I had been sitting on my glitch of the Flower City Logo for awhile before sharing it to the Rochester community. I submitted a print to the RoCo 6×6 fundraising show and posted it just to the r/Rochester subreddit.

I had the design up on the Threadless shop for awhile but it didn’t gain any traction. I decided to grab one for myself to wear around and maybe gain some interest. Once the shirt arrived I shared a picture of it on the subreddit again and got a *lot* of folks interested in the design. Not wanting to annoy the mods, I did not post a link where the shirt was for sale. Instead, I decided to DM each person who showed interested and provide them with a link to buy the shirt.

Not long after that, someone stole my design and posted it on another POD site. This person posted the link saying “In case anyone want this” and received a bunch of upvotes. I quickly replied to the comment saying it was a scam listing and it was not from my store.

The mods were quick to remove the link, however, the scammer decided to post it again. I reported that link again and it was also removed. Also, I filed a DMCA claim with the POD’s parent company that the content was infringing on my work.

The POD stated the item was only listed for a few days and I was worried that the listing would stay up for a long time. Luckily, the site responded to my request within 24 hours and the offending content was removed.

It’s incredibly frustrating to see someone steal your content and try to sell it in the same thread you are also trying to promote it. Whoever did it obviously has no shame. If you’re interested in grabbing the shirt from my Threadless shop, here is the link