Copyright Tags

English Spreadshop
#1

Hello! Two days after launching my shop, ten of my designs (that’s almost half!) were rejected for copyright.

But the designs themselves are fine. They’re text based, and some of them are words I’ve invented.

Here’s the problem. I used a band name as a tag–just a tag–simply because fans of this band would like these designs. When I tried to use the band name in the title or description, I got an error message. I fully understand a band’s name is copyright, but because I was able to include it as a tag, I figured tags were ok. It actually popped up as a suggested tag when I started typing the name! That’s not cool.

If these types of tags are not permitted, give us the same error that we get when we try to type them elsewhere. And definitely don’t suggest such words as tags.

A few other designs similar to the rejected ones were not removed. Why? Because the tags were something like “test” “test design” etc. I’d forgotten to go back and add specific tags. So I fully believe this is just a tag issue, which I have no problem removing.

Plus, these designs sat published for almost a month before I made my shop public. If there was an issue, it would’ve been nice to get it resolved before sharing the designs with everyone only for them to be taken down two days later.

I’ve already sent an email to legal but it as been a week now. Meanwhile, the 15% off when you first open your shop is down to 5 days, and anyone looking to purchase hasn’t been able to for the past week.

From reading other posts, I know you can’t share legal info here, but do I send a follow-up email? Wait it out until the promo is over? :frowning:

Thanks for any insight.

#2

Well. Still no response from my email or this post. The 15% off promo has expired and I know just as much now as I did on Oct. 22.

#3

Hey @LaurenSeeWrites,
sorry for the late response! I’m looking into it!

#4

Hey Lauren,
so I checked with the legal department and your designs have legitimately been rejected due to copyright reasons. I’m sorry I don’t have any better news… If you want to know more, please contact my colleagues in customer service - they can tell you exactly what was going on there. Thanks!

#5

Thanks for looking into this, even though it makes zero sense that a word I’ve invented could possibly have a copyright issue. Or that a shirt that says literally “keyboards, fists, nails” could be a problem.
So I’m contacting customer service? What about the legal team that I’d emailed before? Why have they not responded to me?
I know you’re just the messenger but this is quite a blow. Time to shop for a new company.

#6

Hey Lauren,
I know this topic is always a blow for it is often hard to comprehend. To me at least. All I can say at this point is that we don’t want to keep your shop from being successful. That’s that last thing we want! If there are any copyright issues though, we have to protect you and us also.

#7

Hi, @Britta_Spreadshop

I just ran into a similiar problem, and am more than purplexed by it.
I just finished uploading a bunch of designs, including some circle backs so that they could be used as background for the dream catchers I uploaded.

Where I started to run into errors, was while naming the colors of the backs. My backs are of sky and clouds, in different colors. I was unable to title one color as purple haze, which did make sense, because of the song I suppose, so I renamed it something else, but added haze into the tags (I think), because this described the sky (hazy).

Anyway, after all were finished uploading and descibed etc, I then noticed 3 were missing. One called Purple something, not sure if it was the one I tried to name haze ( I can’t remember now…)
One called Lime Sky, were both set to review, and a third called Purple Indigo Sky was rejected.

Confused by this. How does color get copyrighted?
Unfortunately, before I read some of the comments in the forum here, I went ahead and deleted them, so I am not sure if that was the correct thing to have done, but I would like to know why names of colors are rejected, as both purple, and indigo are legit names of colors.

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this, but since I am new to the forum, it did not seem to want to let me open a new topic.

Thanks for any responses.

#8

Hi @NoirStudio,
thanks for reporting. Copyright is always a difficult topic that I’d rather not get into too much. I forwarded your request to my colleagues but it would be best, if you got in touch with them directly: verify@spreadshirt.com
They know best and can answer your questions regarding the designs, copyright and what went wrong in your case. :slight_smile: Also: If a design is pending, it would be best to be a little patient. For your sake we have to check designs for copyright and this can take a few days.

#9

Thanks for replying.
I guess I got a little scared lol, as I read something about suspending or something to that extent, shops that get lots of rejections, and since one had already been rejected, and others started having pendings, I guess I was afraid those pending would also be rejects. I did not want to get booted out of here before I barely got started, and after all the time and work I put into tweaking the sites.

#10

Oh dear, no please don’t be scared! Rejections don’t have any thing to do with the trust we have in you and your shop! We only need to protect you (and also us) from copyright violations. Only few of those are being done intentionally - it’s almost always by mistake. Unfortunately that doesn’t protect any of us from lawyers. :upside_down_face: So if a design gets rejected and you want to know the reason - just ask my colleagues via the mail address I posted earlier. :nerd_face:

#11

Thank you…

#12

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