Zazzle is Tarnished

[kerravonsen]

Zazzle, in their "wisdom" have removed every single one of my designs for "content violation". Even my "I'll explain later" shirt, which doesn't even contain illos. Apparently (according to their form letter) "Design contains an image or text that infringes on intellectual property rights. We have been contacted by the intellectual property right holder and at their request we will be removing your product from Zazzle???s Marketplace due to intellectual property claims"

WHAT?

Someone can have multiple designs which say "BOB is a sacred name" and I can't have one that says "I'll explain later"?

I suspect it's because I tagged it with the phrase "doctor who". Colour me confused, considering that redbubble has a completely different attitude to things like that - they even have a Doctor Who themed "community" on their site.

So, sorry everyone, you can't buy t-shirts from me, because they've removed them all.

Sh*t.

ETA: What is so completely unfair is that there are other people on zazzle who have Doctor-Who themed things, which are tagged as "doctor who" and they haven't been attacked. The "BOB is a sacred name" is tagged with "doctor who", and "This is a detonator" is tagged with "doctor who", and I think I even saw one with a Dalek on it (but I can't find it now). NOT FAIR!

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

Ah, that sucks. I get really paranoid about that sort of thing and only post stuff to sell that's totally original or based on out of copyright stuff...which means I pretty much have nothing to sell :/

[kerravonsen]

Indeed it sucks. I liked Zazzle because they had a greater range of sizes than redbubble has, which means that I can get t-shirts that are loose rather than tight.

(sigh)

I wonder if I could get away with describing my 4th Doctor t-shirt as "a portrait of Tom Baker in his most famous role". But best to wait and see if they actually respond to my query about the takedowns. 8-(

[tree_and_leaf]

That sucks - and seems extremely arbitrary.

[primsong]

Well, that reeks. :-( I'm glad I saw them while they were still up!

[kerravonsen]

Well, you can still get the ones at my redbubble store (http://kerravonsen.redbubble.com/) but it's a different set. I sort of gave up on redbubble because they have a smaller range of shirts and I can't get them in my size.

[daiseechain]

What confuses me is who the hell ratted you out? Seriously. I mean, wtf? Why yours and not someone else's? Sounds like a case of sour grapes to me, rather than the Beeb actively chasing copyright.

[kerravonsen]

Well, there's no way of knowing. If it's the case that someone ratted me out, one wonders why they have so much time on their hands to be bothered with someone like me. It's not like I'm a BNF. (shrug)

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

Lame! It's not like the images were photographs, they were illos. Hmph.

[kerravonsen]

Exactly! Nobody else can claim copyright over someone else's hand-drawn art, for goodness' sake!

I suspect it's because they considered it violated trademark because I had the gall to say "Blake's 7" and "Doctor Who".

[kaffy_r]

Oh, FFS. Sorry to hear that. Is it worth waiting a couple of weeks and slowly putting things up without those tags? Or would it be more trouble than it's worth?

[kerravonsen]

I don't know. I've emailed them asking for a more detailed explanation of the take-down; we shall see if they (a) ignore me (despite the fact that the form-letter says "if you have questions or concerns, email us") (b) punish me for daring to defy them (c) give an explanation or (d) relent.

Depending which way the wind blows...
Certainly it would seem unwise to try to put the designs back immediately. Though it's interesting that they haven't removed my images from my uploaded image collection, just removed all the t-shirt designs.

(sigh)