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That is one cute throw pillow Dain!

a cute pillow for a sweet deal...(did you see what I did there.)
tenkus my huckleberry friend. 8)

Regards,
8)

Whoa! I think this character is my favorite one!!!

Awesome. 8) 8) 8P smoke m if u got m. 8)

Society 6 is just the WORST! I follow another artist on Facebook (Christopher Uminga) who just had the same issue with another seller stealing his (and plenty of other artists') work.
Although I readily support artists' ability to sell their work in an easy format, I can no longer support or recommend the purchase of Society 6 products because I simply can't be sure that I'm rewarding the proper artist whose work I admire.
Society 6 needs to tighten the ranks and make it a little more difficult to sell just any old thing. If a seller has more than two wildly different styles it's a sure bet that the art in question isn't theirs.

Hi Anon, Thank you for your support and for chiming in! I greatly appreciate you adding new info to the conversation. It's difficult for me to understand how S6 prioritizes the importance or severity of infringement. There is the type you mentioned -artists on S6 stealing other artists' work (something I was not aware of til now on S6). There is my issue of infringement by other parties (mine overseas) selling products which, it is crystal clear to me, were created using designs I specifically templated for my S6 products and they were the only other servers besides my own that had access to those art files. Then there is the infringement of artists on S6 using trademarks and trademarked characters in their work. This is rampant on S6 and has been for a long time. I am not sure what steps they take to address that type of infringement but whatever they do, it does not seem to be working. There is this perception that it is ok to rip off a larger, more popular intellectual property like Batman, Barbie or Hello Kitty. In my book IP is IP and IP crime is IP crime no matter how big or indie your property is. And it amazes me how rampant this one is because I don't understand where some of these peope draw the line at creative integrity and originality. I guess there is parody of public figures and that can fall under Fair Use but who writes that script? Eek... I apologize for getting off track here from the original subject. It's just that there are several IP issues. Such a slippery slope.

Wow, their response is completely unacceptable and looks as if your note was disregarded. I was lead to your site by a large art group on FB, many contemplating selling on S6. After your experience and S6's truly disheartening lack of caring about their artist community I don't think any of them will be using their site. Plus many who were there will be shutting own their shops. Thanks for your open communication. All of us do need to stick together to make sure this stops.
Sincerely,
Susan

Seconding Susan's comment above... Totally unacceptable response from Society 6. Dismissive and even a little condescending when you have supplied them all the details already.

I'm so sorry you had to go through this.
You can be sure word of this will spread around like wildfire.

I wish you the best of luck with legal correspondence to the offending party {vultures, as you called them - wonderful description for these thieves who can't or won't make their own art}

I think we've all learnt something from this. I certainly have.

Best wishes,
Cat

Jeez, Kathy- That is scary! I've had my artwork on Society 6 for less than a year and this definitely makes me question my decision to upload product there. I guess I always had a nagging doubt with these sites as they pretty much admit they can't protect our art any way. Thank you for sharing and good luck!

-Joe

Susan, Thanks for chiming in. Yes I agree, my massage was blatantly disregarded. It's perplexing to me, the S6 model of part shop/part community with really a hands-off, ignorant, hear no evil/see no evil/speak no evil approach to situations like this. It's completely backwards to treat individual cases like this as so unimportant as to not even warrant a complete reading of my message, when their community consists completely of individual artists coming together under their roof. It's very scary, the more scary the more I think about it. And when I think about the research I did (or tried to do) before joining... I did email back and forth with them trying to get a handle on their process, looking for more transparency. I never got it. but I went ahead with my shop anyway. I learned a really important lesson there. Just another case of my gut fully knowing what my intellect didn't have the words to communicate, at the time. My gut comes FIRST these days.Just sometimes, it's hard to tell. But the more I listen, the better I get at hearing it.

Nicole / Joe - Thanks for chiming in! I am so glad to have a blog where I can share great, awesome positive stuff but also stuff that affects ALL of us and may not be so pretty such as this infringement issue. The more I read and learn, the more I'm seeing a scarlet letter G for Guilty on Society6.

Kathy,

I remember when you first came to me for art licensing consultation, you had this small group of illustrations of cats and dogs. We talked about all that these illustrations could be for product designs. MMM, maybe I was really on to something way back then? I told you!

Hey Carol, why yes, you certainly did give the concepts your seal of approval didn't you! :D