using bots triggered by the phrase “I’d love to have that on a T-shirt!” and similar variations to steal their designs, they got to work creating the most embarrassing, and potentially actionable, images they could manage and then set them up to be stolen.
https://twitter.com/Nirbion/status/1202229358112464896
https://twitter.com/PhantomScam/status/1202429807532879872
WE GOTTEM LMAO pic.twitter.com/3Ac9gLFWrg
— nakanoart (@nakanodrawing) December 4, 2019
The campaign was started by artist and Twitter user @Hannahdouken, or Nana. After seeing a tweet warning artists and fans about the key phrases resulting in stolen art, they responded by making a call out shirt for those companies, tweeting it out and inviting their followers to respond with the magic words and see if any bots picked up on it.
hey can y’all do me a favor and quote tweet/reply to this with something along the lines of ‘I want this on a shirt’, thank you pic.twitter.com/UhuGRQgU6b
— Ace (@nanadouken) December 3, 2019
Compared to some of what came next, Nana’s design was actually pretty merciful. There were no cat buttholes, copyrighted characters, or cringy phrases. Just a simple, “This site sells stolen art work, do not buy from them!” followed by a winky face. Factual, informative, and frankly poetic justice for any site that did end up selling it without her say. Which, in response to her fans playing the game and playing it hard, several immediately did.
https://twitter.com/pervocracy/status/1202226397395247105
https://twitter.com/NickolaiBoulton/status/1201856968593309696
https://twitter.com/AhmanPatrik/status/1202349965177184264
like clockwork pic.twitter.com/KlUjkoxSBm
— Vasili (@Corginzola) December 3, 2019
https://twitter.com/SephWan/status/1202140394475139073
https://twitter.com/spacekenby/status/1202123563672784897
From there, other artists got on the vengeance train, producing significantly more damning and embarrassing works for people to be stocking. Disney characters were especially popular thanks to company’s lawsuit-happy reputation, but Mario, Bart Simpson and other well-known characters featured too, often paired with statements the copyright holders would find particular embarrassing or otherwise problematic.
https://twitter.com/action_pts/status/1202236159767662592
https://twitter.com/Nirbion/status/1202272580918562818
Let’s get this on a shirt too what the heck pic.twitter.com/VYOKWBl3Mn
— veegs🍉 same handle on butterfly app (@veegsredds) December 4, 2019
hey guys! please tell me if you’d like to see this design on a tshirt :) pic.twitter.com/633t4bojmb
— 🦇 ⚢ evil wife ⚢ 🦇 (@baph0meat) December 4, 2019
I want to play too. Wouldn’t this make an AMAZING T-SHIRT? 😍 I want it on a tote!! pic.twitter.com/NwDCPfTqAC
— rika (@weirdtakoyaki) December 5, 2019
Several of the companies caught on and started taking the offending t-shirts down, but that’s the trouble with bots, they keep going and put the same potentially lawsuit-worthy designs back up again and again—enabled by the artists who aren’t going to let this end any time soon.
HMM looks like they removed the shirt from one of the stores (the other one is still there) and the bot who posted it has deleted their tweets of it
— nakanoart (@nakanodrawing) December 4, 2019
They’re onto us 👀 pic.twitter.com/iBM9EA0SVi
https://twitter.com/Nirbion/status/1202288343180034049
now this is a twitter trend i can get behind pic.twitter.com/tmC8tChWnp
— goose enthusiast (@rhythmridge) December 4, 2019
AHAHHAHA THIS ONE IS MY FAVORITE pic.twitter.com/YfWGEbg4Jy
— Ace (@nanadouken) December 5, 2019
Nana’a design has even become the top SEO result for Toucan Style, one of the worst offenders of automated art theft.
Now it is the headline of their SEO 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/ygDGIajWdD
— ❌ J. Gibbs ❌ (@jdotgibbs) December 5, 2019
Ironically, several of the artists behind this have actually started selling their designs though other, more legitimate print-on-demand websites like Redbubble, which generally defend creators copyright with a high degree of success.
Some of you have asked me to offer this cat on an actual shirt, so here you go! Hahahttps://t.co/OPb2BVNNhN
— nakanoart (@nakanodrawing) December 5, 2019
okay fine I caved, I am a horrible person with very little moneyhttps://t.co/N1cKrgoIJe pic.twitter.com/RPaV6xVsKr
— Ace (@nanadouken) December 4, 2019
Nana suggested setting up a hashtag to direct people to the original of the stolen designs so they can buy them from the actual artist who created them.
we should start a # where we post the designs of the “stolen artwork” shirts but with a source where you can actually acquire them in a non-shady way and support the artist
— Ace (@nanadouken) December 5, 2019
And if you actually do want a piece of artwork on a T-shirt, Twitter user @nakanodrawing helpfully made an adorable little GIF of her butthole cat popping the (please make me a T-shirt) question because the bots haven’t figured out how to track text in images. Yet.
So since these art-stealing bots are tracking your text and not reply images, I made this for you guys!
— nakanoart (@nakanodrawing) December 4, 2019
If you want something from ANY creative made into a shirt, you can use this image to tell the artist you want to buy it. So you don’t need to type it out ❤️ pic.twitter.com/E9Mn2GILcb
The Daily Dot has reached out to several of the offending companies and will update if they respond.
READ MORE:
- This T-shirt fools AI into thinking you’re invisible
- Billie Eilish’s merch pulled off website after admitting to using stolen anime art
