My Art theft experience
It’s still happening. Every month dozens of new products spring up on the internet featuring my artwork. Art which I’d not given permission to use. I’m not a fan of my work being taken by someone else without consent- especially when it negatively impacts sales of my own products. I’ve added a video discussing (and ranting about) my experiences on YouTube and thought I’d share it here:
Removing infringements
After posting the video, I went on to remove 182 instances of copyright infringement! That’s at least 300 removals so far in total. There’s still more which needs taking down, and no doubt there will be hundreds more to remove over the coming year. For now it’s a job I’ll have to maintain like cutting my hair or mowing the lawn. If anyone reads this and wants to use my work, that’s fine: For non-profit use, be sure to include my name and a link back to this site. For commercial use, send me a message and we can discuss rights to licence high-res versions of artwork you’re interested in.
Your thoughts
Has art theft of this nature always been around? Am I wasting time by stressing over it? If people take your art/music/writing/content and sell it without permission online, would you try to do anything about it? Should companies such as eBay or Amazon for example take more responsibility for moderating products for sale on their platforms? If so what might you suggest they do about it? I’d love to know your thoughts.
Also see my previous related posts: ‘Art theft and stealing images online‘ and ‘Art theft and further criticism of pod sites‘ and most recently ‘Art theft: The Story continues‘ for further reading.
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I have a similar issue as you with regards to my artwork being constantly ripped off on Amazon, generally by Chinese companies. In the last 5 years I have had over 80,000 products removed!
Using their Infringement notice form can sometimes be a bit hit and miss until you nail down the exact way that Amazon require you to complete it. Even then there are the odd occasions when the notice is rejected by them in error (for example they confuse it with a trademark notification).
When completing the Infringement form this is what I put in the ‘Additional Info’ field:
“THIS IS A COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT CLAIM. This is NOT a trademark infringement claim. The manufacturers of these products are illegally reproducing my intellectual property on this product. The products feature artworks of which I am the artist and copyright holder. The use of my artworks on these products infringes my COPYRIGHT. I have not licensed or given permission for my intellectual property to appear on these products. Therefore these physical products include unauthorised copyright images. As a result these products infringe my copyright under International Law and I require that they are immediately removed.”
Then the rest of the form is pretty standard information
Hope that is of some help and good luck against the thieves!
Thanks,
I’ve submitted very similar statements, usually starting with my details; name, address, stating I am the IP owner then an additional paragraph something along the lines of:
I’ll try a copy and paste of your text next time and see where it leads. I expect thieves will continue using my work on a frequent basis, so it’s good to have my statements ready to roll.
Interestingly, Amazon USA hasn’t had issue removing 60 or so offending items thus far. Unlike the Amazon Europe who would insist I jump through unnecessary hoops to battle this.
80,000? That’s a lot of infringements! You’d think Amazon would do more to combat this kind of thing since I’m sure it happens to thousands of sellers? And if your property is being infringed on a daily basis, having to submit reports every day isn’t practical. Plus it’s never guaranteed Amazon will even make action against the complaint.
It’s the same for me- 9.9 times out of 10 it’ll be China’s sellers. You’d think sellers based in China would require a more detailed vetting process or a 3 strikes and you’re out policy. However it appears that a seller can infringe on the same IPs dozens, if not, hundreds of times without facing penalties.