I'm not one to dwell on something, to pine and to wallow. I am a positive person and I like to move forward and upward from difficult situations. But, I am a completist, I like to finish what I start, and I like to be thorough. I like to help others through my own experience, and to share information that may benefit others. We artists (and friends!) need to stick together... and speaking of which, I so greatly appreciate all of the support that's been shown to me over the past couple days!
Here is my letter to S6, their response, and my reply to it. If it helps someone, I'm happy.
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My email to S6 (email #1)
February 25, 7:27pm
Dear Society 6,
I recently discovered an Instagram "shop" selling my Society 6 art as well as MANY designs from MANY other Society 6 artists. When first I discovered the post (yesterday), it was 22 weeks old. I am 100% certain that the stolen art was art that I specifically designed and prepared exclusively for products in my S6 shop. I just wanted to let you know that those designs have been stolen and are now floating around Indonesia on products I never approved and will never receive any income from. And the "seller" has now disappeared from social media, at least under their former name.
My own case of infringement is not the first that I've heard about from former S6 shopkeepers, and sadly, it probably won't be the last. I don't know how the international illegal art market is obtaining the art— whether you have a hole in your servers, or a bad apple in your bunch. That's for you to know and handle. But, however you deal with it, please deal with it. This IS happening. Ignoring the problem is not going to make it go away. And there will only be more and more people like me that voice our own stories about copyright infringement of the work that we prepared and posted exclusively to our S6 shops.
When we join S6, we understand and acknowledge that you take no responsibility for copyright infringement. But (and I think I can speak for everyone on S6 here) we go in with a certain expectation that S6 will take, at the very least, reasonable measures to protect our work from getting ripped off. Moreover, S6 is more than just a shopping site. It is also a community. In order to keep your community healthy, thriving and undivided long-term, there has to be a certain level of goodwill coming from you toward the individuals within the community whose art is taken from S6 and infringed.
A healthy community helps it's members out as best it can within it's own set of guidelines, though limited they may be. There is a humanity and helpfulness there built in the system. After reading comments and stories of other former S6 artists being shut out (and shut off from their accounts) after voicing the international infringement of their intellectual property which they directly connected to their involvement on S6, I see that there is a serious, fundamental problem. If you are part-shop/part-community, you need to step up to the plate a little. Not asking for a lot here. Acknowledgement and some support, in a seemingly small way, would go a long way in the goodwill department. (How about a community forum for users, with this issue as one of the discussion boards where people can share, unite, and call out infringers?)
Anyway, I am a fan of your site, and I truly hope you will make this issue a top priority to fix.
Best Regards,
Kathy Weller
WellerWishes
(attached to message: screenshot from Instagram providing infringing sellers' name)
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REPLY from S6 (email #2)
February 25, 7:37pm
Hi Kathy,
Thank you for contacting Society6 Support.
We don't know what "shop" you are referring to, but we'd sure like to see it if you can report it?
(Note: the following portion of the email, in grey, is content lifted directly from Society6's Copyright page)
Please allow us to share some very important information regarding your Copyrights.
First, please be aware that when you post your work to the Internet, no matter the size or resolution of your images, no website (and we mean NO website, not a one) can make it impossible to prevent it from being copied.
It is also incredibly important to us that you understand that while we do everything in our power to maintain your trust as an artist, we are not charged with enforcing the laws that we are required to follow.
Copyright infringement is generally a civil matter, which only the copyright owner can pursue - this means it is your responsibility to make sure that you are upholding your legal interests in your work, we are not authorized to do it for you. We are prohibited from giving specific legal advice on your rights, whether in connection with particular uses of copyrighted works, cases of alleged domestic or foreign copyright infringement, or other matters of a similar nature. You may wish to seek professional legal advice from a copyright attorney and to discuss your legal options.
Please remember, finding your artwork on another site is usually a good thing! In fact we encourage and support the sharing of your artwork as long as it is done correctly and with respect to you as the artist. So if you find your work on another website, please make sure the website is actually unlawfully infringing your copyright and not making "fair use" of your content, or reselling your products (buying them from you and reselling them for a profit). You won't make any friends if you're issuing unwarranted DMCA takedown notices to someone trying to give your work more exposure because they admire it!
If you're still not comfortable with your work showing-up on another site, always start by simply asking the website owner to remove the infringing content. Our experience shows that a polite email to the website admin requesting the image be removed is usually all it takes to resolve the situation.
In cases where your works appear for sale or where someone is claiming the work as their own, contact the individual asking that the works be removed immediately. The next step is to contact the company hosting the site containing the infringing work and ask them to disable the content or the account. When Society6 members have contacted sites like Etsy or Facebook in the past, these companies have typically responded in a reasonable time frame and suspended the content or the user. Please remember that most sites have systems, or specific processes (i.e. DMCA requirements) in place that you must follow in order to handle these matters.
If your desire is to sell your products, please know that we take every action to both protect your images, but also make them compelling for customers to purchase as products, and easy to promote thru social media, blogs, and other websites on the Internet.
Society6 secures your hi-resolution files and only ever provides a low resolution preview of your work on our site. Our product previews are presented at 600px, even though a larger 800px image is now the industry acceptable standard for product previews. It has been determined that at this size (and at screen resolution) there is no way to reproduce a printed product fit for sale.
We do not enable watermarks over your images as research shows it deters people from purchasing your products. There is no other successful online retailer that uses watermarking technology. You may find another site that offers watermarks, but you will quickly discover that all you’ll end up with is watermarked images and dismal sales.
We enable right clicks because this is a great way to allow members and other people to link to your work and give you additional exposure. We believe that disabling right clicks is not a true protection and does more harm than good - anyone that is stealing images understands how you can still copy right click disabled images. Furthermore, even if you disable the click, you can always take a screenshot.
We recommend that you research the relevant copyright laws and their application to your work on the Internet (links below), or consult legal counsel if you are unsure about copyright law.
We recommend that you research the relevant copyright laws and their application to your work on the Internet (links below), or consult legal counsel if you are unsure about copyright law.
We also suggest that you review Society6's Terms of Service http://society6.com/help/terms with respect to our Content & Copyright Policy to ensure that you are in compliance at all times.
We really appreciate your understanding and appreciate your continued support.
Sincerely,
(Name of S6 support person)
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My Reply (email #3)
February 25, 7:52pm
Hi (Name of S6 support person),
Thanks for the reply. The shop that infringed S6 artists' work, including mine, has disappeared (I mentioned that in the 1st paragraph of my previous email).
It was really not a shop at all, but an Indonesian seller who has a bunch of S6 stolen art for sale on iphones via Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. They sold under the name Beaumont Stuffs.
The seller left all three social media sites after being exposed by the online community. (Though I'm sure they will pop back up with another name.)
I attached a screenshot in my original message to you of the Instagram post where I first discovered my work on their phones. I put it in my original message to you, but here is it again.
Thanks for the rest of the copyright info in the email. I already read it on your site.
Good luck and I hope you can fix what is broken over there.
I'm going to go remove my account now.
Best,
Kathy
