Shirt.Woot

mrwednesday wrote:
This doesn't shock me the least bit. It was always a matter of when he'd get caught not if he would do it. What shocks me is that people are still surprised.

New people join and become active at Woot all the time.

I only started buying actively and paying attention since the last two batches of random shirts and got sucked in. Shame with the whole timing of the AA/Anvil debacle.

And since then I think the only Ramy design I own is The Birthplace of Inspiration and it may stay that way given the state of this thread and lots of other factors. But we'll see. I don't think the design I own is a copy of anything I've seen, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

mrwednesday wrote:ramy has been an idea thief since he first got here. Look at his earliest designs and it's already clear that he's taking ideas from other artists, slightly reworking them, and then passing them off on his own. Not to mention anyone who bought the excuse that, "It was only seki who copied," is quite frankly an incredibly naive rube.

This doesn't shock me the least bit. It was always a matter of when he'd get caught not if he would do it. What shocks me is that people are still surprised. I'm quite sure the same people will run and scream that I just hate ramy, but well now you know why.

Now Now, you are all forgetting that he also does it better than the linked, so it is okay.

If you don't like the guy, there's really only one thing you can do, or rather, not do: DON'T VOTE FOR HIM. When he fogs, vote for everything else to give it an extra nudge. But only if you're tired of him and think he's bad for woot somehow. Some would call this spite voting, but who cares? If you don't like what he does, it's really your only recourse.
I personally think it's downright reprehensible what he's done, but I also know woot really doesn't need to do a thing about it. His stuff sells.
That said, if and when he's gone forever, shirt.woot and the derby will be fine without him. The quality of fogging entries nowadays is remarkable.
One final note: why doesn't anyone here call him by his actual name {{volmod edit: name redacted; not relevant to this conversation}}? Is it because googling his name returns damning results? He's been around long enough that we all know who he is.

10minutesago wrote:If you don't like the guy, there's really only one thing you can do, or rather, not do: DON'T VOTE FOR HIM. When he fogs, vote for everything else to give it an extra nudge. But only if you're tired of him and think he's bad for woot somehow. Some would call this spite voting, but who cares? If you don't like what he does, it's really your only recourse.

I think you missed a bit...

Sadly, this has now gone beyond the derby. Woot cannot go to ramyB's store and reject these designs with "similar shirt exist". We do not have the option to vote on 'em or spite vote. We just get so sit back and watch him make money off other peoples work, make money of another artist's creations (like bootsboots and fishbiscuit5 in this example)... its very sad.

This whole situation is so disappointing. I admit that I recently defended ramy in one of the other threads. At that point, I was a newbie who saw that he had quite a bit of success and a few designs that I liked. Others not so much, but that happens. I thought "hey, he's figured out this business and is talented, congrats to him." However, it is tough to have that same perspective after seeing the design comparisons at the start of this thread. I don't know how much is original, how much is based on other works, how much is coincidence, but regardless it's a bad situation.

I will throw in this request though - can the more experienced wooters who are more familiar with the older designs that might be the basis for "new" ones, please be patient with the newer members. For those who have only been around for a couple weeks or months, we see ramy as an artist who consistently does well in the derby and has some likable designs. Short of going through each past derby, we can't know until it is pointed out to us that designs aren't as original as we believed them to be. However, our ignorance of older designs should not be a basis for criticizing or even attacking those who simply do not have the familiarity with woot that others have. I get that people are angry with ramy, just don't take that out on the newbies who, until now, might only know that ramy is a frequent target, not why.

aerc712 wrote:snip

As an older wooter who this is probably directed at, don't act like you know everything about everything and you'll be fine. Negative opinions about ramy have been honed through, unfortunately, years of experience with his completely unethical behavior. When you come in with absolutely no knowledge assuming you know better than people who have been here for a long time and actually do know better you make yourself look like a self righteous asshat defending him with absolutely no understanding of what went on before you joined.

edit: Courtesy of Goldenthorn (not sure why I thought it was Teefury, probably because it was a pop culture mashup)

And to add to the pile the android design idea is stolen from this woot shirt. To boot the android logo is licensed under the creative commons license which means you can use it for free, but you absolutely must attribute it to Google. ramy hasn't done that either so he not only stole the design idea, but he's misusing the android robot in a way that could get him sued, which is completely pathetic because it's absolutely free to use if you just reference it properly.

aerc712 wrote:This whole situation is so disappointing. I admit that I recently defended ramy in one of the other threads. At that point, I was a newbie who saw that he had quite a bit of success and a few designs that I liked. Others not so much, but that happens. I thought "hey, he's figured out this business and is talented, congrats to him." However, it is tough to have that same perspective after seeing the design comparisons at the start of this thread. I don't know how much is original, how much is based on other works, how much is coincidence, but regardless it's a bad situation.

I will throw in this request though - can the more experienced wooters who are more familiar with the older designs that might be the basis for "new" ones, please be patient with the newer members. For those who have only been around for a couple weeks or months, we see ramy as an artist who consistently does well in the derby and has some likable designs. Short of going through each past derby, we can't know until it is pointed out to us that designs aren't as original as we believed them to be. However, our ignorance of older designs should not be a basis for criticizing or even attacking those who simply do not have the familiarity with woot that others have. I get that people are angry with ramy, just don't take that out on the newbies who, until now, might only know that ramy is a frequent target, not why.

Ramy used to have critics who chimed in on nearly every entry he put up. It got to the point that the critics had critics of their own. But at least you couldn't argue that the message wasn't getting out. Part of the problem was even people who agreed with the critics' message about ramy's history felt the critics themselves were too harsh and made the same posts too frequently and the message got lost.

Then the critics pretty much disappeared. Memories being short, a lot of those who agreed with the critics suddenly didn't anymore. Suddenly ramy's dubious history was no longer a factor, and the loads and loads of evidence was all dismissed as circumstantial.

So it sucks when new community members swing by and they give someone a clean slate when he really doesn't deserve one.

mrwednesday wrote:... in a way that could get him sued, ...

Not that I looked into it much, but I don't think Teeturtle is registered as a LLC, especially when it states who started it. Any liability will go direct to the proprietor ... and it's not going to come cheap.

To play with someone else's IP is playing with fire ... and if he doesn't cut it out, sooner or later, he will be burned. Submitting to a site at least adds a level of checks-and-balances when it comes to fair use, but as we know, even that falls through the cracks from time to time. Broccoli, anyone?

That said, I don't wish ill will on him, but I won't be surprised either if a shark bites him either.

Seems like this was either a bit lost or not articulated clearly in my last post...

I just want the veteran wooters to have an open mind when it comes to the newbies. We don't have the experience and knowledge that you have. However, as long as it is shared in a constructive way, such as comparing the images in this post, then we can learn from you.

I get that folks who have been here for a long time have set opinions and know more than I do. I respect that. When a newer wooter defends ramy, the response shouldn't be "you don't know anything," it should be "this is why people dislike him." Explain it to the new wooter and chances are someone's opinion will change. I know at least for me, I now understand, to a degree, why some dislike ramy. However, before this, I didn't.

So, I guess the main point that I was attempting to make is to just give the newer members a break and help us learn more about woot when the opportunity comes up.

aerc712 wrote:So, I guess the main point that I was attempting to make is to just give the newer members a break and help us learn more about woot when the opportunity comes up.

It's a bit difficult to do that since repeatedly labeling an artist just seems like trolling. New members just shouldn't be defending anyone unless they actually bothered looking through the old posts.

I find it interesting that no one has mentioned the similarity of this to this. When I first saw it, a few weeks ago, I thought it was a giant middle finger directed at woot and intellectual property.

The fox design was submitted here as well. World nom was by his ex girlfriend and a stolen design. Not sure what else there is to say.

neuropsychosocial wrote:I find it interesting that no one has mentioned the similarity of this to this. When I first saw it, a few weeks ago, I thought it was a giant middle finger directed at woot and intellectual property.

Also, it was rejected in Derby #221 for being too similar to this. Well, the rejection didn't mention the shirt, but the thread did.

4khaos wrote:New members just shouldn't be defending anyone unless they actually bothered looking through the old posts.

I'm just asking that veteran members be patient with those who haven't been part of woot since the beginning. Just because someone wasn't around for the early derbies and issues doesn't mean that person shouldn't be allowed to participate in the woot community.

neuropsychosocial wrote:I find it interesting that no one has mentioned the similarity of this to this. When I first saw it, a few weeks ago, I thought it was a giant middle finger directed at woot and intellectual property.

I actually thought this



Was just a rehashing of Seki's infamous theft



and this

Oooo snap, that rip off is so painful it left a bloody mark on my arm.

Not cool. But good catch odysseyroc.

aerc712 wrote:I'm just asking that veteran members be patient with those who haven't been part of woot since the beginning. Just because someone wasn't around for the early derbies and issues doesn't mean that person shouldn't be allowed to participate in the woot community.

I'm not sure why you are asking for patience - about a year ago when I started hanging out here regularly there oldtimers who were brutal in their assessments of Ramy's work and newcomers who attacked the oldtimers and put Ramy on a pedestal... and the occasional newcomer who would ask what the fuss was all about. Anytime a newcomer was respectful enough to ASK (as opposed to assuming they knew better than the people who had been wooting for a long time, to paraphrase mrwednesday) there were explanations and links to past reckonings and even other websites posted in response - that was how I got my Ramy education. For the past 4 or 5 months it appeared that he'd been cleaning up his act and the anti-Ramy comments have been more about his dominance of the reckoning than references to his past behaviour, so if you've been around 4 months or less I don't think you need to feel defensive.

odysseyroc wrote:

Whose shirt is this? I don't have enough Dr. Who cred to pull it off, but I've become an instant fan of the artist. (I checked your website, Odysseyroc, and didn't see it; my apologies if I'm missing something obvious.)

neuropsychosocial wrote:Whose shirt is this? I don't have enough Dr. Who cred to pull it off, but I've become an instant fan of the artist. (I checked your website, Odysseyroc, and didn't see it; my apologies if I'm missing something obvious.)

Terry Fan... he does some really good work. Check him out!

http://society6.com/artist/igo2cairo

***EDIT*** Actually the design is collaboration with John Tibbott aka "Quick Brown Fox", as mentioned in his threadless entry and in the S6 print. Just pointing that out because, like a good little artist, he rewards the person that came up with the idea... instead of shamefully stealing it a receive all credit :P How relevant?!?

Not cool.

It's particularly disappointing to see those derivative designs in Ramy's store when you consider how prolific he is with his own kinda stuff.

The apathy and mediocrity designs should be taken down out of respect to Boots and Naheed. I hope he does that.

crazydoglady wrote:I'm not sure why you are asking for patience - about a year ago when I started hanging out here regularly there oldtimers who were brutal in their assessments of Ramy's work and newcomers who attacked the oldtimers and put Ramy on a pedestal... and the occasional newcomer who would ask what the fuss was all about. Anytime a newcomer was respectful enough to ASK (as opposed to assuming they knew better than the people who had been wooting for a long time, to paraphrase mrwednesday) there were explanations and links to past reckonings and even other websites posted in response - that was how I got my Ramy education. For the past 4 or 5 months it appeared that he'd been cleaning up his act and the anti-Ramy comments have been more about his dominance of the reckoning than references to his past behaviour, so if you've been around 4 months or less I don't think you need to feel defensive.

I think for some of the new members it is tough at times when there are negative comments but not much explanation as to why. For some, instead of asking for that explanation - which can easily come across as condescending when there's not much more than 'you weren't here, you don't know anything' - they offer their take on the situation. Everyone is entitled to an opinion and I just think that rather than instantly going to criticizing someone for being new and 'not knowing any better,' then the first step should be to explain the situation.

For example, I admitted to recently defending ramy. All that I had seen was people criticizing him but not necessarily elaborating on why. At times, comments came across as folks being upset with ramy having a lot of designs being produced at once. However, now that things have been explained a bit in this thread in regards to design issues, I know that's not the case. There's now context to the situation and I know a bit more.

Next time this issue comes up, I just wish that whoever responds will opt go with "this is why some have this perspective," not something that instantly knocks someone down just because they haven't been around for a long time, but sought to get involved and share an opinion.

Spiritgreen wrote:Not cool.

It's particularly disappointing to see those derivative designs in Ramy's store when you consider how prolific he is with his own kinda stuff.

The apathy and mediocrity designs should be taken down out of respect to Boots and Naheed. I hope he does that.

I think you're being kind to call it "disappointing".

I read all the stuff I could find about Ramy when I started wooting; I decided on a "guilty until proven innocent" stance and adopted a "no vote / no purchase" policy on Ramy designs for the first 6 months or more. But the back story also let me know that Ramy was young when he pulled his earlier crap and I figured, hey, everyone makes mistakes when they're young - some learn from their mistakes. When I posted about Ramy designs I tried to stick to constructive criticism and I made a point of complimenting positive changes. Just a few months ago I finally decided that he'd changed and I've been voting and buying Ramy ever since... and I'd planned to buy from his site when I saw that he was using AA blanks. Personally I am so far beyond disappointed...

Ehhh....





Of course the was an entry from the zombies derby featuring zombie care bears that wasn't rejected, but it's interesting stuff to take note of...

chumpmagic wrote:Terry Fan... he does some really good work. Check him out!

http://society6.com/artist/igo2cairo
...

Sorry about getting off topic, but man, Terry Fan does some fantastic stuff! I wish he entered stuff in Woot derbies.

aerc712 wrote:I'm just asking that veteran members be patient with those who haven't been part of woot since the beginning. Just because someone wasn't around for the early derbies and issues doesn't mean that person shouldn't be allowed to participate in the woot community.

I'm not exactly an old-timer (joined a few months before you did), and I never defended or criticized ramyb before I read some of the old threads, looked through his works, etc. It didn't stop me from participating, only from cluelessly claiming things.

Raise your hand if you keep checking this thread to see if ramyB responds!

Meanwhile, his latest entry just fogged.

aerc712 wrote:

Next time this issue comes up, I just wish that whoever responds will opt go with "this is why some have this perspective," not something that instantly knocks someone down just because they haven't been around for a long time, but sought to get involved and share an opinion.

I do not disagree in principle, but...

It is a flaw of the internet that everyone posts like they are an expert (some purposely), so it is hard to tell who is asking and who is trolling - on either side. And typically those that have no interest in stirring the drama just don't post, though they may pay attention. Couple that with the randomish deletions that happen in threads that flame it is difficult to 1) see the questions and 2) have the answers stay.

While it is nice of those 'in the know' to answer it really does fall an the curious to look. That is true in any situation, those who want to know seriously will find out somehow, those with a mild curiosity may not even look to see if they are answered.

That being said I started to pay attention to shirt woot when some fertilizer hit the fan, so I didn't have to put effort into my education.

blanked wrote:I do not disagree in principle, but...

It is a flaw of the internet that everyone posts like they are an expert (some purposely), so it is hard to tell who is asking and who is trolling - on either side. And typically those that have no interest in stirring the drama just don't post, though they may pay attention. Couple that with the randomish deletions that happen in threads that flame it is difficult to 1) see the questions and 2) have the answers stay.

While it is nice of those 'in the know' to answer it really does fall an the curious to look. That is true in any situation, those who want to know seriously will find out somehow, those with a mild curiosity may not even look to see if they are answered.

That being said I started to pay attention to shirt woot when some fertilizer hit the fan, so I didn't have to put effort into my education.

At least in this case, I approached the situation by assuming the best. What I had read in regards to ramy was not very specific and there were quite a few negative comments with little explanation. I had assumed that some were getting tired of him always getting a design printed and didn't see much evidence to disprove that idea. However, as I have admitted, now that this thread is around and there are clear issues, I understand that the negative comments came from much more than I had originally assumed.

As far as I remember, I only defended him once recently and even then my comment was along the lines of, hey he's successful give him a break. Now I know that not all of the designs are as original as I thought and that's unfortunate.

I am trying to learn about woot, as I'm sure other members who have been here for less than year are. This whole situation is another lesson learned.

slacker44 wrote:Raise your hand if you keep checking this thread to see if ramyB responds!

Hi. You just posted a gif of Toby Turner. As a member of his dedicated Audience, I now love you.

Interesting that there are no Ramy prints in the Side Sale this week... I wouldn't be surprised that woot is wringing their hands over this, trying to figure out what to do without killing their cash cow. I'd be more confident in that if they hadn't just printed a Ramy daily, however.

As for patience with the newbies - it took me a while to figure it out, too, especially since I associated anti-Ramy with anti-Imposter-Girl before figuring out that there was more behind door three (and door four and door five and...). I wonder if it would be helpful to gather up some of this stuff and make a webpage that we could just link newbies to when they ask? Recreating the laundry list of Ramy's sins each time that someone asks seems inefficient and doesn't ensure that every newbie who asks receives the same information - and "his designs look the same week after week" is not nearly as damning as "his designs are copied from other people's art."

From Ian Leino via Threadless:


For sale right now!

Not to mention ripping off himself, as pointed out by jennytoo in the Tyger thread..

orabbit wrote:Not to mention ripping off himself, as pointed out by jennytoo in the Tyger thread.

IIRC, that one was a collab with Zenne ... so who's idea was it in the first place? The use of flow/flames in a design is nothing new to him.

As I said earlier, all this is taking two steps back yet again. Like CDL, I started with a negative perspective too, and in the past year, saw someone who was changing ... "for the better".

Disappointing to say the least, and deceitful to those who "used to be on the other side". Three months ago, I did this, and 1582 other sales later (I bought the last one, but it was credited) was when it reckoned.

I'm sorry.

Ramy won't be reprimanded for theft because his fans gobble up his shirt and make Woot money. It doesn't matter how little effort he puts into the designs, how many are ripoffs of other artists or how off-topic they are.

The designs he takes from others and throws together in 10 minutes will continue to beat out ones that are actually original and executed well, thanks to his fans swarming the 'vote' button regardless of a shirt's artistic merit and originality.

TeeTurtle FAQs wrote:Currently, most of our shirts are designed by Ramy Badie, with some input from a few other t-shirt designers.

Apparently whether they're aware of the input or not.

This is unsurprising and disappointing. I also felt like Ramy had been pretty good lately, if only by not submitting a repetitive bunny or turtle design.

Anyone else feeling the irony that one of the common suggestions was that if Ramy wanted to create 348 bunny shirts he should just make his own website from which to sell them?

Of course the most unfortunate thing about this whole thing is that it's like flag burning: just because it makes you a rain shower doesn't mean it's illegal.

I wish I could say I'm shocked, but, uh. Well...

I am a little disgusted, though! So, there's something! Yeah!

EDIT: Pretty disgusted, actually, but still.

"With an unrivalled string of collaborative hits, Shirt.Woot members sekiyoku and ramyb have become the Ruth/Gehrig, Lucas/Spielberg, and Hall/Oates of the Derby."

Should probably add Milli/Vanilli.

Well... Here's another inspiration.

Drawn by discodancing


Drawn by Ramy, currently in danger zone.


Similar ideas.