Urban outfitters carbon copy of Truche's United world of Love design

The other day, when my way too cool for school teenage niece asked me if I liked Urban Outfitters, I bit my tongue not to roll into a Badland tirade. I do love the store, you can get all kinds of crap-you-never-knew-you-totally-needed there (fashions? Not so much), but I have seen this sort of thing play out too often.

Behold, Truche's United/World of Love line of neat necklaces depicting countries and states with wee hearts in them, vs Urban Outfitters "I heart Destination" line of pendants shaped as states with wee hearts in them. Urban outfitters describes the product with the phrase "Wear your locale love", while Truche's etsy shop says "Wear your love" .
Oooh, so the "locale" pun is what the professionals added. I see. Yes, clearly you need a pro for that.

Stevie a.k.a Truche noticed and posted the paring on tumblr and thinks it's "not cool":

My heart sank a little bit. The World/United States of Love line that I created is one of the reasons that I was able to quit my full-time job. They even stole the item name as well as some of my copy.

I’m very disappointed in Urban Outfitters. I know they have stolen designs from plenty of other artists. I understand that they are a business, but it’s not cool to completely rip off an independent designer’s work.

It's a bit more than "not cool". It's actually copyright infringement. But hey, copyrights don't exist any more do they?

By the way, it's my birthday soon. Hot tip: Sweden looks like a flaccid penis .....and when I last checked my heart was still in North Carolina. Or maybe I just said that because I needed to fill my penis joke quota today.

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Dabitch's picture
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Another update here : Who did it first?