Are you a designer on Society6? Did you know that Society6 is also selling our products on Amazon – which is great since it broadens our potential customers. But somehow, Chinese sellers (I have only found Chinese sellers, so it seems they are all solely from China) are stealing your designs (mainly pillows and phone cases) and are selling them on Amazon for a much lower price. It is impossible that these fraudulent Chinese sellers might have bought them from us before re-selling them (maybe with a discount to justify the low price). Let me show you one example with screenshots to clarify what I mean:
This is the original item over on Society6 and MY item that Society6 had legally shared to Amazon in order to use the huge Amazon Marketplace. Click on the screenshot to get to the Amazon page:
by Society6
As you can see, the seller is Society6 and both title and description feature my artist name Christine aka stine1. The price is $20 which is the same as if you bought it at Society6 itself.
Now here is the screenshot from the copied Amazon item, click on the screenshot to get to the page [Amazon has removed the item after their second email]:
Here, the seller is E-Lineage. My user name is still in the title since the title was copied but it was removed from the description. And what does the word “Octopus” have to do within the title? The price is $14.50 which is too low. The seller himself has no transactions yet, so no ratings available.
I had contacted Society6 and sent them both links, this is their not so helpful reply:
Hi Christine,
Thank you for contacting Society6 Support.
I went ahead and looked into this for you.
These throw pillows do not look like they were purchased from Society6 or else it would show up in your earnings under at least one of your products sold.
I would recommend contacting the seller or Amazon directly for more information on this one. From my end it does look a bit “suspect”.
Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to assist you.Sincerely,
Jeffrey
So, Society6 finds this “suspect” but they cannot (or do not want to) do anything about it. I followed their advice and tried to contact the seller on Amazon and…. oh, what a surprise…. my message could not reach him:
Now the real fun begins. Hey, it’s a weekend, I have time on my hands and love to spam someone with tickets. So I contacted Amazon. Actually, with my second ticket – they never replied to my first inquiry yesterday asking how a seller can sell an item that is mine and that he does not own. But they only promise to answer within 12 hours. Maybe they need a few more days to understand my first email.
Anyway, the answer to my second ticket (where I sepecifically asked how I could contact E-Lineage since I got this error message) is so funny, I thought it was a joke. Here is their reply:
Hello,
I am sorry for the inconvenience you faced so far in this case. As a customer service representative, I’m willing to help you in this issue.
In my experience, seller is in better position to help you. If you’d like to get in touch with a seller before placing an order, follow these steps:
1. Go to the product listing you’re interested in (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YC0EDQG)
2. Click on the seller’s nickname or logo
3. Scroll down to “Further Information” and click “Contact the seller”Please give the seller 2 business days to get back to you.
You can learn more about ordering from a seller here:
www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=537802
Your patience and understanding is highly appreciated in this matter.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Best regards,
Nikhil J.
Wow, thank you so much for this advice. I mean, I never would have thought about that… oh wait, I DID exactly what you are describing here, mhhh… ^^
So I used their awesome feedback form relating to this email and am currently waiting for a second reply. This time, maybe a bit more helpful. Maybe…. just maybe!
Anyway, I strongly recommend to run an Amazon search for your Society6 username. You never know what you will find… 🙂
UPDATE 2015-05-31:
Amazon has finally took the time to REALLY understand my concern and I would like to share their answer with out as it entails a way to report these stolen products. Please use it and report, report, report. Only by this, we can fight back. It might take some time but I really do hope that it will improve the situation for all Society6 members!
Greetings from Amazon Seller Support,
I reviewed your email and understand that you are unable to contact the seller violates by taken your product image.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
To report this possible violation to our investigations team, you can use the following Contact Us form:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/reports/contact-us
Select one of the sub-categories and enter the details of the possible violation. Please be sure to include the following information, as applicable:
* The ASIN/ISBN of the item’s detail page and the product title
* The store or business name of the seller you are reporting
* Your order ID
* A concise explanation of the violationAll reports are thoroughly investigated by our investigations team and they will contact the seller from their end. For privacy reasons, the results of our investigations cannot be disclosed; however, disciplinary actions will be taken as appropriate.
I hope this information was helpful.
If you have further issues in this regard, please write back to us. We will be happy to assist you in this regard.
Have a great day!
And thank you Amazon for this solution! It’s good to know that you still DO care about us 🙂 Thumbs up! [The product has been removed from the marketplace]
Zizzling Zazzle - Christine aka stine1 blogging 
Same thing happened with me, only http://clipart.co , based in South America, lifted my piano keys frame border with sheet music centered, specifically re-configured for Society 6’s 2×3 feet , area rug, from my society 6 profile. And clipart.co has no registry contact. Society 6’s response was so beyond unbelievable, sent from their legal team, and the line that astounded me, in their reply was, “Please remember, finding your artwork on another site is usually a good thing! In fact we encourage and support the sharing of your artwork … You won’t make any friends if you’re issuing unwarranted DMCA takedown notices to someone trying to give your work more exposure because they admire it!” Uh, wrong answer Society 6! That was their response to me, which was a major slap in the face to me. Unfortunately, in regard to China, their country does not recognize our copyrights, or any copyrights from any country that signed the Bern Convention Copyright Act of 1976. I sometimes wonder what is the point in an artist getting legal copyrights of their work, if it’s going to be lifted / stolen, regardless of copyright? I took everything off of Society 6, except my chevron patterns, because anyone can make a chevron pattern lol
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Now that you are writing about it, I do remember seeing my book on Amazon.com, and my book sells through Amazon through the Lulu.com Extended Reach program, but I remember seeing my book selling, from a country that I didn’t remember as being listed in my sales on Lulu. Hmmm … Of course, people have the right to resell items, on auctions and what not, unfortunate, but part of life.
I hope that this isn’t happening with the other POD sites, because I make nice sales, legitimate, authorized sales from and through Amazon, for my Lulu.com, zazzle.com, and cafepress.com stores.
Also, Society 6 wrote, in the same reply, “It has been determined that at this size (and at screen resolution) there is no way to reproduce a printed product fit for sale.
We do not enable watermarks over your images as research shows it deters people from purchasing your products. There is no other successful online retailer that uses watermarking technology. You may find another site that offers watermarks, but you will quickly discover that all you’ll end up with is watermarked images and dismal sales.
We enable right clicks because this is a great way to allow members and other people to link to your work and give you additional exposure. We believe that disabling right clicks is not a true protection and does more harm than good ”
So, why do Cafepress, Zazzle, and FineArtAmerica.com have watermarks on our art ,on their products, Society 6, I say?
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Oh my gosh, that’s horrible. I had also thought about deleting my stuff from Society6 but I only found this one pillow so far and am finally (after 2 years) getting more and more sales on Society6. I do not want to give up now.
Amazon finally answered and there is a way to report “stolen” products. I will try to update this post later today with this new information and I will try it myself.
Regarding the watermarks, I have them activated on Zazzle and am very glad about it. There has been a lot of trouble with Snapmade.com this week and I only had one pet water bowl copied to their site.
In case you haven’t seen it, here is the link to the Zazzle forum thread:
https://forum.zazzle.com/basic/please_check_this_site_for_your_art?m=1099305
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Fabricframes- I got the exact same reply from S6 almost to the letter in the past when I have contacted them. Blah blah blah their theory about watermarks, I so don’t believe it. I have had so much work stolen off the site, selling all over the internet for dirt cheap! They don’t give a damn.
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I am also on 3DRose and this exact same thing happened two years ago around the Christmas gift holiday. Needless to say that our holiday pay was not good.
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I really wished that Society6 would give a damn 😦
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Fight against Image Theft on Amazon! #stopimagetheft
https://t.co/RgzP43Bs8a
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Oh dear I saw several of my designs from Society6 on amazon, and I truly thought that when they sold products on amazon with our design on it, we still earn the commission. So that was also a scam? How very sad.
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It depends.
Official products from Society mention your user name and that they are designed by independent artists.
Stolen products might have your user name in the headline, but not in the description text.
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