(help) advice please!

1038 Views 4 Replies 4 Participants Last post by NoXid, Sep 27, 2017

Ademt

Discussion Starter · Sep 27, 2017

Hi all,
First of all, thank you all for your time!
I'm online t-shirt shop owner and I usually sell generic designs on Etsy. I received copyright infringement notice for the one of the most selling generic design in our market. I uploaded them to link below: (I'm selling the design on the blue hoodies and the black ones are belong to the person who sent me the notice)
"https://imgur.com/a/IuJ5F"
Now, my shop faces to getting closed for the usage of copyright infringement. However, I believe the design I sell is not copyrighted design since it is being sold by almost everyone. I also know that person try to use the loop of the Etsy. Because, people can report the shops with one click without even entering an information and most shop owners who sell generic designs are afraid to fight back since DMCA counter-notice is a serious action that takes the situation to the court. So, I either have to accept the claim and lose my shop or send DMCA counter-notice to fight back. Do you think that copyright infringement notice is legit?

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seacookie

· #2 · Sep 27, 2017 (Edited)

Ademt said:
Hi all,
First of all, thank you all for your time!
I'm online t-shirt shop owner and I usually sell generic designs on Etsy. I received copyright infringement notice for the one of the most selling generic design in our market. I uploaded them to link below: (I'm selling the design on the blue hoodies and the black ones are belong to the person who sent me the notice)
"https://imgur.com/a/IuJ5F"
Now, my shop faces to getting closed for the usage of copyright infringement. However, I believe the design I sell is not copyrighted design since it is being sold by almost everyone. I also know that person try to use the loop of the Etsy. Because, people can report the shops with one click without even entering an information and most shop owners who sell generic designs are afraid to fight back since DMCA counter-notice is a serious action that takes the situation to the court. So, I either have to accept the claim and lose my shop or send DMCA counter-notice to fight back. Do you think that copyright infringement notice is legit?

buy six pack, go to friends house, make another etsy store on friends ip, make yourself and your friend drunk(tipsy with six pack, drunk with 2x six pack). Upload bunch of pictures of generic designs, take them down from internet. And then report all of his designs. And let him have fun with loop hole...

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seacookie

· #3 · Sep 27, 2017

as a side note. This is the con of doing generic. You all "borrow" from other designer and then you fight each other with reports and trying to close competition stores. If this amount of energy which people spend on reports would be used on creativity, no one would have problems and all would be unique...

Try to get cheap layer to advise you if it's worth to you... After all you can rebuild generic store in one week I assume... -.-

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into the T

· #4 · Sep 27, 2017

not copyright violation

can you not plead your case to etsy before they shut you down?

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NoXid

· #5 · Sep 27, 2017

I recently received an infringement notice as well ... but in my case it was legit :-/ as I had a design with a dozen, or so, people who died last year. I knew it was IP violation. I created it to mark what a loss 2016 had been, not as something to profit from the fame of a particular person. Regardless, I'm not surprised it got a notice. After that, I took it down from my other sites as well.

The point of all ^that blather ... the notice included the trademark registration number. Did yours include anything useful like that? Of course, TM and C are different things. That said, in order to sue over copyright, they must register the copyright. To be clear as mud, one need not be registered to be protected ... just to enforce it in court, which pretty much comes to the same thing if you ask me.

https://www.etsy.com/legal/ip-counter
"If, within 10 business days of our receipt of your counter notice, the party who submitted the initial copyright claim doesn't inform us of an action seeking a court order against you, the material specified in the counter notice may be reactivated. Reactivating the material before this time may result in account termination."

There is no copyright mark on their art.
You did not use their original art, or even recreate it. Your design is the same general idea, but an entirely different artistic representation of it.
By my (massively imperfect) understanding of IP law, they cannot copyright the idea of such a design. If it were a trademark, they might be able to get a TM--but then it would be their brand identity, not just another design.
I doubt that they have, or could obtain, a copyright on that design, or would want to pay the fee to copyright all their stuff. [media]https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ04.pdf[/media]
In order to take action in court, they MUST have a registered copyright (per my IMPERFECT understanding).

So unless they already have registered copyright for that art, they won't be able to get it within the 10 days and file anything in court, and Etsy will dismiss their claim.

I think this is a frivolous claim on their part to harass the competition ... or they are just ignorant of IP law and have a vastly overdeveloped sense of their own originality.

^Take that for what it is worth (not much). Please do let us know what happens.

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