Followers of M&F will be long familiar with Cat Cult. The graffiti/street art collective gets up all over Los Angeles, from the east side to the west side, and including Fairfax. Which is the stomping grounds of music group/street wear collective Odd Future.
LA Weekly just published a story saying that Tyler the Creator, the frontman of Odd Future, wore what appeared to be a Cat Cult T shirt onstage during the 2011 MTV Video Awards. Although anyone who looks at the t-shirts can see the similarities, and might very well think that it was a Cat Cult piece, however, the shirt Tyler wore was not actually a Cat Cult piece.
Cat Cult sent a Cease-and-Desist letter to Odd Future, which Odd Future ignored, but LA Weekly reports that they did start to modify the designs a bit. Cat Cult would like to press forward with a lawsuit, but the lawyers fees cost too much and are effectively prohibitive to pursue his claim. Even though the cat heads do look similar to each other, a verdict is always uncertain, and some folks might argue that any cat head looks like another cat head.
What do readers think? Did Odd Future steal the cat design from Cat Cult?
Geez it's hard to say...m&f makes a good point...a cat face is kinda a cat face, right? But I know how it feels to have someone or something take what you've spent years developing at a grassroots level and because they have more media grabbing attention, take it from you. It's an awful feeling. Anthropologie and urban outfitters do it all the time with artist from etsy. Personally, from these two photos, I don't see much of a rip off connection other than them both being cat faces.
ReplyDeleteCat cult I love your work. Always have. I hope it all gets sorted out in your favor.
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odd future is wack!
ReplyDeleteNOPE! Not even close! You didnt invent cats Cat Cult. The cat head arent the same. Go try to hit the lottery somewhere else Cat Cult!
ReplyDeleteO.F. ripped cat cult, real heads will recognize who dropped it 1st, ,
ReplyDeleteDoesnt matter who dropped it first. Cat Cult is not the first person EVER to use a cat head in art. So in that case, Cat Cult is a ripoff too. Point is, its NOT the same cat head, not the same color cat, nose and mouth are completely different and the angle of the image is different.
ReplyDeleteI don't know much about lawsuits . But if Cat cult, whom i do like and respect did patent it, then he may be able to sue. but most people are more familiar with odd future and is a very popular with people, maybe interested in African american culture..cat cult has been around for a while and is defiantly popular in La, and has probably seen it. Cat Cult is better and that is my opinion, and this pice of shit garbage band sucks.
ReplyDeleteYeah i noticed that, for a second i thought OFWGKTA is cool, but that was only for a second. I would be pist if i was a artist , and somebody makes something almost identical to what im doing. So similar that other people notice that it looks like my work. And for someone who is already famous for being a musician who throws the N word everywhere, to steal? What the fuck. But he may have not even stole or even heard about cat cult.
ReplyDeletea cat head is a cat head, if they're really gonna get they're panties in a bunch over this might as well take this shit to the sandbox.
ReplyDeleteIt is a cat head. Glamour Kills has a cat head on one of their shirts as well waaaay before OF was a "thing." GK is founded in NYC, how could they have known about this Cat Culture shit? Same with fucking Urban Outfitters and Forever21 there is cat heads everywhere. This is just them being jealous that OF's cat head got more popularity than theirs. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteI have mad respect for both artists. And nobody stole anything. They both have cat ideas big fucking deal.
ReplyDeleteTyler did rip cat cult off
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