Stolen Design

[Former_Member]

I found one of my magnets designs has been taken and used by another etsy store - it is the exact copy of my design. From what I can tell this person lifted the graphic I used in a sample photo for customers to choose for customization (even though I have a watermark on it). Is there any steps I can take? Thanks!

[WaterStreetDesign]

This happened to me once. I contacted the store owner about the issue and when it wasn't resolved (copied listing was not removed) I contacted Etsy who promptly handled it.

Good luck!

[Former_Member]

Thank you!

[BTownBetty]

Hi Katy,

As a graphic designer for over 10 years I've found my designs stolen a few times on Etsy. Sadly with anything digital on here you have a lot of that.. and a lot of people advertising their stuff as custom or original and it's jacked from someone else or a free vector site. I've contacted Etsy before about this but nothing was done. It's annoying too because the people that steal these things are usually the shops that are selling things for dirt cheap as well so your competition is very unfair!

[OliveInvitesShop]

I have had this happen before. I contacted the other store owner and said, "It has been brought to my attention that (this item) you have in your store is the exact same as mine. Please remove your item from your store immediately. Thank you."

The other store owner was nice about it and took it down right away. If she hadn't, I was going to send her another message letting her know that I would be taking this further with Etsy.

[Former_Member]

Hi Katy, if you scroll down to the bottom of the listing, there should be a small link to "Report this item to Etsy", from there, a pop up window will give you a choice of reason for reporting and you can select "this is my intellectual property" choice, follow the prompts from there.

You MUST go through these steps in order for Etsy to take action. Once that happens, Etsy is usually pretty quick to take things down.

[Former_Member]

Thank you everyone for your advice! I will take some appropriate steps with the shop and hopefully it will be taken down. More of my custom designs will have a tighter watermarks on them, so maybe they won't be taken too. :)