Todd Goldman sending cease-and-desist letters
Boy oh boy. We’re a little late to the party, here’s the quick recap: Todd Goldman is the founder of "David and Goliath," a merchandise company which produces clothing, posters and other merchandise featuring a variety of artwork and slogans that he theoretically created all by himself. According to the Wall Street Journal, the sales volume of "David and Goliath" was US$ 90 million in 2004. Earlier this month, Goldman was accused of plagiarism by webcartoonist Dave "Shmorky" Kelly, in a post on the Something Awful forums, claiming that Goldman’s piece "Dear God Make Everyone Die" was taken directly from a 2001 comic by Kelly.
Since Kelly’s initial accusation, other bloggers and webcartoonists have found numerous other cases of alleged creative tracing. In the meantime, Goldman (or someone claiming to be him) has accused Kelly of pedophilia, posted pornographic images to defame Kelly which ended up being seen by minors, hijacked the MySpace account of the person who originally reported the theft, openly mocked anyone who expressed concern about this… and has enlisted his lawyer to threaten anyone who reports on any of the above, even when such reportage sticks to verifiable facts. As a result, Publisher’s Weekly has now taken down posts from Heidi MacDonald on the issue.
Dirk Deppey, Gary Tyrrell, and Tom Spurgeon have been all over this story, and now it’s gotten the attention of Boing Boing, Penny Arcade, and Slashdot.
Mr. Goldman, meet the Internet – filled with lots of people from all over the planet who do their research and hate bullies and like crusades.
The PW powers that be are cowards. It took me five times before I could come up with a polite way to describe them.
Wow. PW wouldn't back Heidi up on that? That's sad. So much for freedom of speach on that one.
It has been suggested – and not without some merit – that I was too hard on PW for not standing up to Goldman's silencing tactic. I've been involved in enough legal actions myself to know how draining they can be. I've never lost one, but I can't say I've won them either. "Break even" has been the usual result. No one but an idiot goes into a legal action without careful consideration. Indeed, it's the main reason I've resisted suing DC over Black Lightning. I have to weigh the expense of such a suit against the expense of sending my kids to college, the expense of necessary repairs and renovations to my home, and paying past medical bills. So maybe I shouldn't have been quite to quick to insult PW for caving in to a guy that clearly has the financial resources to pursue meritless, nuisance lawsuits. What bothers me most about this, Christopher, is that The Beat has been a fine source of comics and comics industry news. There was nothing inappropriate about its coverage of this matter. Yet it has been silenced."Sad" is just where it starts.Tony Isabella
From my viewpoint, this is a clear case of improper use of other people's work.Publisher's Weekly should have ignored the cease-and-desist letter. That they didn't speaks a lot to me, and probably speaks a lot to many other people, too.
Luckily, the Internet as a whole has no such fear, and will spend as much time as needed making Goldman look like a putz. And if we're talking lawsuits, expect a lot of counter suits.In fact, isn't there a time-honored tradition in comics of going after millionaire artists named Todd who've decided to violate copyrights of other comics creators?
You boys warm the cold cockles of my heart. I'm clinging to the thought that the great wheel goes around and people have a way of getting what they deserve. I do believe that what you send out comes back to you three-fold. (And on the Internet it can happen in a matter of hours. Cross your fingers.)