People Astounded To Learn How A Bot Is Stealing Everyone’s Art On Twitter, Decide To Trick It Into Getting A Lawsuit
Twitter users have figured out how to troll art thieves, and it’s turned into a hilarious meme for a good cause.
Artists on social media have long faced the problem of bootleg merch sites reprinting their work. A print-on-demand site snapping up a design that you spent days or weeks creating so they can have it automatically printed by order on t-shirts, mugs, stickers, and hats is instantaneous, and once your design is on this network of sites, it takes a legal game of whack-a-mole to get it removed.
Recently, people on Twitter began to notice just how instantaneous and automatic it is. As a matter of fact, bots are doing it indiscriminately, observed Rob Schamberger, who paints official merch for WWE. When people reply to a tweet saying they want a design on a shirt, bots zero in on those keywords, and the image in the original tweet gets uploaded on print-on-demand sites.
This artist first brought attention to the phenomenon
Image credits: robschamberger
Image credits: robschamberger
Artists immediately tested it out by asking their followers to reply to incriminating images with the magic phrase “I want this on a shirt!” Soon, the bootleg sites were offering t-shirts with MSPaint scrawl proclaiming that the site on which it can be found steals art.
Another artist’s experiment started a savage meme
Image credits: Hannahdouken
Image credits: Hannahdouken
Image credits: twetter_rebot
Image credits: NightBlader
But to turn this from an embarrassment into a disaster for sellers that thrive on art theft, Twitter users decided to bring in the big guns. Drawings of copyrighted characters, often behaving badly and urging their owner companies to take legal action (“pwease sue us daddy disney,”) proliferated. Other popular themes include support of Hong Kong’s protests against meddling by the Chinese government, and calls to look into China’s imprisonment of Uighur people in detention camps, all statements that could get print-on-demand sites based in China into legal hot water.
Twitter users are taking advantage of the art theft bots’ lack of quality control
Image credits: Nirbion
Image credits: Nirbion
Image credits: robo_friend
Image credits: robo_friend
Currently, we are on a cyberpunk battlefield in which the front pages of print-on-demand sites are plastered with crudely drawn art theft admissions, and Disney’s official Twitter account’s mentions are flooded with users asking for t-shirts in order to bait the bots to put its uploaded images up for sale. And this happened in a week. It remains to be seen whether entertainment giants like Disney and Nintendo will take legal action. Whatever the case, artists’ hope is that print-on-demand sites no longer being able to trust bots to discern what to print might force them to limit their operations.
Excellent job, Twitter
Image credits: celestia_brown
Image credits: NaomiOop
Image credits: caprienplush
Image credits: SephWan
Image credits: nakanodrawing
As an added bonus, people are realizing that asking an artist for their design on a t-shirt is a bad idea and wondering what they can do to support artists on Twitter. The cute kitty drawings and tips for expressing interest in artists’ work without attracting art thieves show that some wholesomeness has come out of the fiasco as well.
Image credits: nakanodrawing
Here’s how people reacted
Image credits: turkey_korvid
Image credits: SpookyEggsu
Image credits: lyllith
Best meme of the decade? We’ll see how it plays out.
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'Mario Copyright Infringement T-Shirt Classic T-Shirt'. wow that was something
My question is this..Why hasn't Twitter upped their security to stop this? Shouldn't they be the ones being sued for not protecting their clients?
No, because the theft isn't being caused by security issues within Twitter, unless you want to completely remove the site's search function, the bots are simply set to do a search for "I want this on a shirt" or varieties of the same. If it's not acquired from Twitter, it can be pulled from Facebook or anywhere else. I have friends who create their own silk screened shirts and they are constantly having to try and get fakes pulled from scummy sites like the ones shown in this post.
Load More Replies...
Someone pls respost this on twitter or get this popular on here 2021_01_13...fc-png.jpg 
This is the BEST! So glad the original person came up with the idea!
So just slam a "no copyright violation intended" and there is no problem, right? That works for youtube, why not these shirt shops?
This actually does not work for youtube, BUT it has reduced the copyright bans on the average person who just happens to have a photo or music playing in the background, since now it can be proven in court that no harm was intended. But if you use that line while the entire point of the video is the song you are ripping off? Zero protection at all.
Load More Replies... I wonder what would happen if people started biting Huawei's stuff? Start biting any Chinese companies that become possible. TBH, I think people should make something describing Xi Jinping getting bent over by Winnie The Pooh and see how their government reacts. The fact the Chinese government doesn't give a s**t about stuff like this is just awful.
Ive never commented that I wanted something on a shirt, thats stupid. Yet I still get constant barrages of fake sites selling all sorts of things
Are you an artist who has a Twitter feed which showcases your art? No? Then you need to re-read this post because you've got it backwards.
Load More Replies... 
If enough people do something things get done. Its only dealt with when authorities know it is happening. Disney probably isn't too worried about some a*****e selling a shirt but they do care when it's an industry doing it. They are not gonna know some small scam company in China is selling knockoffs that's where publics knowledge of it and there willingness to stop it come into play. No company has eyes in every corner of the planet.
Load More Replies... The image is still being used by another source without permission that's still theft whether or not someone sells a tshirt or not. If someone used the photo of the sweater I made to promote themselves I'dsue them into the ground. Steeling is steeling no matter how it's being reused. If they didn't ask to use it no matter the use to hang on their wall to put on clothing to scam consumers whatever it needs permission from the creator.
Load More Replies... 'Mario Copyright Infringement T-Shirt Classic T-Shirt'. wow that was something
My question is this..Why hasn't Twitter upped their security to stop this? Shouldn't they be the ones being sued for not protecting their clients?
No, because the theft isn't being caused by security issues within Twitter, unless you want to completely remove the site's search function, the bots are simply set to do a search for "I want this on a shirt" or varieties of the same. If it's not acquired from Twitter, it can be pulled from Facebook or anywhere else. I have friends who create their own silk screened shirts and they are constantly having to try and get fakes pulled from scummy sites like the ones shown in this post.
Load More Replies... Someone pls respost this on twitter or get this popular on here 2021_01_13...fc-png.jpg
This is the BEST! So glad the original person came up with the idea!
So just slam a "no copyright violation intended" and there is no problem, right? That works for youtube, why not these shirt shops?
This actually does not work for youtube, BUT it has reduced the copyright bans on the average person who just happens to have a photo or music playing in the background, since now it can be proven in court that no harm was intended. But if you use that line while the entire point of the video is the song you are ripping off? Zero protection at all.
Load More Replies... I wonder what would happen if people started biting Huawei's stuff? Start biting any Chinese companies that become possible. TBH, I think people should make something describing Xi Jinping getting bent over by Winnie The Pooh and see how their government reacts. The fact the Chinese government doesn't give a s**t about stuff like this is just awful.
Ive never commented that I wanted something on a shirt, thats stupid. Yet I still get constant barrages of fake sites selling all sorts of things
Are you an artist who has a Twitter feed which showcases your art? No? Then you need to re-read this post because you've got it backwards.
Load More Replies... If enough people do something things get done. Its only dealt with when authorities know it is happening. Disney probably isn't too worried about some a*****e selling a shirt but they do care when it's an industry doing it. They are not gonna know some small scam company in China is selling knockoffs that's where publics knowledge of it and there willingness to stop it come into play. No company has eyes in every corner of the planet.
Load More Replies... The image is still being used by another source without permission that's still theft whether or not someone sells a tshirt or not. If someone used the photo of the sweater I made to promote themselves I'dsue them into the ground. Steeling is steeling no matter how it's being reused. If they didn't ask to use it no matter the use to hang on their wall to put on clothing to scam consumers whatever it needs permission from the creator.
Load More Replies...
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