mjcampbell77 wrote:This is my first submission, and I'll be the first one to say 'pull it' if it's deemed illegit. I openly admit I grabbed the image from the web. I checked with my husband (who's purchased multiple woot shirts), and he pointed out one of his recent buys - http://s3-external-1.amazonaws.com/wootsaleimages/Rampage_Wear6juDetail.jpg - had elements pulled directly from the web - in fact, off of another tee. We decided since I wasn't just grabbing the image and slapping it on the shirt, but changing it up, it became a derivative work. Again, if not, sorry!
I guess I'd pull it if I were you. The changes you made were pretty minor -to change it from a photo to a few colors? That doesn't strike me as a particularly substantive alteration. But, I'd like to know your description of the changes you made, I'm more than happy to change my opinion.
The rampage wear shirt did seem to have a Godzilla design that was also used on another t-shirt previously, I agree. However, I'd expect that Godzilla design couldn't be copyrighted as it is a derivative work itself. The person who made up the first shirt may have drawn Godzilla themselves, but Godzilla almost certainly belongs to someone else. In addition, both shirts can be argued to be a parody of Godzilla, as the woot shirt seems to mean, 'curb your dinosaur', which to me is making fun of the whole Godzilla meme, and the other one is using Godzilla to make fun of 'n00bs', something that Godzilla wouldn't be likely to do, as Godzilla, like Chuck Norris, doesn't care if you're a n00b, he's going to kick your ass either way.
I expect though, that woot didn't know about the other shirt when they printed it, and they wouldn't have, had they known. that's just a hunch.
oh, I see that superspryte posted that it was clipart they had rights to- that means there was no question about whether the other shirt was OK- it WAS OK.
