People stealing SVG files and reselling them

[CatherineMakesItUSA]

Hello, I am pretty new to selling on Etsy and I sell SVG files.  I am seeing a lot of people saying that people are stealing their SVG files and selling them for much lower prices.  I thought maybe Etsy should make it so it is impossible for anyone to resell someone's work by putting a tag or a serial number on the actual file that will be sold this way if someone tries to resell it they won't be able to because that person would not be able to download it to their Etsy shop and if the seller is ok with someone reselling then maybe the seller should have a security code they could give out for that person to be able to do that.. does this make sense? lol  There has to be something Etsy can do to stop this.  I know people can trace a design and try to steal a design like that but there should also be a way that if someone tries to do that that maybe the shop owner can be notified.. something like a fire alarm? lol Anyway, I was just wondering if there is any way to avoid this from happening.  Is there an Etsy suggestion site? 

[bradgoodell]

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but...  

The way the law is written, legally, it's up to you to protect your intellectual property.  Etsy has "safe harbor" status.  Getting Etsy involved would only add a layer of complexity that Etsy is unlikely to want to take on.  Legally, Etsy cannot judge who owns the IP.  You can register it (in some places) but that costs money, and if it's not registered, it is up to the courts to decide.  Since many SVG files use commercially available fonts and clipart, you could have near-identical SVGs that legally, no one really owns.  

I'd rather Etsy work on cleaning up the bugs on this site, as well as get rid of the obvious resellers.  

[StitchyFrood]

If you involve Etsy in defending your intellectual property, they have legal grounds to claim a stake in your intellectual property. Are you interested in paying them a percentage of all sales on and off the site forever? I'm not. 

[BigXStudio]

Unfortunately what you describe is a form of active digital asset management, the same type of system that Amazon uses for "loaning" its kindle books to only open on their devices for a set time. There are 2 main problems with these types of system. First, it is only practical for very large content publishers due to the cost of developing the system and the level of control needed over the apps used by the end user to access the content. Second, these types of controls are hacked almost as fast as they are implemented. For small content creators, protecting their IP can be a full time battle and there really isn't a great solution as making use of your legal protections often costs far more than any compensation you are ever likely to get.