The Chicken Incident

184 Notes

You may have noticed I like to draw pictures of animals with little bits of “trivia” underneath them. They make me very happy. A while back, friends expressed interest in purchasing merchandise with these drawings on them. So, I opened my very own Zazzle store. I’ve sold t-shirts, prints, and mugs. I haven’t made a lot of money, but I’ve made a little. Mainly, I was just happy people liked them.

Recently, I drew a picture of a chicken with the phrase “Chickens are drama queens” underneath. Then, I created some products on Zazzle using this image.

Two days ago, I was informed by Zazzle that the products using this image would be removed from their site because they “infringed on intellectual property rights”. I was shocked. The thought I had stolen someone’s intellectual property and used them on Zazzle horrified me.

I asked Zazzle whose intellectual property rights the image violated. I was told by Zazzle that the company David & Goliath, Inc. claimed to have the rights to the phrase “drama queen”.

This was when my head exploded.

The idea that any one company could “own” the phrase “drama queen” — which is in the dictionary — baffles me.

(And David & Goliath claiming their intellectual property has been violated is hilarious.)

In the end, it is Zazzle’s site. They can take down whatever they want from their site. (Even if by taking down my products they open up a whole can of worms for other users of Zazzle.)

I’m just mad. And sad. I feel I have been injustly accused of theft.

And that’s wrong.