etsy beware

just to make people aware, my wife and i have been finding alot of traced versions of our istock designs on etsy, and we have also been finding sellers on etsy advertising that they will send buyers our files,,, we are flagging the offending sellers, hopefully etsy will remove these these products


you should all look on etsy to see if anyone is inappropriately using your files or anyone else's files 

Any good way of searching?

no not really, its easy for my wife because most of her designs fall on a similar theme,, mine are all over the place so ive just been randomly searching for some of my popular designs


 


it seems like the main offenders are people who are selling custom greeting cards

I use tineye a lot to search the web for my stuff. Are you talking about on t-shirts and such, or just vector files?

there are people who sell customized cards and invitations on etsy, they seem to be the ones who are really breaking the rules


and heres my file


 


 


i know the person on etsy didnt buy my file because my file has never sold, lol


also they are offering to send people the file for their invitation


 


when people on etsy use an image as a template for a handmade product its fine as far as i know as long as they bought the image

It's very similar, but isn't exactly your file. The perspective is different and the rotation of the stars is different.

i know its not exactly my file because my file has never been bought, its pretty obvious that its a poor trace of my file though 

Agreed.

They obviously didn't read the "flip it horizontally" portion of the tracing manual, so you're sure never to be caught.

I have run into this situation on Etsy as well.  I sell my letterpress work on etsy and have run into several greeting card makers using istock designs.  Not my own but others.  I have let the istock illustrator know directly when I find an issue.


In some instances in conversing with the offenders I have found that they state that they did not realize they need an extended license so I simply explain it to them.  It makes me wonder how silly people are to think they could actually buy someone elses stock artwork for resale at the standard file price.


Anyway, I keep my eye out for these issues as well!


Brandi

Hm, good to know. I suppose people just don't read about the licenses and they just think of stock art as "clip art" or something else they can slap on a card and sell as their own, like stamps or paper flowers.

i wrote one person and they replied 'all i did was trace a photo i found on the internet, i did it myself in illustrator, why is that wrong?"


 


thats probably the mentality of most of the offenders, they dont see something someone else made, they just see 'some photo' they found on the internet

Yeesh. Yeah, I've also noticed on there a lot of cards with images from the Twilight movie on there, or Disney characters. Now people have to at least know THAT is wrong.

I have seen this greeting cards with iStock images on etsy, what I taught is that they bought the rights directly from the illustrator! Well I guess you never know... I sell on etsy, and some of my designs may look alike... just in case you have seen those, well it's ok the're mine. lol.

Swiping is a way of life for some folks and they really want you to believe that everyone does it. They can be found under rocks with like vermin that have eyes with no soul.

from what i understand its ok to sell physical prints of your own istock work, so anything you have on istock you can sell on etsy as long as you are printing it on something and selling that and not the file

I clicked on the spatula and the link leads to a butterfly created by someone else. How can that happen?

Hello,


The subject is very important! I found most of my scotties printed on paper as greeting cards and sold on etsy. Maybe it's ok, if the person bought them with extended license,but it looks like they are so popular and obviously making a better business for etsy seller! By the way,how we can check,if the file is purcased as extended or just for 50 cents?

Well you know who bought it. Be the policeman and ask them to show you their license to drive that vehicle.

QUESTION to anyone who might know concerning Etsy and Istock agreement:


I have been finding a lot of my files on Etsy-some clearly badly traced off the internet, some clearly purchased, some I have no idea.


The problem is a lot of my designs are being used as bulk order cards/invitations (so the design is the actual sale item) and the sellers are adding their own personal touch (whether that be a new background or just some txt) and sending their buyers the digital file (in what format I don't know) to print at their leasure. Now, I have read the istock license agreemnts but I still seem to be fuzzy (no wonder lawers get paid to read these things, lol) but is this acceptable without an extended license if at all they they are sending out the file? I have a few popular bridal files on istock and Esty that I have only had a couple extended licenses for.


Apparently Etsy has a place where you can report intellectual and blatant copyright infringement as well. I have reported a couple blatant intellectual copyright infringeents to Etsy-one seems to be handled-the other not.