Designs stolen and sold over Facebook messenger

[BeautBotanical]

Hello all, 

I received an email today with a Facebook messenger screen shot where a woman was selling one of my Zazzle designs (and those I also recognise from other designers) that must have been screen shotted and taken directly off the site. 

I was wondering if there's anything I can do about this, as it's not as easy as reporting an Etsy page etc where the stealing of images is obviously on display?

Thank you,

[JB]

I'm nervous about turning them on too, because Zazzle kept telling us not to because it would impact our score on Google. But we have to be able to do something to protect IP.

[deznr07]

Didn't do a thing to my score, and it has gone up recently. They still can be erased because Zazzle has a poor watermark layout. 

[JB]

I'm glad to hear it hasn't affected your internal score but I didn't mean the Zrank. Zazzle says google doesn't like it. and I have things that currently show up at the top of google searches for specific things that I don't want to lose that if I change the view. I know a determined or savvy person can remove, but the general screen shotter isnt that person, so I am sure the watermarks help some!

[ievajen]

I photograph weddings and I see printed large banners terribly pixelated with canva watermark all over, and people apparently paying for that. Last week at the party baby's favor boxes had stretched pixelated images and some they managed to stick upside down... the service provider was priced above average

[Windy]

That's stunning. Sounds like part of what we are fighting is lack of desire to buy quality. 

[idraw]

Hi legajen, unrelated to the topic, just thought  I would mention, saw this nicely done mug you created in one of your shops—-
Best friends personalized photo and name coffee mug—-

<https://www.zazzle.com/best_friends_personalized_photo_and_name_coffee_mug-168940321545059381>

[WittyBetty]

I still think that smaller product views + magnify feature (as Windy suggested) will do far better job than watermarks. Amazon does it. And it works just fine. I hope Z chooses this. It is not only useful for screenshot prevention but also dare I say entertaining for customers.

[deznr07]

If they wanted to be really patient, all they would have to do is screen capture the top, then move the mouse and do the bottom. Then put the two images together. I think a bunch of watermarks that are light in color and all over more will help a bunch.

[WittyBetty]

More likely, screen cap the top left, then the top right, then the bottom left, then the bottom right, then put together removing stitches .... something that takes almost as much work as removing watermarks.

But sure enough, the large source image the magnifying glass works with must be by no means available to download by Save the Page. This is something bots and educated thieves can get anyway (as opposite to a watermarked image). And I am not sure how it can be done code wise.

All in all, I've had a feeling that the situation with image thievery is worsening lately, and I do have a feeling that something must be done about that. I also have a feeling that this will worsen further very soon.

[Connie]

It is NOT entertaining for customers! As frequent Amazon shopper, I HATE the zoom feature! It makes it very difficult to see fine details on a product, which are often very important.

[BeautBotanical]

I've just found more of my artwork stolen, I used the 'search google image' and someone is using one of my business cards as a background for their Facebook business. You can tell it's been taken from Zazzle as a screenshot because it's identical to the marble background provided with the RealView technology. 

[MissPaperFarm]

Facebook has a copyright claim form https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/1758255661104383 I've never used it, but I remember the Twitter one said it would take your home address and information and GIVE it to the perpetrator! So, I never reported on Twitter, but FB might be different. Another thing I do is make sure to put my copyright information over all the front covers of my collections, just to ward anyone who might even be thinking about it. I know it makes the image look less than desirable at first, but that is the whole idea. It might make a person think twice. Another thing you can do is just leave a comment if possible under the image and say that it's your original image and for it to be please taken down and maybe put a link to your product. I've had my art stolen a number of times before I was on zazzle and I started really cracking down on it because it's very depressing. With all the hard work we do as designers to see something like that happen if the worst. Just make sure to brand your work as much as possible online so that people know it's yours and where it originates from and it might be less likely that someone will try to pull it off as their own. I'm so sorry to hear that happen to your work, my sympathies 😔