“We Committed Copyright Infringement and Want to Be Sued By Disney”
This is your Data Sheet for Friday, December 6, 2019
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Good morning readers, Fortune tech writer David Z. Morris here filling in for Adam. In the spirit of Casual Friday, I have a story about t-shirts (it’s also about A.I., intellectual property theft, and the inherent vulnerabilities of open platforms).
The story begins on Dec. 3, when an artist going by @Hannahdouken on Twitter posted an image of hand-drawn text reading, “This site sells STOLEN Artwork, do NOT buy from them!” And asked followers to reply that they wanted the image on a shirt:
They were testing a theory. For years, artists posting their work online have found the art turned into t-shirts and other merch without permission or compensation. The theory was that this was being done by automated bots that combed Twitter for images with such enthusiastic replies, and then automatically created merch on sites such as Gearbubble, copthistee, and Teeshirtpublic. These sites take images from just about anywhere, apparently without much screening, and put them on commercial products.
Sure enough, automated bots picked up @Hannahdouken’s image and placed it on t-shirts . . . and the next day, they did the same with a far more subversive one:
Hans-Jürgen Eisenbeis, who goes by @Nirbion on Twitter, says @Hannahdouken’s test was clever, but didn’t have any serious downside for the art thieves. So he made an image with more dramatic text. “I thought about something that would make them care and cut their profit, even for a tiny bit.”
His theory: See if he could bait the bots into copyright infringement, and just maybe, a pricey lawsuit. And who’s the scariest, most determined enforcer (and extender) of copyright on the planet? “Of course, I thought of Disney first,” says Eisenbeis.
His version of the stunt succeeded spectacularly. First, the bots came out of the woodwork, drawn by hundreds of tweets from people saying they wanted the image on a t-shirt. Then other artists repeated the trick with infringing images from Pikachu, Mario, and the Coca-Cola logo.
Which is how we ended up with t-shirts like these:
Eisenbeis says many sites quickly removed t-shirts based on his “Not Licensed Mickey Mouse” image—finally paying attention to artists’ rights. “So, I think this is a very effective frightening measure. How long this holds, is another question.”
It’s a hilarious stunt, but there’s a much larger point here. Digital platforms such as Instagram and Giphy attract customers or traffic by letting unsavory users—including bots, trolls, and pedophiles—do nearly anything they want. T-shirt printers just happened to get a hard lesson about the many risks of that model.
Correction 12/6/2019: This story has been updated to reflect that the original “Stolen art” drawing from Twitter user @Hannahdouken was promoted on a t-shirt.
David Z. Morris
Twitter: @davidzmorris
Email: david.morris@fortune.com
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.