Justyna Dorsz

Law

Fighting copyright infringement

A while ago, I hired an attorney in Poland to deal with people who stole my designs. Some of them paid me compensation before I had to sue, so that was fine. But some refused. Unfortunately, then the pandemic happened and also my attorney got seriously sick and couldn’t work on my cases anymore, so that slowed things down.

I bet some thieves thought I forgot about them. No such luck.

Anyway, I hired a new attorney. He prepared and filed the lawsuits. And there will be more cases to follow.

(This is just a quick update to let you guys know that this is all still in progress in case you were wondering.)

Copyright

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 make the same mistake again, then watch the Wholesale Ted youtube channel. I stumbled upon it yesterday and I watched 3 videos so far. I can already tell that the content is well researched, and you can learn a lot.

“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 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.

“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 items with your design, so we won’t pay you, but we can let you sell your design on our website if you want.”

or:

“We sold only a few items, so we won’t pay you, but we can let you sell your design on our website if you want.”

or (this is from today, slightly paraphrased):

“We will pay you 15% of what you asked, and we can offer you an opportunity to sell your designs in our store. And, of course, we didn’t even sell that much and didn’t make a profit.”

Why do all those people think that they are doing me a favor by offering me the chance to display my designs in their stores? From what I gathered, they all don’t even sell things. The designs are displayed on their websites, and Facebook pages, and Twitter, and advertised on Instagram, but nope, we haven’t sold a thing with your design, or at most, like, 5 items, but send us your designs. Forgive me guys, I am sort of not seeing the point of working with someone who: steals designs or works with suppliers that do, refuses to compensate the artists, and implies that it can all be fixed if I just send them my designs, oh and by the way isn’t it an excellent opportunity for you, you poor artist, you get to sell designs in our store, one of the thousands of online stores on the Internet.

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: “Not Today”, followed by “Overthinking and also hungry”. Lately, people have been stealing my “All These Feelings” and “Vaguely Aware of Social Norms” too.

Designs stolen most often

This feels like it’s not going to ever end. As soon as we deal with illegal sellers, new ones show up. Some of the people contacted by my lawyer didn’t remove the listings with my designs. One person removed the listings, paid the compensation, and then started selling my design without permission again. All those cases will need to be resolved in court.

We have selected a few companies to sue first but one of them unexpectedly paid part of the money that they owed. That was a nice surprise — if they pay the rest, then it’s one less person to deal with.

Of all those people, the most upsetting is one company. I don’t want to say the name yet because it’s still possible that they will make it right. I used to buy clothes and shoes from them. I liked them! They are really huge — during Christmas when I visited my mom I saw their TV commercials. They can afford to hire artists and pay them. And yet, they stole two of my designs and didn’t pay me.

Adventures in Crime Fighting

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

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 sellers then wrote to me asking to let them keep selling apparel with my design. Here are some quotes:

  • “let us sell this t-shirt till they are sold out as we have massive inventory in Amazon”
  • “this t-shirt is the best seller in our store”
  • “the new employee listed it”
  • “in the future send your designs to us”
  • “you know sometimes we can’t know if we have infringed other’s copyright”

People don’t realize that what they did is a criminal offense. But when more and more artists start suing them over copyright infringement, they will soon learn.

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 use of your art. Before I talked with a lawyer in December, I hadn’t even been sure if my art was protected by law. Now I am much more informed about my rights.

And it looks like other artists are too! This past month I talked with others and it turns out that some of them have attorneys too. There’s greater awareness among artists now. Some have considered hiring lawyers, but are afraid of costs, and I understand that. I was worried too, at first. But my lawyer is excellent, and thanks to her negotiation skills, some of the sellers have already paid the compensation, so my legal fees are completely covered.

I talk about it with any artist who wants to know because it’s my hope that more and more artists will consider protecting their art through legal means.

One thing that surprised me after I hired a lawyer and we contacted the illegal sellers and asked them to pay the compensation — is that so many of them think that they did nothing wrong. In their minds stealing art is not a crime, some claim that it’s barely a minor offense. I wonder what their possible defense will be in court.

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 of Copyright Infringement (or DMCA Notice) to the website that stolen images are sold on.

So, let’s say you notice your art being sold without your permission in someone else’s store. All stores have dedicated email addresses for reporting copyright infringement.

You can find how to write a notice of copyright infringement on the Internet so I won’t repeat that here. But I will show you the template that I use for reporting stolen art. You can copy it, supply your links where indicated, and send it.

My DMCA Template

Hello,

<–Short intoduction, e.g.: My name is…, My website/porfolio … –>

The material being infringed upon:

<—Here you provide the title of your artwork that was stolen and a link to your design online, it can be on your website, or any of your stores. –>

The material that is infringing upon my intellectual property:

<— Here you provide links where your design is sold illegally –>

My data:

<–Your full name –>

<–Your address –>

<–Your phone number –>

<–Your e-mail address –>

I have a good faith belief that the content described above violates my rights described above, and that the use of such content is contrary to law.

I declare, under penalty of perjury, that the information contained in this notification is correct and accurate and that I am the owner of the rights described above.

Best regards,

<– Your full name –>

End of DMCA Template

I hired a law firm (Update #1)

My design “Not Today” is legally sold on Threadless and Hot Topic

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 all the listings with my design, 1 of the sellers is still selling it.
  • 7 sellers decided to pay the compensation, which means that the matter is settled with them, and we will not sue them.
  • 12 sellers need to be sued, and we will start filing lawsuits in January. I expect I will have a lot to write about. It will take 2 to 4 years to win compensation in court, but that’s ok, I am prepared for that.

In the meantime, we found others selling my design, and we will send requests to them in January.

Also, under the previous post, someone asked me whether I can really prove that the design is mine. Yes, I can prove it, this is not going to be a problem in court.

Another possible issue would be that the sellers might claim in court that I have no proof that they had been selling my design at all. I am prepared for that too. Before my lawyer sent the requests, I had asked a notary public to authenticate the print outs of the websites where my design was sold.

I will write more as the situation develops.