Copyright issues

Its a crazy thing, copyright infringement.  I have actually had it happen to me, a long time ago I walked into a Big Box store and found a huge round rack full of kids clothes with my designs on them... they were direct copies of my art that had been blown up and silk screened onto tee shirts.  Each Big Box Store in the US ordered and paid for 144 pieces of clothing...and the person who stole my art was paid over 50,000.00 for that.   I did not get a dime, until I hired an attorney.  So when you here of a big guy going after a little guy it sort of seems unfair...but think about the fact that some how that little guys art gets into the wrong hands in say... China, and a million tee shirts get printed and sold. I get why the original is being defensive...and I have removed any reference to names on purpose!  I feel really uncomfortable when asked to do clip art from a book...so I just want to say I will not do it!  It is a completely different thing to do your own thing from a fairy tale, or folk tale and I even feel uneasy about some of those sets and may be removing them.