Every week I visit online stores and report all the listings with designs stolen from me. Sometimes, the sellers who had their listings removed contact me. They claim they didn’t know that the image that they sold was copyrighted. If you are an honest person and want to learn about copyright so as not to…
[Continue Reading]Copyright
“I stole your designs but I demand your cooperation”
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…
[Continue Reading]Bundles with stolen designs
What often happens: someone steals my designs and designs from other artists, then bundles them together, and then sells those bundles for pennies on Etsy, eBay, Creative Fabrica, etc. People buy those bundles and try to list designs from the bundles on sites like TeePublic, or Redbubble, or Amazon. Then, I, or my lawyer, have…
[Continue Reading]“We are doing you a favor”
There’s a curious thing happening with some of the thieves. It goes like this: my lawyer sends letters asking the illegal sellers to cease infringing on my copyright and pay me compensation. Some pay, some try to negotiate, some will be sued. But often, we receive the following kind of response: “We haven’s sold any…
[Continue Reading]I hired a law firm (Update #2)
One thing that’s been on my mind recently is this whole situation with illegal sellers. In December, I hired a lawyer and we sent requests to 19 people to stop selling my designs and pay me compensation. Recently, we’ve sent requests to 17 more people. But I’ve already found more. The most stolen one is:…
[Continue Reading]Adventures in Crime Fighting
My blog is becoming monothematic lately. I’ve been spending much of my time dealing with people who steal my designs and sell them as their own, and so I mostly write about that. Two days ago, I reported listings with my art to Amazon. They acted on it immediately and removed the listings. A few…
[Continue Reading]Artists and lawyers
I hired a law firm a month ago. I wrote about it here and here. On Monday, I spent two hours at a notary public office authenticating another bunch of screenshots of websites where my design was sold illegally. It will be used in court. I thought it was unusual to sue someone over the…
[Continue Reading]How to protect your art
If you create designs and submit them to online stores like Redbubble or Teepublic, you will soon find out that there are a lot of thieves. They will steal your designs and try to sell them in their own stores. Luckily, there’s an easy way to deal with them. You have to send a Notice…
[Continue Reading]I hired a law firm (Update #1)
Two weeks ago, I wrote that I had hired a law firm to help me fight illegal sellers of my design “Not Today”. Time for an update. For a start, we sent requests to 19 sellers to stop selling my design and to pay me a small compensation. Of those 19 sellers: 18 sellers removed…
[Continue Reading]I hired a law firm
I never thought I would need a lawyer. I wrote previously about my most popular design. Unfortunately, a lot of people steal it and sell it in their stores. Reporting all those places where it’s for sale takes a lot of time, and it never brings me any compensation. This time is going to be…
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