Obama Monkey T-Shirt

There have been protests over the sale of T-Shirts depicting Barack Obama as a monkey. It is of course a race issue. While the maker of the t-shirt claims they were not meant to be offensive and I kind of believe him (as the shirts were pro-Obama), some people were offended. I think that the protesters feel that this t-shirt, by depicting Obama as a monkey, is depicting all black people as monkeys, or something to that effect. That is BS though. It was just depicting Obama as a monkey. When Bush was depicted as a monkey I don’t remember demonstrations on the street.

I think the real issue here is that the monkey bears a striking resemblance to Curious George and so does the publishing company that owns the Curious George brand. I think the bar owner may be regretting his decision to sell t-shirts now. On the other hand, they say there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Victory for Free Speech

Everybody in the t-shirt business knows that their is a fine line between parody and copyright/trademark infringement but a recent landmark case has sided with the parody camp. Walmart took Cafepress shopkeeper Charles Smith to court over several images they deemed to be infringing on their brand.

Charles Smith opened his store and sold t-shirts more as a protest against Walmarts policies than to make money and the courts upheld his right to freedom of expression. Cafepress CEO, Fred Durham, said “CafePress has been empowering self-expression via merchandise since 1999. We’ve known for years that T-Shirts, bumper stickers and the like are a powerful publishing medium, just like books. The judge recognized that selling T-Shirts for a profit doesn’t weaken their first purpose as a means of self- expression…”.

Major League Baseball verses Obama

In the t-shirt business many people tread a fine line when it comes to copyright and trademark infringements. There is a definite gray area … can you say that. Maybe that’s an oxymoron but you probably get the picture.

One person who was treading that line was Morris Levin who was running a business selling Obama T-shirt’s that were based on MLB team designs. It seems the MLB wasn’t impressed and had his store, Obama of Dreams, closed down. I wonder if the MLB are Republicans or perhaps they are going to vote for Hillary.

ObamaOfDreams is closed and offline. We are no longer selling any t-shirts. We can be reached with any questions at [deleted].

We are currently working to resolve all outstanding orders. We are not taking any more orders. All outstanding orders will be addressed and we appreciate your understanding and patience as we work through this.

This is a lesson for t-shirt designers though. Beware of the MLB. Don’t step on their toes. You can find out more information over at the Smoking Gun.