Liberal Tears - Official Copyrighted Art
Liberal Tears T-shirts, Stickers, Mugs, Signs
About us + Copyrighted Artwork
Years ago on a lazy Saturday deep in the suburbs of Washington D.C...
I pulled out my pencil and paper and began sketching one of the cats lounging on the couch. Wendy and I had been watching the news covering the live Woman's March when things got weird...
A group of protesters in pink hats sat down inside of a Washington, D.C. Starbucks to take a break when a reporter approached them. To say it was an awkward interview would minimizing the situation... Not one of the marchers could coherently tell the reporter what their message was, why they were marching, or what change they wanted.
One of the marchers commented about being against big business. This! This was the defining moment for us. A demonstrator sitting in a gigantic corporate coffee shop, literally surround by blocks of small locally owned restaurants, food trucks and coffee shops said she was against big business.
Sheeple - tell us what to do and we'll do it.
Yeah... the irony what we had just witnessed was deserving of a drawing to memorialize our shock and awe of the situation.... The sketch of one of our cats quickly turned into a collaborated visual statement that created a small business for us. We had no idea of the huge fan following it would receive.
Within the first few weeks of selling my design as stickers, a fan on Twitter sent a photo on of our sticker on the original Starbucks window in Seattle. Don't even get us started on how many Facebook and Twitter accounts we have had shut down for "hate speech" seems like the left just doesn't want conversation.
Since then things have been fun but crazy... In 2018 we had THE BIG GUYS themselves - Starbucks contact Amazon, Etsy, etc to remove our design claiming copyright infringement. We did the legal dance with their bullying and as you can see... we're still here with our parody of liberal tears. How - because there is no way someone would mistake our logo with theirs.
Starbucks was early compared to China and greedy folks. Our design has been blatantly ripped off, modified, rearranged, had parts removed, colorized, inverted, perverted and just about anything else you can imagine. The problem with that besides the fact that it is a legal violation of our US issued Copyright - these other "designs" are always being confused as our brand.
We have never given any other person or company permission or a license to use our design. "Versions" of our copyrighted design are also protected by our copyright and copyright law. If you happen to spot another one of these "designs" that are a obvious knockoff or our design - please let us know by sending us info to redstateboutique@gmail.com
I'm not a greedy artist. Proceeds from our Liberal Tears design have gone to veteran charities and animal shelters. I love everything about art and inspiring others to be involved in art. I have donated time teaching kids how to draw and even had the opportunity to paint murals down the halls of elementary schools and a children's hospital. I support small artists whenever possible.
When someone uses are design they are stealing. Stealing from a family business and charities and it's just not right. The excuses like "I didn't know, I found it on the internet, or "I paid for an art file to download on Etsy" are ridiculous excuses and don't legally hold.
To all of the art thieves out there... please go by this simple understanding. If you did not create it, or you did not commission an artist to create if for you... it's not yours to use. Got it? Oh yeah and that Google reverse image search is also pretty handy. No excuses for stealing an artistic work.
We have never given anyone permission to reproduce or sell this design. There are only four locations to purchase items this artwork from us.
- Right where you already are!
- Our store on Amazon. But only if Sold by Liberal Tears Cafe and shipped by Amazon.
- Our Etsy shop
- Our Ebay shop
Here are a few examples of our original copyrighted art being used and abused. Let us know if you find another one in the wild! redstateboutique@gmail.com
Thanks for listening to my rant!
Tyler
