Copyright Issues on Etsy

Just thought I'd mention something that was being discussed on an embroidery group that I follow over on Facebook.

If you find any patterns on Etsy that you feel violate copyrights, please contact Etsy. Etsy does not tolerate copyright infringement issues and will close down any shop that violates their terms.

 

There aren't any problems with my designs that I'm aware of at the moment, but there are people using the work of other artists and photographers. They use "auto conversion" software and then sell the computer generated chart as their own work cheating the artists and photographers out of possible income or royalties. 

 

The people who do this seem to think that artists have endless funds to pay attorneys to fight for their copyrights. That's a big time misconception!! Anyone who's had to pay an attorney for anything knows how expensive those services are.

 

The best thing to do is to contact Etsy about it and let them handle it.

Pinterest and Copyright Issues

It has come to my attention, that the website Pinterest has policies that are quite controversial regarding copyright issues.

They claim that all photos pinned gives them the right to use those photos as they choose.  Well, I'm not sure how they can make this claim a policy because people are pinning photos from all over the internet without permission from the copyright holder's.

I confess, I have enjoyed Pinterest for several months now and thought of it as a social network as well as an indirect way to promote my blog, website and Etsy shop however, it's a dangerous situation.  It never occurred to me that my copyrights were being infringed upon.  Please note:  I own the copyrights on all photos posted here on my blog, on my website, in my Flickr albums and on my Etsy shop!

If I post photos from anyone else's website here on my blog, I always ask for permission and I always include a link to the source site!  Not only is this the "legal" way of doing things, it's also proper etiquette.

I will be removing my boards from Pinterest momentarily and I would like to ask that if any of my photos are on your boards, please remove them as soon as possible.

I would like to point you in the direction of Sharon B's Pintangle blog.  Sharon has posted an indepth discussion on the subject of Pinterest and the copyright implications of using the site.