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Diddy & Sean Jean Called Out for Allegedly Stealing T-Shirt Design

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It's interesting when major celebrities get called out for copying. This happens so often, you would think that their staff lawyers would be more careful about reviewing the products they put out. The business implications of someone accusing a star of stealing, whether the alleged theft is of a song or a clothing design, are high. When a star is accused of borrowing too heavily from the creativity of another, this weakens the star's brand, because it makes them seem less potent. It also opens up a celebrity worth millions to law suits that probably outweigh the worth of what was allegedly borrowed from.

Diddy and his fashion brand Sean John are being accused by the creators of a poster that was commissioned by the Yale School of Architecture over this issue. Pentagram Design accuses the star of appropriating the design of a poster, created for a symposium held by the school, and using it on a shirt:


As you can see, it looks very damning. Who knows, maybe it was just a coincidence. But the incident has staffers at the design firm miffed, and they are tweeting about it. Gawker.com has the whole story:


Pentagram Design, which made the poster, called Sean John's shirt design a "shocking ripoff" on their staff Twitter account. Unfortunately, @PentagramDesign failed to @-tweet @IAmDiddy, so who knows if he even knows it happened. Someone needs to teach these people the proper way to call a rap mogul out.

Read the rest at Gawker.com.

I am not sure if calling Diddy out is the issue. As a man who started his fortune-building by sampling extremely popular songs heavily, Diddy is no stranger to borrowing the creativity of another. In fact, "sampling" of the kind that allegedly occurred for this t-shirt design is part of the aesthetic of hip-hop. The difference is that Diddy paid royalties to the artists and labels responsible for the samples that helped make him rich. He also brought older songs and acts new life through his Bad Boy productions. Pentagram Design actually has an opportunity to expand its business through the rap mogul if they try to work out a licensing deal with Diddy. This makes much more sense than "calling him out."


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Perhaps a misunderstanding occurred. Maybe Sean Jean "stole" the design. Who knows. But in general, if you "sample" a clothing design, song or image, you have to pay to play. In the Internet age, it's almost impossible to keep secrets. And it's just better business to be completely honest -- and use legal resources to prevent such mishaps from happening.

 

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