I sell on Cafepress, Zazzle and Printfection. Imagine my surprise when I get a copyright infringement notice from both Cafepress and Zazzle on my designs
Here are my designs.
The complaining artist is Hugh Bayer of epmgames and here is his "design".
Now Mr Bayer, before you go screaming and hollering that I'm robbing you by publishing this image to the left, don't bother. In this blog I'm writing ABOUT your image and a controversy surrounding it which is covered both by fair use and free speech.
I wondered what the heck was a copyright violation and I can't get a straight answer from anybody.
At Zazzle, I spoke with a "Tony" in content management who said the violation was that I have the same phrase. Ok.... "Instant Swim Chick, just add water" is NOT a registered trademark. Its a common swim joke and has been around for years and is therefore not a covered unregistered trademark. And notice that my design on the right doesn't even contain the word "chick".
I would understand Mr Hugh's argument if the chicks looked the same, if the lettering were the same, if the lettering had the same placement. But that isn't it.
This looks like a case of artist intimidation, where all Mr Hughs has to do is write a threatening letter on company letter head which includes the word "Entertainment" and Cafepress and Zazzle cower.
This isn't good. It makes artists lose confidence in Cafepress & Zazzle if they allow just anybody to claim copyright infringement on an idea, especially if the images are different and the phrase isn't trademarked.
4 comments:
If it's a phrase in common use for years, he doesn't have much of a claim to it. It also doesn't take a genius to match a chick to the word swimchick, and I'm sure it's been done many times.
I'd personally be embarrassed to make a legal claim on 'intellectual' property that an 8 year-old could make.
I say just put the shirts out there and have fun.
I agree with you, but unfortunately I can't put the shirts out there because both Zazzle and Cafepress have removed them
On his website, he claims to have trademarked the phrase "Instant Swimchick" by adding TM.
This is a common ploy. However, in the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) database, there is no such trademark, http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=searchss&state=4008:6p7h8o.1.1
You might point cafepress at that.
I did exactly that, and as you see in my next posting, Cafepress agreed with me and my design is back up. However, Zazzle lives in the dark ages and appears to be easily intimidated. This does not bode well for artists. I will deal with them next week.
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