I found my designs sold illegally on Amazon. I didn’t bother contacting the sellers who listed my designs. I simply reported the listings to Amazon, and they were removed. As a result, many of those sellers have had their whole stores suspended for copyright infringement.
I’ve been getting emails from those sellers. Some have threatened me with legal actions, some have wanted to officially license my designs from me. Others have written me dozens of emails begging me to retract my complaints. Just today, I’ve received another of those emails. An Amazon seller had their store suspended, and they want me to withdraw my claim of copyright infringement. They hired a lawyer who keeps writing me emails like this one:
“In the attorney letter (I attached it one more time here now), we officially confirm, that our client has deleted the listings with your images and will never list them again in respect of your intellectual property rights.
The client was educated on IP law and will be more careful with his future listings.
Please kindly withdraw your claim“
The thieves, who stole from me, want me to help them have their stores — full of illegal designs — restored. I want to be clear on one thing.
I will never withdraw any of the copyright claims.
If you are one of those thieves or their lawyers, then please do keep sending me those pleading emails. You make me smile every time.
If you are an artist and had your art stolen, then never retract your claims of copyright infringement. If you retract your complaint, they will have their accounts reinstated. They might be careful and not steal from you again — they will instead steal from other artists. The only way to fight them is to have all their stores permanently removed.
Hey Justyna!
I’m a digital illustrator and I think you’re fully right in terms of copyrights. My pictures got stolen too and used to make money! But the people who did it never wanted to take the pictures down, even after I and my lawyer contacted them…
I personally know people who got their accounts deleted because they used a similar picture to yours. And I can tell you they had no clue the copyrights belong to you! They didn’t do it on purpose. It’s very common on Amazon to make similar copies of pictures that are sold by many other sellers. So they already saw the picture on Amazon in many copies and thought it’s ok to make an own version of it. I’m very sorry to hear that your original designs got stolen! But I’m also very sorry for all the sellers who lost their accounts. I’m sure some of them used Amazon to make their livings, maybe even feed the whole family, and I’m not surprised they send you so many emails 🙁
Kind Regards
I don’t want anyone to lose their livelihood but I don’t know if there’s a good solution to this. I sometimes try to reach people and ask them to remove listings with my designs instead of reporting them. Most often they either ignore me or get mad.
Sorry to hear your art was stolen too :/
So basically you’re ruining the livelihood of many people because some of them genuinely thought they’d purchased a design legally. I’ve seen many iterations of “your” designs, in particular the “not today” cat.
Many versions of this design are clearly inspired by the same design but are different enough to be classed as a completely different design.
You do not own the words “not today” nor do you own an image of a lazy cat 🤷♂️
I agree that stealing art is bad, but you should go about dealing with it on a case by case basis. If someone purchased the art from someone else then ask them to remove it and find out where they purchased it and go after them, but do not sabotage their store completely. If someone just saw it online and copied it pixel for pixel then fair enough, that’s on them and they should be punished for it.
If someone has taken inspiration from it and came up with a similar, but different design then just leave them alone.
“Case by case” is not possible when I have 50 – 200 listings to report every week.
Why make the victim responsible instead of the perpetrator?
It is the responsibility of the person or business who is listing their items to ensure they don’t violate someone else’s rights! That is what they attest and agree to when they set up shop on any platform, Amazon, Etsy, Redbubble, Teespring, TeePublic, etc. etc. etc. Did the violator consider all the work and effort not just the creativity that went into an art that becomes popular? Do the violators think about the livelihood and the families of the artists they steal from?
I have sent polite Cease and Desist Notices asking nicely and been ignored, threatened, or sued by people infringing on my creations also. How is that fair? Who thought about my livelihood? One person went so far as to say she wished my house burns down during the height of all the wildfires in California. Where is the empathy there? Why don’t copycats leave the popular art and artists alone instead of riding the wave of popularity?
Please don’t normalize or condone copying, plagiarizing, or infringing. It’s theft, no matter what circumstances are used to justify it.