Charity means never having to say I stole this

P

Pictured above is a new t-shirt by gone green, "an independent tiny group of peaceful people representing peace, love and happy times."

And, apparently, the unlicensed appropriation of someone else' copyrighted graphic. The giveaway that it's not just a coincidence: the inclusion of the original's distinct design flaws.

This sort of thing happens more than the charitable community openly admits. In fact, I was recently at a do-gooder colloquium in which one of the participants raised a concern about how common it is for folks in these meetings to publish ideas discussed there as their own, thereby undercutting the research of the person who originally raised them in what was understood to be an academic discussion. A prominent academic's response: if you really want to change the world, you should be glad that I publish your ideas--even if I'm the one getting all the credit, the most important thing is that your useful knowledge is helping society.

To which I replied then, as now, bullshit. The academy has norms of attribution; the commercial world has moral rights and commercial licensing. You don't play by those rules, you're a self-seeking opportunist, even if you excuse your theft of someone else's creative insight on the grounds that it's saving the world.