Author Topic: Etsy shop sells items with illustrations from microstocksites (Read 7644 times)

mopske · « **on:** July 09, 2015, 14:56 »

Hello,

I found -by accident- a shop on Etsy that sells a bag with a vector of me printed on it.
When I looked in to her/his shop, the shop consists completely of vectors printed on shirts, bags, pillows......
The shop has almost 1400 items and had over 100000 sales.

The picture of me they used, was never purchased with an extended licence. So i'm assuming they didn't buy the other vectors with an extended licence....

Is this allowed?

cuppacoffee · « **Reply #1 on:** July 09, 2015, 15:52 »

http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/found-my-photos-with-google-image-search-on-etsy-and-they-are-selling-it/msg408814/#msg408814

Maui · « **Reply #2 on:** July 10, 2015, 04:07 »

Quote from: mopske on July 09, 2015, 14:56

When I looked in to her/his shop, the shop consists completely of vectors printed on shirts, bags, pillows......
The shop has almost 1400 items and had over 100000 sales.

Can you post the link, please? I want to check it out.

sweetgirll · « **Reply #3 on:** July 10, 2015, 09:29 »

It would be nice if you posted the link to his shop so we all could see if there is something from other artists that we recognize....

I dont know if they would need an extended license to print on shirts, bags for resale...probably so...

You said shop has 1400 right now and 100k sales but that is spreaded out throughout the years since it was opened, and they might have had thousands of other designs/ products in the past...

A cool thing on Etsy is that you can see every single item that was sold in the past......there is a link where you see the list of everything and the day it was sold since the shop opened....

mopske · « **Reply #4 on:** July 11, 2015, 14:09 »

This is the shop:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/zoeysattic

sweetgirll · « **Reply #5 on:** July 11, 2015, 15:48 »

I dont know what clipart company you had your image with, but if is from Istock, then if i am not mistaken an extended license is required to be able to sell products with the image on your store.. I'm not sure if Istock preference is that you contact the support first, maybe they can check and see if there is any extended lic. pending?

An interesting thing to know - sometimes the artist contacts a shop directly and they just take the image down pretty quick...However, if the design was sold in the past, it will still show in the sold section.

Quote from: mopske on July 11, 2015, 14:09

This is the shop:

ShadySue · « **Reply #6 on:** July 11, 2015, 16:54 »

From most (all?) agencies, you'd need an EL for reselling.
However, some agencies seem to allow companies to offer goods for sale then only pay for the EL if there are actually any sales.

sweetgirll · « **Reply #7 on:** July 11, 2015, 19:53 »

So, that means if they didnt sell anything.....Is like using an image as a comp then....

Quote from: ShadySue on July 11, 2015, 16:54

From most (all?) agencies, you'd need an EL for reselling.
However, some agencies seem to allow companies to offer goods for sale then only pay for the EL if there are actually any sales.

ShadySue · « **Reply #8 on:** July 11, 2015, 20:05 »

Quote from: sweetgirll on July 11, 2015, 19:53

So, that means if they didnt sell anything.....Is like using an image as a comp then....

Quote from: ShadySue on July 11, 2015, 16:54
From most (all?) agencies, you'd need an EL for reselling.
However, some agencies seem to allow companies to offer goods for sale then only pay for the EL if there are actually any sales.

I guess not, although they probably have to pay for an ordinary licence to have the image without watermark, under the scheme.

I'm not saying that this applies to this shop, I have no idea about that particular.
There was a thread about this within the last few weeks, but I can't remember the issue.

lark · « **Reply #9 on:** July 16, 2015, 01:02 »

I found another shop this morning

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/seahorsebendpress?ref=l2-shopheader-name

It is easy to recognise lots of stock images from different contributors. I found two mine for which I have never sold Extended License. I asked the products to be removed.

Two weeks ago I found 69 my images for sale in allpsters.com. Someone created a portfolio using some of my usernames that I use in stock agencies. I made a complaint to the legal Allposters department. They said that they have Fotolia licenses. I explained them that Standad License does not give them right for Print on Demand. Two days after they removed portfolio. Silently. There is no even excuse. It seem strange that persons from the legal department have not read this License before my complaint and I have to explain to a layer which clauses they violates.

If they use Standard license they do not have the right to do this. They have to be pressed to stop.

sweetgirll · « **Reply #10 on:** July 16, 2015, 13:43 »

IN the case of the etsy shop, I am going to assume something here, I just don't know if my thinking is correct....

I tend to think that they can do that with a standard license if they are doing a customized design and just showing a design as a comp /example---but is not a regular template that a client download and change it up....They will design and put the client's name and address, and customize like a regular graphic designer in a studio would do....and then they send a flattened design with the client text and name and the client goes and send to a print shop....So in this case, they are selling this as a service rather than a product.

But --- they would be using the same design for different clients...

But if they are selling a "downloadable template" or a greeting card that you sell as a product, then, I guess that would be against the terms...

So there are differences, is quite tricky...Have I assumed correctly?

Quote from: anelinka67 on July 16, 2015, 01:02