It came to the attention of a few small time t-shirt artists that a site called Sundog Shirts had plagiarized and is selling designs they had made, over on the main page they run as well as an Etsy site (found here). The webpage shows that there are more than 200 designs being sold, and it doesn't take a google genius to quickly learn that these designs were not created by Sundog Shirts, but instead they copied the designs in order to profit off of others.
It also appears that they are selling the very same shirts under the Etsy account ShirtNinja (found here), does Etsy even allow that? Both shops are from Gaylord, MI. Connect the dots.
The rest of this page will show which designs they sell, and where the originals can be found. Spread the word so these rip offs can be exposed for what they really are.
I guess they were thinking, why spend the time to make original shirts, just steal them and hope no one notices. Well we noticed.
UPDATE: Some artists are stating that Sundog is taking the designs off the homepage, however the shirt page are still there. So they are just removing links to pages. They are still accessible via google searches. Perhaps waiting till things die down to start selling the shirts again?
UPDATE: Sundog has now added "Art Submitted by" areas on each shirt page. This was not here before, it goes along with some artists saying Sundog is trying to pin the blame on their "artists". Let's assume other artists submitted these designs, what "professional" shirt store would not check to see if the design had already been made? So I call bull on that one.
UPDATE Sep 22: Sundog has removed many designs, and also simply changed the links on the pages so they wont link properly here. Thats easy enough to fix.
UPDATE: Sep 24: Sundog is now remaking certain designs they previously stole, and are changing a few things and reselling them. It's clear they believe the "change something a certain %" myth. A visit to the U.S. Copyright office shows, you cannot change a work and make it yours.
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html
"Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, a new version of that work. Accordingly, you cannot claim copyright to another's work, no matter how much you change it, unless you have the owner's consent."
UPDATE: Sep 25: A new Blog (link) and Twitter (link) has started up in defense of Sundog Shirts. Funny how these both start after allegations that Sundog is stealing designs. It's also funny that the first post on the blog talks about a shirt they are accused of selling, and shows an image that they (supposedly) did make. This design, to prove their skill, is actually one they stole from Hot Topic (link) and simply distressed. As if that changes copyright.
I am convinced more than ever that Sundog Shirts is run by children. How else can you disregard copyright so widely, and create fake blog and twitter sites to try to put good light on your name?
The speed they ship these designs give me the idea they are using a Direct to Garment Shirt Printer. Like an inkjet for shirts. Whats sad is, instead spending all this time stealing designs, trying to cover it up and create fake sites to make their name better, someone could have shown them how to make some serious money (legit) with those machines. Respectable money. Guess they are just addicted to DMCA letters. Well lets make sure they get more.
Update, Sept 25: Someone tried to post over on the Etsy forums in defense of Sundog Shirts. Read the entire thread (link), you can easily see that members of Etsy even know Sundog Shirts is stealing designs and breaking trademark. My favorite comment from this thread: "The OP (original poster) and the shop in question (Sundog Shirts) only live 50 miles from each other." Hmm, how about that?
Update, Sept 26: We are getting some really good traffic to this site and its coming from other sites that are already talking about the theft Sundog is doing. So this is good news. It looks as though Sundog Shirts is also selling infringed designs on Ebay as well under the user name Alpinewholesale (see here) That gave us the ability to research even more information about Sundog, and came up with some REALLY good stuff. More information on this later. We have nothing but time and if Sundog thinks we are going to give up soon, they are mistaken. We have done this before.
Update, Oct 23: Took a bit of a break, but we're still here. Looks like the Sundog Shirts Etsy account has been removed. That tends to happen when they receive a large amount of DMCA notices. The blog they started, posted above, has now been removed. It also looks as though they started a Storenevy profile to sell their "original, and clever t-shirts". It's called Shirt Badger, how clever. Just keep going and have Shirt Monkey, Shirt Bunny, Shirt Sandwich, whatever. http://shirtbadger.storenvy.com/
Update, Oct 3, 2013: It's been a year, and while things are quiet, Sundog, or I mean Sunfrog now, is still taking ideas from hard working artists. Their name is now Sunfrog, since a shirt company with the name Sundog, did not want to be associated with them so they sent a Cease and Desist. What is sad now, is that there are many sites/artists using Sunfrog to make their shirts.
So this site built their foundation on the backs of other artists, stealing their designs, and now they reap the rewards for having connections to larger sites and designers? Is that how this works? Push the little guy out of the way until you get what you want? Well no. Sites like Sunfrog have given us new energy, and we have a new project in mind. One that will EXPOSE thieves like Sunfrog/Sundog, whatever.
Keep up to date with the Facebook Group as it is update more often:
https://www.facebook.com/SundogShirtsStealsArt
Also, here is a screenshot from Oct 2012, that shows the front page of SundogShirts. As you can see, it shows many of the designs that are featured in this list of stolen designs. You can hide designs you stole, you can try to make forget, but remember, the internet has many tricks that allow us all to see the truth.
Stolen Shirts List, with original sources
Below is the current list of shirts Sundog (Shirtninja, Shirtpuppy.com, or whatever) is trying to pass off as their own. The images are of the shirts portrayed on Sundog's page. Under each shirt is a link to the plagiarized version, and the source of the original design. There are more on the site that can be found elsewhere, however Sundog changed them slightly, these are the shirts in which a clear original can be found.
Some links to Sundog Shirts or images might be down, either because they removed the shirt (not likely) or they just changed the link. I guess they think people can't use google or just look at the main site to find the links again.
Some links to Sundog Shirts or images might be down, either because they removed the shirt (not likely) or they just changed the link. I guess they think people can't use google or just look at the main site to find the links again.
