If you’ve viewed my About page, you’ve seen my warning to avoid counterfeit products by purchasing katzdzynes’ print-on-demand products ONLY from Zazzle.com or Society6. Why the word of caution? Unscrupulous Amazon “vendors” stealing artwork from original artists at Zazzle and then selling this stolen artwork on various products at Amazon has become a widespread problem for Zazzle artists. I have been affected by this, too—my Kayak Christmas Tree design was lifted by an Amazon thief who was trying to sell it on ornaments.
In support of fellow Zazzle artists who also have been affected by this ongoing rampant copyright infringement by amazon thieves and to help stop art theft, I am reposting the following letter, copied with permission from Zazzle artist Carolyn Muir, addressed to Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com:
Dear Mr ______
I would very much appreciate a response to my concerns. If you do not care to address me personally, then perhaps you might find the decency to explain yourself to the First Minister of Scotland whom has been copied on this comminication, along with my own parliamentary representative.
Do you and your shareholders really have no conscience nor compassion for those IP owners who are ripped off on a daily basis by third party sellers on your websites? Do you take no responsibility for the ongoing and indeed increasing problem of copyright infringement on Amazon websites, primarily by Chinese thieves?
My income has dropped by approximately 50% over the last year, which strangely coincides with the exponential increase in infringements of my work on Amazon domains. It has become an almost full-time occupation finding and reporting infringements on Amazon alone.
I repeatedly have to submit reports for the same infringing works; it's a game of whack-a-mole essentially. Firstly, the Seller Performance Teams are incredibly obtuse, making a variety of claims as to why the report is not being immediatly complied with. Very rarely do these claims have any basis whatsever, they are merely stalling tactics. When it finally has been accepted that an infringement has occurred and the Seller Performance Teams agree to comply with a request, it is then hit-and-miss whether or not the infringing listings are actually removed from your website.
In adition to requiring the image to be removed from the product page or having the product listing ceased, I always stipulate that I require my copyright images to be removed from Amazon's servers. In most instances this is met by flat-out refusal by the Seller Performance Teams.
Albeit I am not a lawyer Mr Bezos, nor indeed an IT specialist, however it would be my understanding that my images on your servers would constitute providing public access to infringing content - for example via Amazon affiliate listings on 3rd party websites which still hotlink to my copyright image on your servers. My limited understanding therefore is that this would be a direct violation of the terms of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and that therefore your privilege of Safe Harbor would be waived.
I am sure that you enjoy your millions (or billions) of dollars from Amazon Mr Bezos, however with my income having dropped to £X/month I most certainly do not enjoy much of anything.
If indeed you bother to read this email, then I thank you very much for your time Mr Bezos. I will be more grateful however if you respond.
Yours sincerely,
Carolyn Muir
If you wish to support Carolyn, you can visit her store at Zazzle,
ArtformTheHeart
Please help stop this rampant #copyrightinfringement by #amazonthieves and help #stoparttheft by sharing this post.
Thank you,
katzdzynes
