@Connie I highly doubt a thief would search Zazzle forums and look under all the topics to look for ideas on how to steal. Thieves already know how to do it. They are ALWAYS on the lookout for high resolution images without watermarks on the internet.
I know that Zazzle had the ability to turn off watermarks and a lot of creators have always had their watermarks off. However, the issue here is Zazzle had the watermarks option for those who wanted to enable it and it was working for the ones who had enabled it. But then they railroaded us into losing the watermarks without even giving us a heads-up, even when they know that many artists/creators/designers are sensitive about this issue for various serious reasons.
Also, there is another problem that everyone needs to consider. While I and many others make their designs from scratch, there are a LOT of creators on Zazzle who use stock art as-is for their listings. One of the MAJOR Terms Of Use of pretty much all commercial-use stock art out there, whether or not they are allowed for POD usage, is that the stock art should NOT be easily extractable by a third party. Now zazzle creators who had diligently turned on watermarks to adhere to this specific term of use, if they're still unaware about this watermark problem, are now unwittingly violating copyright terms of use of the original stock artist, for no fault of their own, since Zazzle implemented this thoughtless policy even more thoughtlessly.
Even I had refrained discussing about this for the first few weeks I saw this post, thinking it was a bug that would be fixed, but when we heard nothing, I knew something was wrong, and that this would significantly affect me and others who care about this issue.
There is no other place where we can discuss this matter. It needs to be a thread that is accessible to Zazzle Creators of all levels, because everyone is investing their efforts here, or has invested significant efforts here, and at least deserves to be able to protect their intellectual property. (If Mods want to move it they can move it to Pro Basic, but they're not moving it, so it's their choice if they want to keep this public.)
Though Zazzle implemented this policy change deceptively, and we cannot do anything about it other than vent in the forums, the distress Zazzle's thoughtless actions has caused us at least warrants open discussion, so we may support each other in thoughts, as we grapple with our new reality, and ponder where to invest our energy next, since corporates are turning out to be ruthlessly unreliable these days towards the same users who brought them all the success by promoting their websites. It has become a trend from online marketplaces to social media. If you read other forums also you'll see people complaining about unfair policy changes. Corporates really don't care about social impact, but they should. They should stop acting like livelihoods don't depend on them, and take some responsibility. If they have to do something mega stupid like removing watermarks in the age of digital theft, then fine do it, but at least give the artists a heads-up who care about the protection of their work.
What's done is done. At least let us talk about it on the forums in peace. Let us vent. No, they keep removing posts. At this rate, one will have to go discuss this matter on Reddit.
Why should artists who care about their work have to lose out after putting in so much of effort? That is now the question here. We don't like this crappy treatment. I'm tired of corporates treating us like tennis balls. We're losing out for no fault of ours. Zazzle basically gave us 2 options: 1) Either risk your artwork getting stolen and put on other marketplaces where it is notoriously difficult to get the thieves to take down your work OR 2) Lose income
I have chosen the 2nd option because I have already experienced the first option many times to know how horrendous it feels, and how helpless one feels.
It's an incredibly unfair policy change that will negatively affect a lot of people sooner or later, and therefore it at least warrants a heartfelt discussion on the forum that is meant for exactly that, Zazzle-related discussion.
And no one can justifiably reprimand someone else on the forum for wanting to discuss issues that are going to affect their livelihood.
OR Zazzle can make a new policy change that says, it is imperative for ALL Zazzle Creators to pretend to be soulless bots and not utter any single word in the forum that displays any semblance of emotion or emotional distress. If they make that a new company policy, we will have to stop discussing here, because we are not bots, and will not pretend to be so either.
(When I say 'we' I mean me and anyone who agrees with me word-to-word. Everyone speaks for themselves of course. And if anyone read my whole post without going "TLDR" then you and other people like you who still read are the reason I still have some faith in the dying breed of humanity. LOL)
Cheers
