There’s some great news I just picked up from the faux muck-rakers at Fleen! It looks like the Jess Fink/Hot Topic debacle has been resolved!
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Just waiting until the jump, so I don’t screw up the flow of the front page.
A bit longer… There! Now we can…
Straight from the mouth of Jess herself (which comes to us via Fleen):
I FINALLY got an email from Hot Topic.
The person who wrote me back was the lady who originally bought the shirts from the rip off artist/designer “NewBreedGirl†she had some very nice, apologetic words to say and she told me Hot Topic would like to make amends by removing the shirt from their website, and no longer selling it in their stores.
She said:
“I would like to first and foremost, appologize for this situation. It is very important to us to support artists and their ventures and it just makes my stomach turn when something like this happens. We in NO way would have written this artwork if we had known it was someone else’s design. We work with many vendors that sell us “generic†artwork and we put our faith in those vendors to not sell us stolen or immulated artwork.â€
On top of this she offered that they would like to buy some of my designs.
I don’t know if I will in fact do the designs for Hot Topic or not yet, but all I really wanted in the first place was for the shirt to not be sold and so I think I am satisfied with how this all turned out, and that I didn’t have to take it to court.
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MAINLY I just have to say that my frosty fart-filled heart has been warmed by the response from people about it and I don’t think it would have worked out at all if I didn’t have you guys on my side.
And Chief Faux-Muckraker in Charge of Muckraking, Gary Tyrrell, sums this victory up nicely while also making it clear that we, the impassioned fans, still have a job to do.
Well done, internet! Now, one more thing for you to do. Remember the phone number I posted a while back for the Hot Topic buyers? Here’s where the second part of corporate customer satisfaction ninjitsu comes in: if you called the number before — and even if you didn’t — I want you to call Hot Topic again and thank them. We complained, they did the right thing, and that should be acknowledged.
Believe me, corporations hear honest appreciations so rarely, this positive reinforcement will be as important — maybe more so — for keeping them from buying suspect designs in the future as all the complaining was. So one more call and you can rest … and y’all done good.
I hate to admit it, but he’s right, folks (and that number again is (626)839-4681 and belongs to Allison, buyer of women’s tops for Hot Topic). It’s now our duty to ring up the goth communications specialists at Hot Topic and make known our appreciation for their not being, you know, all corporate and junk.
Thanks to Fleen for the links and all! Man, bloggin’ is easy!