RGIII Called Out For Ripping Off Cavs' Photo [Update]

Future former Cleveland Browns quarterback Robert Griffin III is already getting acclimated to Cleveland and tossing footballs into neighboring yards. This morning, he tweeted his congratulations to the Cavaliers for beating the Warriors and winning Cleveland’s first championship in 52 years, a worthwhile and noble thing for a Browns quarterback to do to ingratiate himself to his new city.

Thing is, that graphic is a perfect replica of the graphic that the Cavs tweeted out earlier, but for one subtle, important difference. Whoever manages RGIII’s Twitter account cropped the original in so the logos in the corners wouldn’t appear and also added a copyright for some reason. Here’s the Cavs’ graphic.

I don’t really see the utility to watermarking something like this, but apparently the RGIII brand is too valuable to give away other people’s photos for free. Joey Caione, the web designer for the Cavaliers, noticed and called the quarterback out:

He has yet to reply. Will Cleveland turn on RGIII for this transgression? Probably not, but they’ll have football reasons to do so soon enough.

h/t @ recordsandradio

Update (11:50 p.m.): Here is some clarification on RGIII’s copyrighting. He apparently uses WhoSay, a copyrighting app for celebrity social media users, and his custom logo has appeared on wire photos before.