Where is the line drawn?

[JenTheTracy]

More and more of my favorite shops are being shut down due to copyright infringement. I'd like to open a discussion on what you think it is OK to sell and what you think isn't. Legally, it seems to be the side with bigger lawyer and more lobbyists picks who is in the right. So let this discussion be about morals.

In college, I was taught if you chance an image/character by 10% then it is yours. 10% of an image is hard to define. But this is the rule that allowed Warhol and not the Monroe Estate to get money for his famous paintings of Marilyn.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/97099325/colorful-warhol-esque-marilyn-monroe?ref=sr_gallery_3&ga_search...

I am OK with buying and selling copy written characters, logos, slogans, etc. if the company that makes that product does not provide the service. For example, Since Notch does not sell these, I am OK with buying them from someone who does not "own" the rights to Minecraft: http://www.etsy.com/listing/87606813/minecraft-inspired-grass-cube-tissue-box?ref=sr_gallery_8&ga_se...
If Notch made tissue box covers, I'd gladly give him money.

The truth of the matter is, I am not taking money from the designer that created Murlocs if I buy a handmade Murloc plushie. The concept designer that made up Murlocs has been paid his/her wages, and it does not hurt him/her if I buy an unlicensed Blizzard product. In fact that designer may not even work for Blizzard anymore. That designer may have as little a legal right to reproduce Murlocs as you and me. That is messed up. http://www.etsy.com/listing/84057110/handmade-plush-doll-world-of-warcraft?ref=sr_gallery_2&ga_searc...
I do not believe I am hurting individual artists when supporting other artists.

It is also important to remember that, since the dawn of time, artists have used other people's stories to express their vision. Think of the sculptures of Greek Gods, paintings of Christian saints, and illustrations of popular fairy tales. I don't see how painting an original depiction of a video game character is much different from illustrating a well known story or myth: http://www.etsy.com/listing/40993595/jigsaw-puzzle-wood-wooden-personalized?ref=sr_gallery_1&ga_sear...

This is quite a long post, but a fairly sensitive and thought provoking subject. Again, I am leaving out a lot of legality, but I'm trying to make this a philosophical discussion. As we know, legally a lot of our items fall on the wrong side of this grey area.

I am not ALWAYS for copy rite infringement. I mean no offense, but listings that do not fall under the aforementioned 10% change rule rub me the wrong way. I feel your handmade items should be your own. Items that are blatant knock offs of products the larger companies already sell are infringing on the company's rights to profit. A lot of Disney Princess items fall under this category. Do a quick search and you'll see what items I'm talking about. If it looks like it belongs in the Disney store, let Disney sell it. If you've made it your own, good on you. Take my money, you've earned it.

I hope nothing I said is offensive to you. I'm trying to open honest discussion. This is a topic that threatens our very rights to use the Internet. It is a topic as old as time. When does a concept stop belonging to the person that made it up? What is the original creators rights? And what are the rights of those of us who take that concept and make it better?

[Former_Member]

first, it's copyright. otherwise, i agree. i am personally quite broke. i can't afford advertising, lawyers, mass manufacturing, chinese labor... and then you get customers expecting us to make our art available at prices that are in line with mass produced chinese (no offense to chinese people) crap. i generally don't like mixing my philosophical and political views with etsy, but the problem is systemic and interconnected. if $20,000 a year looks like a lot of money to you, you are poor. bethesda probably just spent that much on the hundreds of infringement notices. no one knows how to do math. no one has appropriate perspective. a dollar to me is worth more than a dollar to a millionaire...

[Former_Member]

I agree as well. It is hard to know where the line of infringement is drawn, especially when we're dealing with individual companies. And whether they are actually in the right to have it removed from our shops is moot, because they have more money than we do and would always win.
I don't want to get a third strike in my shop, so I removed my Nuka Cola items just in case they decide they want them taken down as well. I emailed the guy at Zenimax that sent Etsy an infrigement notice for my Sunset Sarsaparilla caps, to see if I can continue to sell the Nuka ones, but I've got no reply. They have the time to send out notices, but not to answer an email from the little guy, apparently.

[Former_Member]

When I got my notice about my Pokemon items I asked them what guidelines I could follow to make different Pokemon items. They told me that that wasn't their responsibility and that I should read up on copyright laws... I just gave up :(

[MichelleEcksteinArt]

I really enjoyed reading your post, Jen. I don't really have that much more to add except I really agree- doing something creative with material that has already been created by someone else is perfectly fine and ethical in my opinion- our Game of the Months for example. I don't believe we are hurting the creators of the games if we make something fun and creative that is inspired by the game.

But if you are re-creating something pretty much as a replica of something you could buy in a store, you're just trying to sell it cheaper or appeal to someone who wants to buy stuff online (Disney Princess stuff), that is crossing an ethical line. If you want to do that on ebay, where ethics doesn't seem to be as big of a deal, fine. But etsy is not really the place to do that.

But then that brings me to the next thing I wanted to say. I always thought that etsy was a nice place to sell stuff, community is a big part of this selling venue. They appear to really care about their sellers, especially since without us, they wouldn't have anything, which is something they say frequently. But this three strikes you're out rule is crazy. It shouldn't be just black and white like that, you should be able to have a discussion about what happened when your item was removed, and then decide if it should be a mark against you. Alia for example, it's crazy that now you have to take down an item of yours that is completely creative just because you are afraid that if you get a notice, you will lose your shop. That's terrible!

We little guys are the ones that keep etsy going, not the big corporations. I think the people of etsy should have a discussion about their own morals and really think about what they're doing to creative people with this three strikes you're out rule. Why is it that creative shops that are making fan art get shut down, but there are still tons and tons of re-seller shops and shops that completely replicate other products in an entirely non-creative fashion?

[Former_Member]

Hey guy, the Mom's Basement forum/chat has a new category just for this sort of thing, if you wanna discuss it there. Y'know, in case admin decides they don't like this thread or something...

[JenTheTracy]

Alia, I don't think we need to worry about admin. That's one of the reasons Etsy forced us all into teams and killed the forums. I could be wrong, but as long as we don't maliciously call out anyone's items we're fine.

Meanwhile Backlash, I understand what you're saying about a dollar meaning more to us than it does to Blizzard. But I cannot get behind an idea that says a person's financial status gives them more (or less) rights. Intellectual property is intellectual property. For example, suppose one of my items somehow became an Internet meme and Hot Topic started mass producing it on T-shirts. I would go after Hot Topic for credit and even monetary royalties. It is unfair for me to expect Blizzard to not do the same of their intellectual property. Just because someone has a lot more money than I do does not mean he/she loses the right to be credited for what he/she has created.

It's a tough subject. As an artist, I fear someone stealing my work and using it as their own. I do not want to encourage a double standard. If you use one of my images, have the decency to credit me. If you profit from selling a t-shirt with my painting on it, you should pay me. I understand why a large company would want the same respect.

[JenTheTracy]

The line is so thin because I could argue either side of it. It's an issue I'm truly grey about.

[Former_Member]

i'm not tryin to sound like occupy etc. , but it has been established that more money does indeed impart more rights. corporations are people, money equals speech. blah blah blah. they think they have more rights because they have more money. i have just oodles of original artwork that people have said "wow, neat, that's awesome" about, but no one's buying. i throw something recognizable on there and, bam, sales. personally, i don't want to have to make money. it ALL seems pretty unethical to me. it becomes quite frustrating to me when people defend these corporations. you will never be a billionaire, especially by being honest. they know that. that's why they're running the world. so, what game are we playing? the honest slave, or the opportunistic capitalist? alright, i'm just ranting. i see both sides, but i would probably stand to benefit if one of these megacorps "stole" some of my original art. we aren't stealing their ideas and claiming them as our own. we are giving them free advertising. is it ethical? well, does anyone get harmed? are we getting our games and merch mass produced by chinese slave labor? i feel pretty ethical about it. then again, laws created by psychopaths don't dictate my ethics. remember, the law is NOT there to protect the average work-a-day individual, but to protect the profits of the "job creators". let me get my soapbox and i'll be on my way...

[JenTheTracy]

If it was up to me, there would be no money. I could give my art away for free, and I could eat for free as well. I'm not talking about the ideal world. The ideal world would be a lot more fair. Capitalism is not my cup of tea, but it is the tea being served.

In this set up, if we take away the corporation's right to defend their intellectual property, we take away our own rights to earn a living from what we create.

[JenTheTracy]

I don't think there's anything wrong with sounding "occupy". It is absurd that corporations have the same rights as people.

[Former_Member]

it is a grey area. i'm just gonna keep on doin what i do. as far as legality, the reason it is illegal is because we're on etsy. it's technically being marketed commercially. you are allowed to sell any of your possessions. how about collectibles? massive amounts of profits are going to individuals that did not create the object in question. now, how is THAT any different? so, in a REAL legal situation where i would have equal access to attorneys as the corporation, the judge would rule in my favor under fair use. it would be very hard to prove that the money i make on here could be considered profit. profit is what's left over after rent and food. the laws are being misinterpreted and abused so that the biggest can stay big. even in art. those bastards.

[Former_Member]

sorry for getting a bit angry there, it is a hot button subject for me...

[JenTheTracy]

It's a hot button subject for everyone. I did not mean to insight anger.

[MichelleEcksteinArt]

Time for a laugh: http://27bslash6.com/covers.html

[Former_Member]

and that guy could actually get sued. they could try suing me, but in order for income to be garnished, you have to make a certain amount over poverty. that's another example of a situation where the people with the lawyers think they are "right"...

[HollysHaunts]

I hate this issue. HAHA

I cover bracelets with comic book pages. I wish the legal rules about it were as simple as describing what I make. I have read a number of things, I even read what I do is GREY to the lawyers themselves!

What I have read is: As long as I am not printing the images I use from the computer, and I am BUYING the comic and then cutting them up, I am fine. First sale doctrine says that if I buy something, I can resell it. People resell comic books, so why can't I resell a strip of my comic glued to a bracelet?

I applied to be in a convention a week ago, and was scared silly. I got a letter for one of my thor bracelets when the movie came out a while ago, and I haven't put any Avengers into my shop since. I was always too scared to apply to sell at a convention incase what I am doing is horribly wrong. The guy running it only asked me if I was using actual comics, or copies of pictures. Once I told him that they were comics I had purchased, he was fine with my product.

So with that being said, I am super confused. If my etsy shop gets shut down, I suppose I will be going to more conventions.

If we go to jail.. at least it will be a jail filled with Nyan cat sweater knitters and gamers ;)

[Former_Member]

you don't usually go to jail for this sort of thing. they seem to want to treat this issue as counterfeiting. we are not counterfeiting, we are making things which don't exist yet. even if you were to photocopy comix and make stuff out of them, what's the difference between that and scouring the dollar bin at the local back-issue shop? the publishers don't get the money from it either way.

[Former_Member]

An interesting read here. This topic is completely grey to me, I didn't even know Etsy issued warnings! I think I will re-evaluate my store.

[CuttingPixels]

I pretty much completely agree with your original post Jen. It's something I think about a lot. I've tried to have a converstaion like this with others, mostly people who want me to put out Disney or football stuff, and it always flops. I try to explain that I don't create Disney princess silhouettes because you can go to Disney and buy them and I don't offer football posters because you can get those from the companies. Im creating using someone else's subject, but not something they offer and not direct replicas. So, though it falls on the gray area, I don't ethically feel I'm doing anything wrong. I havnt had any strikes against me, but I do worry sometimes.

[ArdentlyCrafted]

I know this is a super old thread, but I noticed Alia that your Nuka caps are up. Did you ever here back on them?

[JenTheTracy]

Shhh, don't jinx the Nuka caps.

[CuttingPixels]

Oops I didn't know it was old. I followed the gamer digest here since it said new post.

[JenTheTracy]

It's OK that it's old. It's a topic that relevant to most of our shops. Nice to keep it open for discussion.

[Former_Member]

Kathleen, no, I never heard back from anybody, but after a while, I just decided to put them back up because they are my best sellers. That was a year ago or so I think and I haven't heard anything so I guess they're okay.