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Have to love people like this guy 👆 who straight up when I told him that my design was not available for digital download told me he was just giving me the courtesy of offering me a few bucks as he had already screenshot the invitation to use to send to all his friends. Ugh! I wish people had morals.
You are not the only one. There is a discussion going on here:
Would be good if you can post there as well so Zazzle can see how nasty bad the problem really is.
I completely understand your frustration with this, but please do not post screenshots that include anyone’s name.
Unbelievable… He should be banned from the site for admitting to stealing in my opinion. Obviously he can just make another account, but this absurd. I feel like I need to start watermarking all my art, but that is not necessarily the best choice either for promotion or showcasing the products in the best way. I just had to issue a DCMA to have my e-book removed from a site where another person was offering it as the author. And I’m just a little barely seen artist/designer. It feels like the digital/internet attitude of “if I can get it for free it’s mine” is running rampant.
I’m sorry to hear this Malissa! I’m happy to add links to your eBook meanwhile to my sites if you want an extra boost of traffic. I can add it to your features.
Thank you Leah. I offer it for free as a thank you for signing up for my newsletter, so I am not sure if you would want to link it like that, but, if you still wanted to, I can send you the mockup image I use as well as the direct link to the squeeze page for the signup form. You can message me here if you want.
A long LONG time ago, I remember inserting a few lines of code (JavaScript?) into one of my websites to block the use of the Print Screen function (of course, in this day and age, that alone won’t deter the other ways thieves will do screengrabs).
Redbubble has watermarking protection in place for artists’ artwork, and certain apps already block screenshots on Android devices.
W.H.
yes Melissa, send it across 
If you block screen grabs from Zazzle we won’t be able to take them ourselves for promotional reasons. Although blocking thieves would be awesome it also blocks the creator as well. There lies the rub for sure.
They can also steal images off of other sites where we promote, so that isn’t the answer either.
I know this isn’t really a productive reply, but
GRRRRRRRRRRRR.
Productive idea, based of requests I have received from potential customers via Zazzle messages: There seems to be a customer demand for digital downloads of our designs right on site here. A way for us to assign a monetary value would be a great option.
People would still steal, but at least we’d catch the honest customers.
Once again, this only confirms that people actually WOULD buy digital invites if the option to do so is right there. This guy wouldn’t bother with screenshots and moreso with chat if he could simply “Buy this as a digital invite” for a reasonable price like $10-15. The designer would get their royalty as a few bucks and Z would get their share as a few bucks which is again better than nothing as they had no intention to buy a printed bunch anyway.
I may be wrong, but lately I’ve been under the impression that the demand for digital invites grows stronger and people are willing to pay for those. At the same time, digital thievery grows stronger as well (again, it’s what I’ve been seeing, I have no statistics). So all I can think of is either watermarks or creating a way to buy a digital version so people don’t go out of their way to steal it.
I also think that the situation will only worsen with time. It’s one thing when thieves steal digital images to resell (has always been there, will always be there); but it’s another thing when a general population figures that if they want it digital for personal purposes they can steal it as there’s no option to buy it.
Uh people think 50 cents is a reasonable price for a digital download. Anything more than that and I think they’ll steal the image. I have noticed a big change in customers in the past few months - and it hasn’t been for the better. I am really considering watermarks on everything.
I totally agree. I probably get 3-4 requests per week at minimum. I know some designers use images that they didn’t create themselves, and the license they’ve purchased wouldn’t allow for a download, so it would have to be an opt-in sort of thing, but I do think that for certain products (specifically invitations) there should be a designer option to allow the customer to purchase a download. The purchase could come with a personal use license. Obviously, there will be some abuse - but the abuse is already happening - and failing to provide legitimate users a way to pay for a download only hurts us.
Second thought… I wonder if there are licensing issues with the fonts that Zazzle provides? I sorta doubt it, but maybe that’s the issue?
how rude,
Thieves will steal no matter what we do… but they don’t have to rub it in our faces that way.
regarding the fonts, there actually are a few that are not available to download for free so that might well be part of the hesitancy.
I don’t have a dog in this race as I don’t publish much in the way of stationery, but I am against Zazzle offering digital downloads.
I spent many years in a home-remodeling business. There are specialists and there are jacks-of-all-trades. And there’s a saying “jack of all trades, master of none”. Zazzle prints physical products (and does it well in my experience) with a heavy emphasis on customizing which no other POD I’ve looked into can do - letting the end-customer actually edit/customize the design. Digital downloads are a whole 'nother direction that would take focus away from their main business model of custom printing and there’s enough there to be fixed/improved before venturing out into a whole different line of business. I don’t want to see Zazzle become a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. The introduction of the Create tool for making downloadable images for use on social media complicated things enough. Does Zazzle want to be a printer or a stationer or a stock image site or something like Canva or all of the above? Trying to be all things to all people usually ends with not doing anything well.
That said, on to the other aspect.
People have mentioned $10-15 for a digital download and that while it wouldn’t be much after Zazzle took a share, it would still be better than nothing. But would you really want to sell-out that cheaply? Once someone has a high-quality digital copy of your design, they can put it on ANYTHING . 25, 50, 200 invitations, t-shirts, signs, mugs, favors, anything. Here or uploaded to any other print service online or locally brick & mortar. It wouldn’t matter what was written in the Terms of Use fine print as people are already OK with stealing images; if they paid for a download they would feel entitled to use it any way they wanted as often as they wanted and like, who would ever know if I violate those terms (if they even read them anyway). Digital download is giving customers carte blanche with your design.
There’s another thread here somewhere where a designer had someone ask them if they could buy a digital copy of their design for a pretty paltry sum + some shout-outs and the responses where, no, that’s not near enough, $300-400 were suggested. Why would one want to give away a “digital download” for less? Even if you were willing to settle for as little as say $30, it would probably have to sell for around $50 so Zazzle could take a cut and still give you the $30. And I believe Nelda is right - people aren’t going to be willing to pay that much so they’ll steal it anyway. I don’t think they’d pay even the $10-15 when they could just grab it for free and who would ever know?
I don’t think that giving your work away for peanuts because “it’s better than nothing” is logical. Instead of introducing digital downloads I’d rather see Zazzle put that time & effort instead to developing anti-theft measures for their existing business model.
I totally get where you’re coming from, and I think that for the vast majority of designs/products your stance is completely reasonable. But when it comes to wedding invitations, most couples these days have a wedding website where they post all of the relevant information including digital copies of their invitations. I’ve lost quite a few orders because people wanted their digital invite to match the printed ones and it wasn’t possible.
I’m NOT suggesting that people be able to buy a digital download instead of ordering printed invites, but I do think it would be helpful if people could buy a digital version in addition to the printed ones - like maybe it’s only available with a minimum purchase of 100 printed invites or something like that.
I agree about the “jack of all trades” thing, but I do think there’s a balancing act in terms of keeping up with the industry, and for the wedding industry at least, having a website is pretty much just part of the game these days. Part of me would even like to see Zazzle offer wedding websites, but once again, that’s venturing off into a whole new business area, so I dunno.
I sorta think it’s a moot point because I don’t really see Zazzle moving in that direction, but that’s my 2 cents from the wedding perspective - you either keep up or lose out.
I am not putting my designs on a digital version. Period. I really don’t want the pressure that this type of policy would force me into. I have already had to start selling Budget versions because customers “see other designers doing it” and they want cheaper versions. Creating digital versions ensures that that design will end up everywhere. It also allows other designers on other platforms to get that digital version.