*Edit 12/21/2019
This issue seems to be resolved. After sending a C&D to 3DUniverse, we came to an agreement and the infringing content has been removed from the marketplace and they have been very amicable, which I appreciate!
They’ve informed me that the copy of my design was first obtained through publicdomainvectors.org, however, it can no longer be found on that site.
I’m taking it on good faith that is indeed where it was first found, though there is no hard evidence or receipt, so this is where this issue ends with 3DUniverse, however I will still be demanding removal of any copies of the wings being redistributed that were created with the infringed content in the Mythical Pixie package via the extended license that was offered.
~
It happened again, of course, I was minding my own business on Etsy just browsing for gift ideas and saw that one of the things in the “things you might like” section of the home page had a very familiar silhouette. I opened it up and sure enough, my Titania wings had been copied in a $2 pack of wing png files :/
I purchased a set of the wing pack just to make sure, and it was definitely a copy of my Titania wings - a design that I also offer digital files of myself, so this was in direct competition with my own product!
I left a negative review, because not only was my design in there but I recognize a few others of these wings as well, from stock I’ve seen offered by other sellers. Most of the time, stock providers don’t allow their customers to simply redistribute the same stock, so whenever I see sellers offering mostly other people’s content my alarm bells go off.
I then got an angry message from the seller, telling me it’s certainly NOT my content, because he purchased it from 3DUniverse on DAZ3D!
Well, he was right about one thing, it as of now is still available in a pack for a Pixie character and what’s worse is it has an extended license available to allow customers to do exactly what this seller did, and sell 2D renders of all the content >:(
This is incredibly frustrating and disappointing, since 3DUniverse appears to be a fairly big company with well known clients, and they claim that all their designing is done in-house from concept to completion.
Someone along the way decided to simply swipe a design off the internet - mine - instead of creating something new, and now who knows how many people are out there having paid licensing fees for wing files they thought were legit and won’t be able to use.
Sadly, the Etsy seller, even after informing him of 3DUniverse’s infringement and providing my US Copyright certificate registration number, still insisted he had the right to continue selling the copies of my content.
A DMCA did take care of that, and the listings are now gone, but due to the willful continued infringement & his refusal to abide by my demands as the copyright holder, that review will stay.
Please, if you see this wing design anywhere else but in my own Shopify or Etsy stores, let me know.
Currently I don’t have them on any other platform. If I do in the future, my name will be attached to it and linked to my brand. If you like that wing design, I have them for sale in my store and you can rest assured they are the real deal: https://fancy-fairy-wings-things.myshopify.com/products/titania-fairy-wings-transparency-stock-png-files
It’s similar to the defiant attitude I’ve encountered with another person, after she made wings using my tutorial but used one of my original designs rather than the real butterfly design I provide for that purpose.
I made every effort in that tutorial to make it clear that copying designs found online is not legal and disrespects the artists being copied. I even included links to a couple of IP attorney’s websites so people could educate themselves further about what is okay and what’s not.
I had asked her to please edit the caption to let people know that particular design should not be copied as it’s my original, and was told she would, but instead the caption read as if I gave permission for and taught how to make that particular design!
That will not do, so I asked again, but instead of doing so she insisted it didn’t matter because most of her followers aren’t there for her ‘artisticness’ and she got them off of Pinterest.
I reminded her that copying something off of Pinterest is exactly what I instruct people not to do in my tutorial! It’s mentioned in the first 2 minutes before the tutorial portion starts, and regardless of where it’s found it’s still my design.
She told me she removed it ‘just to make you feel better’, but hid her profile from the public so I couldn’t verify it, until this weekend when it went public again and I could see that she had lied, and the post was still there with nothing changed.
Fairies, please don’t ever do this.
It doesn’t matter if you found the content by accident or false advertisement, you still have to respect the original copyright holder’s wishes and comply with what they ask of you. It still affects our business negatively, whether or not the copy is being sold.
Publicly displaying wings made from my tutorial that copy one of my original designs that I didn’t allow only gives others the impression they can do the same, possibly leading eventually to someone deciding to sell them as well.
I had hoped to have some more items to list today for sale, but every infringement dealt with takes the wind out of my sails and delays my production.
There was another seller on Etsy selling wing stock of my Teasel design as well, they at least suspended the listing however they insisted they purchased them with a license without being able to tell me yet who they purchased it from.
If you are professional business selling third party content, you really should have record of everyone you purchased a license from. These things happen all the time - they even said it happens to them - so any graphics business should know better than to not keep track of purchased content they are reselling.
It could be true, but it could also be a bluff, since initially they said “we must insist these overlays are not copied and have been made by us! The fairy wing design is very simplistic and is used by many shops for their overlays”. It’s somewhat of a contradictory statement, so which is it? Made by you, or purchased by you from elsewhere?
My designs are quite popular and some older ones especially on Pinterest that have lost the original links to Polyvore or my old website are still around, but again, everything on Pinterest belongs to someone.
Just like every image on Google belongs to someone. Search engines are not image banks for our use, and even image banks sometimes contain infringing content. It’s sad but true.
We really have to thoroughly vet everything. If there is no consistent style or quality to the seller’s collection or you’re seeing content from them that you’ve also seen elsewhere, keep digging to find out if that is truly the original artist.
Tineye.com comes in handy for this purpose, though if it’s not the same exact photo it might not show up in the results.
The best way to make sure what you’re selling is safe, is to make it yourself from scratch, or from nature.
Or, from an artist with a history of creations that you can track, like me.
