

Email to A-List VC sent regarding Jon Crawford/Storenvy.com - jrosenthal

I was forwarded this email a little bit ago. I wanted to share it with the Hacker News community:<p>I was reading the article Jon Crawford of Storenvy.com wrote and posted to the Ycombinator website. Can be found here - http://joncrawford.com/how-i-got-kicked-out-of-y-combinator-and-rais<p>I checked out his business at storenvy and was alarmed and disturbed by what I saw. I only looked at a few pages, but their are many to go thru. I am not an attorney, but i think this may not be an acceptable use of Disney images:<p>Racism, Antisemitism and bigotry and what appears to be infringement against Disney.<p>Mickey Mouse made to look like Hitler on a swastika:
http://www.storenvy.com/products/59223-dickies-official-fan-club-shirt<p>Niggabear??
http://www.storenvy.com/products/59357-niggabear<p>Nazi bird:
http://lovelessapparel.storenvy.com/products/1111-revolt<p>I am having a hard time believing how such A-List investors can be affiliated with this kind of company. One can make an argument that the items in question are posted by users and not the views of Storevny. However, does storenvy not monitor the items on it's website?<p>Also, one of the  brands, Loveless Apparel, is based in Orlando, Florida. Isn't this where Jon's original tshirt printing business, Threadbird.com, is from? Doesn't Threadbird.com print tshirts for Storenvy customers? If that is the case, then can't one assume that Threadbird.com knew exactly what they were printing and allowed it? Then allowed it to be offered it for sale on Storenvy?  If these assumptions are true, then I think there is a problem here. Free speech doesn't give people the right to distribute or market Antisemitism and use an American icon like Mickey Mouse to do so.<p>Why do I care? I did not like they way Mr. Crawford tried to subtly insult the Ycombinator team and belittle them. In addition, the tshirts in question are extremely offensive to me and my grandparents. Don't shoot the messenger.<p>Thank you.
----------<p>Looks like the above referenced shirts have now been removed. Cached pages are below.<p>http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:yo1RYEz1zyMJ:www.storenvy.com/products/59223-dickies-official-fan-club-shirt+http://www.storenvy.com/products/59223-dickies-official-fan-club-shirt&#38;cd=1&#38;hl=en&#38;ct=clnk&#38;gl=us&#38;client=firefox-a&#38;source=www.google.com<p>http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mjZroUvpXHkJ:www.storenvy.com/products/59357-niggabear+http://www.storenvy.com/products/59357-niggabear&#38;cd=1&#38;hl=en&#38;ct=clnk&#38;gl=us&#38;client=firefox-a&#38;source=www.google.com<p>http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SqCpz3yAGHEJ:lovelessapparel.storenvy.com/products/1111-revolt+http://lovelessapparel.storenvy.com/products/1111-revolt&#38;cd=1&#38;hl=en&#38;ct=clnk&#38;gl=us&#38;client=firefox-a&#38;source=www.google.com
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ig1
Freedom of speech is about protecting offensive speech, because nobody ever
tries to ban the other kind.

He says don't shoot the messenger, while doing exactly that.

As it happens the Mickey Mouse t-shirt far from being Anti-Semitic is actually
attacking Disney for Walt Disney's anti-semitic associations. This is a
popular theme for parody even in mainstream TV shows like Family Guy.

