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Lisa Frank Removed *MY* Art From Etsy
2 years ago
Y'all, I'm livid!
I got a notification that my listing on Etsy had been taken down for an IP infringement by a third party representing Lisa Frank. The piece in question is this:
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/45152958/
Now
I'm not an expert on copyright and trademark law
But this piece of art was made by me.
It does not feature characters or logos from the work of Lisa Frank.
I have not tried to pass it off as an official piece of artwork by Lisa Frank.
The only reason I could possibly think of that my art could've been removed would be the words "Lisa Frank Inspired" in my Etsy title.
But if this is truly the issue, a fucking email would've been nice instead of putting my entire business in jeopardy.
Meanwhile there are hundreds, if not THOUSANDS, of listings on Etsy that are selling everything from water bottles to stickers with stolen original Lisa Frank artwork.
This is the entire reason why I do not make fan-art merch any more and I'm beyond baffled as to why this piece was targeted in particular. Is it the dolphins? Because I'm pretty damn sure that Lisa Frank doesn't own the entire concept of "colorful dolphin artwork."
Anyway, thanks for reading. I'll keep y'all updated if something interesting happens because you bet your ass I'm fighting this removal.
I got a notification that my listing on Etsy had been taken down for an IP infringement by a third party representing Lisa Frank. The piece in question is this:
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/45152958/
Now
I'm not an expert on copyright and trademark law
But this piece of art was made by me.
It does not feature characters or logos from the work of Lisa Frank.
I have not tried to pass it off as an official piece of artwork by Lisa Frank.
The only reason I could possibly think of that my art could've been removed would be the words "Lisa Frank Inspired" in my Etsy title.
But if this is truly the issue, a fucking email would've been nice instead of putting my entire business in jeopardy.
Meanwhile there are hundreds, if not THOUSANDS, of listings on Etsy that are selling everything from water bottles to stickers with stolen original Lisa Frank artwork.
This is the entire reason why I do not make fan-art merch any more and I'm beyond baffled as to why this piece was targeted in particular. Is it the dolphins? Because I'm pretty damn sure that Lisa Frank doesn't own the entire concept of "colorful dolphin artwork."
Anyway, thanks for reading. I'll keep y'all updated if something interesting happens because you bet your ass I'm fighting this removal.
I thought I was over how angry I was from when I initially got the email but I woke up beyond grumpy about it this morning and just needed to rant about it lol.
It's not a DMCA takedown so I can't appeal it that way unfortunately. Apparently I've infringed upon a trademark, so that's gonna be a little more back and forth to figure out what that means in this case.
I know firms like to occasionally run through searches in trying to get at big scam farms and smol people doing the right thing get caught in it so I hope you can right the wrong done and you win.
One of my friends pointed out that if you search "Lisa Frank Dolphins" on Google, my Etsy listing comes up in the top images. My guess is that's how it was found because none of my other pieces were taken down.
Thank you so much for the well-wishes! <3
I'm not sure if I have much of a case of lost revenue at this point-I don't really make a lot of money with online print sales. But if this leads to my shop getting shut down in the future, I will definitely explore that avenue! Last time I had some of my fan-art claimed, Etsy put a hold on my funds for 45 days from sale that lasted for 3 months.
I super appreciate the help and the input! <3 It's good to hear from you!
"Circle the infringement"? Does that mean cancel it? Well keep an attorney's number in your Rolodex™. (Wow, I'm old enough to know what that is and have seen them in the wild!)
You're welcome! I'm still around, a bit. Just offline life is getting harder and takes more time.
I'm sorry to hear that this happened, good luck with getting the rights to your work back!
I'm hopeful that the case will be pretty cut and dry once they get to my response after the holidays. :) Thanks so much!
(And I meant to send ya a note to say that I'm glad that your friend liked the artwork and a thank you for the shiny. It made my day a lot better ^^ )
Make rainbow dolphin adopts to fund...I dunno...whatever office supplies you need that don't have L.F. art on them.
The more I look into it, the less I'm confident that "people" are even behind it. It looks like the company issuing the take-down is primarily bots!
Thank you so much! Your comment really means a lot. <3 Take care!
I'm -almost- ready to do a deep dive essay into all of the bad things that the Lisa Frank company has done if I'm being completely honest haha!