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Report: #1124491

Complaint Review: Jessica Radke - Livonia Michigan

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  • Reported By: RadkeX5 — Riverbank California
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  • Jessica Radke 37637 5 Mile Rd #142 Livonia, Michigan USA

CancerTees.com, Cory Allen, Randy Dunham Anti-Cancer T-Shirt Company Profits after Stealing Terminal Cancer Patient's Fundraising Original T-Shirt Design Livonia Michigan

*Author of original report: CancerTees.com: Nothing 'Straight' About Them

*REBUTTAL Individual responds: Setting the record straight

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Jeremy Radke is a 34-year-old husband and father battling a rare form of terminal cancer, Metastatic Osteosarcoma. He has had 28 rounds of chemo, a limb salvaging surgery (where all bones are replaced with titanium), a partial lung resection, and an above knee leg amputation. While any type of cancer is devastating to a family, Jeremy's family of five has been hit especially hard, having to survive on Jeremy's Social Security while caring for three children, two of which are his wife's cousins and are disabled. The couple has had to move to another state to be closer to Stanford and have even been forced to live in a non handicapped accessible home; Jeremy must go to a gym to shower. So when Jeremy's wife, Jessica, thought of selling t-shirts, she had no idea what was about to transpire.

On July 6, 2013, Jessica Radke contacted Cory Allen, co-owner of CancerTees.com, explaining her family's situation and asking for a quote on a recent t-shirt design she had made. Cory responded on July 8, 2013 with, "Wow, I am so sorry to hear that. Send me over the designs you were thinking of doing and how many shirts you were thinking and I will see what I can do. Send them to cancertees..." So that's just what Jessica did.

On July 15, 2013, Cory Allen responded to Jessica's designs with how much he liked them and provided a quote. Seeings how the t-shirt company was located in Michigan and the Radkes resided in California, the couple decided the cost of shirts and shipping would be too much and decided against ordering the shirts.

Flash forward to February 17, 2014. Jessica was fooling around on the internet and checking availability for certain domain names. When she entered, strongerthansarcoma.com to see if it was available, Yahoo suggested apparel with the same words being sold by CancerTees.com. Curious, Jessica decided to see if, in fact, the company had stolen her design and, to her astonishment, they had! T-shirts, sweatshirts, and hoodies all being sold with her original, and Photoshop time stamped, design. Flabbergasted, Jessica immediately e-mailed the company and received a timely response and even the removal of the merchandise within a matter of hours. HOWEVER, it wasn't until later in the day the real trouble started.

At approximately 11:00 am on February 17, 2014, Randy Dunham, CancerTees.com's VP of Marketing and PR called Jessica Radke. He explained what the company had done as far as taking down any merchandise with Jessica's original design and asked, "What other damages have you incurred?" Jessica responded, "I don't know! It depends on how much profit your company has made off of my design!" To which Mr. Dunham sneered, "So, this is all about money to you then?" Jessica said, "Absolutely." Randy Dunham then continued to tell Jessica the company had done nothing wrong as the image was not copywritten and they'd already spoken with their lawyer...as had Jessica. According to the United States Copyright Office, the image is protected under its creative law and while and official copyright notice was once mandatory, it is now optional.

Mr. Dunham then attacked Jessica for writing, "...gregarious comments on social networking sites," and would be addressed legally. In defense, Jessica Radke DID post on Facebook the injustices the company had inferred towards she and her family. What kind of anti-cancer company steals from cancer patients?! She did not name call. She did not post any untruths. She posted the facts and CancerTees.com did not like the response. On February 17, 2014 at 11:53 AM, Randy Dunham sent an e-mail apologizing for the company's 'misunderstanding' and underneath, a cease and desist order claiming Jessica characterized the company as being immoral and explained every member of the company had knowledge or a loved one affected by cancer. The e-mail's tone was insulting and demeaning.

Jessica Radke has not been compensated for the use of her design, created to help with fundraising for her husband with terminal cancer. A design stolen by an anti-cancer company who is not a 503c3 company and did, in fact, make a profit. Her design is also all over Google, Facebook, and Pinterest. She has the original image time stamped in Photoshop, all correspondance with CancerTees.com and its employees, screen shots of the merchandise being sold, as well as video of the website BEFORE they took the merchandise down.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 02/18/2014 12:26 PM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/jessica-radke/livonia-michigan-48154/cancerteescom-cory-allen-randy-dunham-anti-cancer-t-shirt-company-profits-after-steali-1124491. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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REBUTTALS & REPLIES:
1Author
0Consumer
1Employee/Owner

#2 Author of original report

CancerTees.com: Nothing 'Straight' About Them

AUTHOR: RadkeX5 - ()

POSTED: Wednesday, February 19, 2014

In February of 2013, a group of hip hop artists decided to perform a fundraiser for our family in Reno, Nevada, entitled, "Hip Hop 4 Hope." You can still Google us; we were even on the news. Anyway, my husband thought it would be a neat idea if all of the performers had Sarcoma t-shirts and thus, I started to design. My Stronger than Sarcoma design was NEVER influenced by other cancer fighting tees; I actually modeled it after the 'Explicit, Parental Advisory' warnings on the cover of rap CDs. I threw in the graffitti to make it look more hip hoppish (and yes, I realize that isn't a word). In any case, a generous screen printing company donated 50 shirts for the cause. The fundraiser was a bust and shortly thereafter, we had to relocate to California. Moving was expensive and remembering the remaining nine shirts, I offered them online for sale. They sold in one day! It was then I had the idea to contact other screen printing sites to see if they would print them...enter CancerTees.com.

I contacted CancerTees.com in July of 2013. As far as my timeline errors, there aren't any. I have every original, and dated, correspondence with Cory Allen of CancerTees.com and if this rebuttal allows me to post photos, I will certainly do so. If not, they are posted publicly at facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.621412587907748.1073741827.459089644140044&type=1. I'd like you to notice Mr. Allen does NOT specifically ask for permission to post my design nor do I EVER agree to it.

In response to CancerTees.com's comment of selling additional shirts, I never did. Could it possibly be because they had their own merchandise for sale, featuring my design, at half the price? The latter was my response to the supposed Jackson Landis (a fake Facebook profile made the same day). I blocked this gentleman for name calling and threats. I've also posted screen shots of the so-called Jackson Landis' comments under the link given above. I'm assuming he works for the company but have no proof...except the CancerTee's rebuttal has word for word comments made by said Jackson Landis and I deleted all 15 moments after they were made. How would the company get a hold of such information? Such a prestigious company who is not 501c3 and does actually make money off of cancer wouldn't harass a family suffering through cancer would they?

CancerTees.com's allegations of my claiming, "...CancerTees.com made significant profits," is not what I said at all. Please refer to my original complaint. I said the company made a profit. Did they sell at least one shirt with my design? Yep! I saw it with my own eyes on Google. I, personally, have no idea how much they made because although their response was the shirt was only online for two weeks, Randy Dunham told me on the phone the design had been up since October 2013 and demanded to know if my Photoshop time stamped the design before then to which I responded, "Yep! It sure did!"

Because CancerTees.com thinks repeating, "We did nothing wrong!" will, in fact, make their wrong doing a right, I'd like to post the link to everything I mentioned previously with regards to copyright infringement. This is directly from the United States Copyright Office: copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-definitions.html. Please pay special attention to the WHO IS AN AUTHOR and WHAT IS A COPYRIGHT NOTICE sections. Bottom line, Cancertees.com committed copyright infringement and THIS is why they took the design down, not out of the goodness of their hearts. If they didn't do anything wrong, why exert so much energy into a bogus claim?

Bottom line: CancerTees.com sold my original design without permission or compensation after being contacted with regards to fundraising for my husband with terminal cancer. When confronted, their VP of Marketing (Randy Durham) became very condescending and nasty. Supposed supporters have harrassed both me and my husband with vulgar comments, name calling, and threats. The company even posted an entire page describing how I somehow 'stole' the design. Well, isn't that the pot calling the kettle black? cancertees.com/Setting-The-Record-Straight

I am not a company, I am a wife to a dying husband and a mother to three children. CancerTees.com claim they have all been affected by cancer but honestly, I just don't believe them. If they had, they would never bully such a passionate woman trying to better her family's circumstances while creating awareness for pediatric cancer. All I wanted was an apology, at least $50, and maybe a free hoodie for my husband. Shame on you, CancerTees.com. I will no longer be responding to rebuttles; I've posted more than enough proof and the side harrassment just isn't worth it. You win.

 

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#1 REBUTTAL Individual responds

Setting the record straight

AUTHOR: CancerTees.com - ()

POSTED: Wednesday, February 19, 2014

The series of events described by Ms. Radke contain many errors in the timeline, many ommissions of relevant facts, and many assumptions that simply are not true. Additionally, through the use of "quote marks" she has created conversations and statements that didn't happen and purports them to be facts.

Very simply, the true details of the events are at http://www.cancertees.com/Setting-The-Record-Straight. Any discerning individual will see that Ms. Radke's allegations are unfounded and off base and that CancerTees.com did not use anything protected by any legal copyright, trademark or patent. It is obvious the design in question is a hybrid of many previous designs.

It is unfortunate that Ms. Radke chose to elevate this isolated incident to the level of a public witch-hunt. What Ms. Radke failed to mention is that the CEO of CancerTees.com asked on July 15, 2013 for permission to place the design on the web site. Additionally, she failed to mention that she claims she designed the shirt in February 2013, began selling them in June and, according to her post here http://www.etsy.com/people/RadkeX5 immediately sold out. Yet, when asked by a follower (named Jackson Landis) on her Sarcoma Shoppe facebook page how many shirts she had sold, she responded that she had sold zero because CancerTees.com stole her design and her profits. Ironically, she chose to delete that post and that follower has been blocked from her site, her husband's site and Ms. Radke's personal site.

She included in her post here that CancerTees.com put the design on their web site and made significant profits through sales of custom apparel. Without seeing the Profit and Loss statement from CancerTees.com, it is a bit presumptuous for Ms. Radke to make any claims about any sales or profits.  In reality, the design went up in early February 2014 and was permanently removed on Feb. 17 -- less than two weeks later -- even though CancerTees.com had no legal obligation to do so. Thus, from June 2013 to February 2014, Ms. Radke had sole possession and control of her "original" design. Logically, it is difficult to imagine that CancerTees.com ravaged her profits in less than two weeks, especially since she told her follower, Jackson Landis, that she had sold no shirts. 

As a final point, like Ms. Radke, we at CancerTees.com have also been affected by cancer. Our co-founder survived a near-fatal bout with Ewing's Sarcoma when he was only 20. His cousin, and co-founder's brother, was not so fortunate and lost his battle at 25 with another form of sarcoma. And, our PR executive lost his mother to brain cancer when she was only 55. Therefore, it goes without saying that CancerTees.com takes our work in the cancer arena quite seriously. We have donated more than $4000 to our Cancer Warriors, another $1000 to children in cancer hospitals, and $500 for sarcoma research to a the University of Michigan cancer hospital. Finally, we have never, nor will we ever, knowingly use any legally protected design or creation. We are truly the custom apparel company with a heart.

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