I am not an invited MBA member yet, but I am asking myself while reading tons of theft cases in this forum, how I will be able to keep the damage as low as possible.
- Is there a best practice for that?
E.g. should I use the 'brand' field to prevent copycats from browsing through all my designs?
Please keep in mind - I could not see the MBA member GUI with all its options yet (just read about a 'brand' field in this forum).
Thanks in advance
There is NOTHING you can do. Thieves will find your work no matter what you do. If you have a "winning" design - (meaning, it SELLS) you will be stolen from. It doesn't matter what you put into the brand field. Some thieves MAY pull up all of your stuff from that, but the reality is, they don't care to steal everything you have, just what sells. They use data from tools to pull up rankings of shirts and anything from the TOP SELLERS down to shirts that just sell "regularly" are going to be taken. Period. Unless you can get Amazon to introduce watermarks and/or other image protection, there is absolutely NOTHING you can do to prevent theft.
Yeah, this is the raw truth about Merch as it stands today. But it's the same in any industry, if something is selling, people are going to make a knock-off and get as much money as they can as quickly as possible and then move on to the next. There are no repercussions - especially if the offending party lives in outside the U.S. - and they know that, that is why they keep doing it.
I'm surprised none of the "gurus" aren't hawking a Merch By Amazon Arbitrage course yet.
Hello Kristi, thanks for your answer, although I am a bit demoralized now. Technically it is easy to implement a watermark. Strange, that Amazon did not implement it yet. It seems, that regardless of the theft the designers do not stop to use the MBA platform.
How do most of the designers deal with the theft fact? Quickly developing new designs and/or compete with the lower prices of the copycats? What is the best strategy then?
I spend HOURS daily searching the internet and dealing with thieves. It is a never-ending cycle of sending take-down notices, following up to see that it is removed, and repeating as the same material(s) end up on another dozen sites DAILY. Once the thieves have your artwork, you cannot escape the nightmare. I REFUSE to upload any more content to Amazon. Unless they implement image security, it is NOT WORTH THE AGGRAVATION. Now, maybe others don't care. That's their prerogative. Me? I spend too much time on my business to just give it away. And, if left unchecked, the thieves WILL destroy your business. The money in Merch is good. Amazon is a great platform to sell through because of visibility and it's super easy to get business. But, for the simple fact that they do not protect the images, it means you will end up being a target to thieves. And, once the thieves have your image, that's it. They will upload it to thousands of sites. My advice? Know what you are getting into. If you don't mind dealing with theft - by all means go forward. Just know that there isn't anything you can do to PREVENT the theft at this time because Amazon hasn't done anything to help us out. Your only course of action would be to deal with each instance of theft AFTER it happens.
We also deal with this headache daily, and have paused our submissions to this platform. Giving thieves access to high resolution previews, without watermarks, makes it simple to steal artwork pixel-for-pixel. It is just plain irresponsible of Amazon not to reduce the preview size and/or add a watermark.
There is no point in submitting artwork that you know for a fact is going to be stolen. And once it has been stolen, it's going to be a serious issue for you to deal with for YEARS to come. Not worth it. If Amazon steps up and adds image security, I'll reconsider. But for now, I'll focus on my own site where I have total control over the images.
Hello Kristi, thanks a lot for your detailed answers.
Which platforms are kind of safe then?
Could you also say, how much time you spent on combating compared to the rest of your work (in percent)?
The safest platform would be running your own site. There you would have complete control over the images. You'd be able to limit the image sizes, add your own watermark, and enable other protective features. It is the ONLY way to be in control of your images and to protect them in the manner in which they NEED to be handled. NO platform out there is going to care about your artwork enough to protect them currently.
And the amount of time spent on theft versus work is about 15-20% of my time in the past year has been spent on tracking down and fighting with thieves.
Your best defense at the moment is the DMCA Takedown notice through Amazon when you find infringing content. It does work...
You can also use the same process outside the the site for any infringing content you find. It's all a learning process. The more you practice the better you become.
Hello whostooknow, to keep the learning curve low ...which facts to be gathered are necessary to be successful with the DMCA Takedown?
Could you say how much time you spend for the combating in percent (compared to the rest of your work)?
You can see the basic premise from the Amazon infringement form on their site. You can also find much information in the various FB groups on Merch. This is one subject you'll want to learn much about as it can easily affect your business. I check 3 or 4 times a week for infringement of my best sellers.
I have recently hired an agent to take care of all documentation relating to these issues. It became easier to let the agent handle all correspondence with the offending sites or ISP's. Now I just provide the links, my information and they handle the rest.
It's not that I can't do it myself but my time has become more valuable so this is the natural progression.
Thanks for your very helpful information :)
I think it's sort of amusing that my © copyright that's in the actual artwork shows up in the stolen product as well. Makes the DMCA takedown pretty open-and-shut. But so far I've only had black-on-white artwork stolen. Do they also attempt to steal color artwork or images that don't have a white shirt option?
You bet they do. I have a shirt with no white options and it was ripped off. What's even worse is during the "black out" in December when they ran out of black shirts, the copycatter got sales while mine was unavailable and now has a higher BSR.
1 Person is following this question.
