Urban Outfitters necklace (L), tru.che necklace; Photos courtesy of Urban Outfitters and Etsy

The criminal minds behind Urban Outfitters strike again! The publicly traded American company has a knack for counterfeiting ideas from independent and local designers across the nation. Yesterday, a customer notified Chicago-based independent jewelry designer Stevie of imakeshinythings.com that her The World/United States of Love line was replicated and sold in—you guessed it—Urban Outfitters. The line of necklaces features cutouts of states and a heart nestled in the middle. Urban Outfitters is selling similar versions at $19 a piece.

Urban Outfitters has a history of “borrowing” designs. In 2003, Crownfarmer released a white T-shirt with a red Canadian leaf in the middle titled, “Legalize It.” By 2007, Urban Outfitter stack the racks with an inverse version—red T-shirt, white leaf, same title. In 2006, Johnny Cupcakes’ designer Johnny Earle fell victim to his infamous cupcake-dropping planes. Urban Outfitters debuted on its shelves a slightly revised version: instead of cupcakes facing one way (à la Johnny Cupcake original), Urban Outfitter’s Urban Renewal T-shirt had cupcakes facing left and right in a different color palette. In late early 2010, Brooklyn-based jewelry designer Lillian Crowe designed a rib cage necklace only to discover a model knockoff in the latest Urban Outfitters online catalog.

Can someone give Urban Outfitters, Inc. chairman Richard Hayne lessons on Entrepreneurship & Ethics 101?