My longtime readers will remember our successful campaign against “Boys are Stupid” children's products back in 2003-2004. Our protest against the products--which were designed and created by Todd Goldman and his company David & Goliath--gained international media attention and drove the products out of 3,500 stores, 95% of their worldwide distribution.

Dr. Laura discussed the campaign in her book Woman Power: Transform Your Man, Your Marriage, Your Life, and the campaign was covered in Time Magazine, People Magazine, and over 300 newspapers. Afterwards, Bernard Goldberg ripped Todd Goldman in his bestseller 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America, referring to the protests and putting Goldman at #97 on his top 100 list. To learn more, see our campaign page here and read my column Why I Launched the Campaign Against 'Boys are Stupid' Products (Los Angeles Daily News, 2/4/04).

Recently I have been contacted by numerous artists, cartoonists, comic strip artists, and others concerning a scandal over Todd Goldman's alleged plagiarism. Goldman is accused of stealing artwork from other artists--centrally Dave Kelly--and using the cartoons on his company's merchandise. Many websites and publications have discussed the alleged plagiarism, including here.

The Goldman camp has responded by saying that Goldman “has mistakenly used the design of another artist in two of his recent paintings.” Goldman himself claims, “I made a judgment error and didn’t research the background of this particular submission. My intention was not to copy Mr. Kelly. I have never seen his work before and would never intentionally knock-off someone else’s idea.” Goldman's full media release can be viewed here. The situation is also discussed in Fur flies over squirrel: Sale of plagiarized cartoon unleashes brutal online attack (Las Vegas Sun, 4/12/07).

As bad as this sounds, to be fair to Goldman, in some of these cases the line between plagiarism and an honest mistake can be thin. Goldman claims that one of the major designs he is accused of stealing was brought to him by one of his employees and Goldman was unaware that the employee had filched it. Also, according to the Sun:

"Artists and bloggers say Goldman has taken characters from other cartoons. Goldman disputes that, saying that some of the characters in question are his own and have been licensed, and that in the past year he has sent 50 cease-and-desist letters to artists doing knockoffs of his work."

I know nothing about the artistic world, but Goldman's claim here sounds plausible. Goldman also told the Sun that "This is just a bunch of hater artists trying to take me down," and that part of the reaction against him is driven by envy of his success. This claim also seems possible.

I've never had any personal contact with Goldman, outside of our debate on CNBC in 2004, when Goldman seemed rather annoyed with me. However, if he would like to offer his perspective on the plagiarism scandal I will make sure to include it. Input from Dave Kelly or other web artists is also welcome.

At the top of this blog entry and on the next page are several examples of Goldman's alleged plagiarism, as detailed on Dave Kelly's website. In all cases the original design is on the left and the Goldman/David & Goliath design is on the right side. Kelly discusses the issue at length here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 at 7:55 pm and is filed under Boys/Boy Crisis in Education/Schools, Men's rights, Men and the Media, Men's Movement, Advertising, TV, Movies & Gender. You can trackback from your own site.