A Long Island tattoo artist says that iconic sneaker maker Converse ripped off one of his designs, so he’s suing company.
Anthony Zambito, who runs Zam Visionary Tattoo in Centereach, claims Converse stole a unique Japanese design from him when a Converse intern stumbled across his Web site — that’s the sneaker company’s story (skewer the intern). Converse slapped the design on a sneaker and is selling them for $60 apiece.
Zambito is suing for copyright infringement and he wants Converse to disclose how many of the sneakers were sold.
From the New York Post story:
Zambito and his wife, Laura, were on vacation in Barbados in March when they wandered into a sneaker store and saw a pair of the offending shoes.
“I’ve been wearing Converse since I was a kid,” said Zambito, who runs the Visionary Tattoo Studio in Centereach. “At first I thought it was a bootleg copy; there’s so much counterfeiting going on. But I checked with the store manager and he said no. I was pretty surprised, to say the least.”
Zambito, who caters to customers seeking specialized, large-scale tattoos, added he was “definitely a little frustrated, but more so for my client than myself. It’s a one-of-a-kind design. It’s not like we took it out of a book.”
