Suing Hobby Lobby

I never thought this little line art of mine would cause so much trouble, but boy it sure did!

As you know, I have some free line art templates on my deviantART that people are welcome to download, color, paint, modify, etc. I only ask that you credit me, and above all they are not allowed to be sold ANYWHERE for profit. Only I have the rights to sell them.

The line art in question, originally uploaded here to deviantART in December 2014:

On July 9th, I was shopping at my local Hobby Lobby here in Utah when I came across this:

It is filled differently and heavily vectorized, but it is 1:1 my design. I was completely shocked and rightfully upset!

I posted about this on Twitter/X, and holy cow that Tweet really blew up!!! The artist community came out in droves with overwhelming support, with over 2.2 million views as of today and hundreds of comments! Seriously, I'm very grateful how much support I've received, considering I'm just a humble small business artist.

After some digging, we found the vectorized version that Hobby Lobby was using. It had been uploaded to several stock image sites, with zero credit to me, and the sites were allowing the stock image to be sold for profit (modified or not, that NOT what is allowed!!). All this was done without my knowledge or permission.

Here is my line art directly overlayed with their graphic. This graphic had been downloaded over 5000 times.

I reached out to the user (who likely was the one who modified the design to what it looks like now) and they never responded, so I sent a DCMA take down to both stock websites support emails, and they were thankfully removed! I also managed to have to have it removed from Canva. Tiny victories!

However, this graphic is still being distributed and sold everywhere, from Etsy, Spreadshirt, Redbubble, and many others. Working to take ALL of these down, but people keep finding more. Not everyone is willing to remove them, either; I had a fight with someone on Etsy who almost refused to remove it because they got it from a site that said it was fine to sell fair and square, basically gaslighting me, telling me I was wrong and that the design "didn't look anything like mine." **insert eye roll** Thankfully they seemed to get the message and they removed it. It'll take time to remove them all, so if you see any, please let me know and I'll do my best to remove them, or if you can, report them for me, that'd be a great help! If there are versions or colored images of this posted with credit to me and not being sold, don't bother them, they are okay!! There are also many adoptable versions of this design, also not sold, which are also okay! I'm mainly focused on this particular vector design being sold on products.

All this to say, this is a battle that I'm having to deal with on the side, but the bigger issue I have is with Hobby Lobby. Somewhere, somehow, they managed to get a hold of the design and has been selling it in stores across America and online for who knows how long.

The back of the product does say Made in China, so either someone on their graphic arts team found the stock photo, thinking it would be legal to use, hired a third party to make the product, or a third party used it and sold the product directly to Hobby Lobby. Even if they did verify the stock sites first, read the terms, and felt it was legal to sell, it's NOT, and it shouldn't have been there to begin with! I've spoken with my lawyer and he said it ultimately, it doesn't matter: Hobby Lobby is selling it, so bottom line, they are liable.

My intention is not for this to be a witch hunt against Hobby Lobby, it is to get to the truth of how my art ended up on that sign, hold who is liable accountable, and ensure that rightful compensation is given to me, the artist who created it. I'm hoping to work with Hobby Lobby or anyone involved to resolve this matter in a professional and civil manner.

A copyright registration is being filed on the original design, which must be done before any suit can be officially filed. I'm grateful this is something I can do after the fact. My Lawyer (who is an expert on IP and patents) says I have a good case against them, and he's confident this could end in a decent resolve. That gives me hope!

I'll keep you updated as soon as more information can be shared.

Thanks everyone and wish me luck!!!!