DON'T IGNORE COPY CATS!

Two weeks ago I did a stupid thing and typed the words hangry into Etsy. What I saw made me felt like I had been punched. And then I got really annoyed!! I have written before about being copied and I know lots of people think its "flattering" and to "not worry about it" etc but I am not one of those people. I cannot ignore it and it is STEALING! It is theft! I saw that three sellers were blatantly copying. I mean WORD FOR WORD!! 

The top one is my original cushion design, that you have seen me flog a million times and shown here as a comparison:

These ones are the copies: 

Addition: I removed the photos of the items as one of the people who originally copied me feels that it will be ok if she just changes some words on the design and keeps selling them. SERIOUSLY!! 

                                                          

I am not claiming to have made up the word hangry. But I made up THIS definition. I made it up myself. I also came up with the idea of putting a definition of Hangry on something. No one was selling anything with the word hangry on it when I started selling it- I searched extensively at the time, in September 2011. I came up with this idea, the cushion was first published here and on Etsy in October 2011. 

So I sent a convo to all the sellers saying basically you are copying please don't. I got a reply from the pyrex dish person who said they had been "inspired by " a hangry item they saw and  they wanted to see my copyright. I knew enough at this point to know that in Australia you do not have to register  copyright, it is automatic. I also knew that copying someone who has copied me was still copying. So I remembered a while ago a few people had seen a solicitor at the Creative Womens Circle  speak and recommended her to me. So I rang her. She agreed to write a letter of demand to Etsy, as outlined in their policies. 

Etsy removed the offending items immediately after they got the letter. 

This is basically the crux of it:

1. In Australia copyright does not need to be registered to be covered and is automatically protected under the:Copyright Act 1968 (Cth).Both Australia and the U.S are signatories of the Berne Convention, an international agreement covering copyright "

2. The Berne Convention requires its signatories to recognize the copyright of works of authors from other signatory countries (known as members of the Berne Union) in the same way as it recognizes the copyright of its own nationals." 

And: 

"Copyright under the Berne Convention must be automatic; it is prohibited to require formal registration (note however that when the United States joined the Convention in 1988, it continued to make statutory damages and attorney's fees only available for registered works)." (Meaning if you want to sue for damages you need to register copyright- not the case in Australia) 

So the story could end there but it doesn't. This is the amazing bit! The t-shirt guy, lets call him Bob, contacted me. He was very genuinely apologetic. He had the design submitted to him and didn't realise it was a copy. Bob sells a lot of T-shirts. Bob designs a lot of his own tshirts and he gets really upset when people rip off his design. Bob gets it.  So how great is Bob? 

This is what Bob did: 

Bob gave me ALL THE MONEY HE HAD MADE FROM THE SALE OF THE HANGRY TSHIRT. Yep. Into my paypal account. Cash. he offered to do this. 

But that's not all. Bob is also going to send me all the tshirts that were already printed. So I can do what I want with them. How great is that? I think Bob deserves three cheers! 

I don't think you should sit by and do nothing when someone blatantly copies you. I hate the thought that others may think I copied someone else. I think it's really important to protect your work. I am so glad I listened to my gut and did something. I felt really good about standing up for myself.

You can read more about Copyright in Australia here. And the Berne Convention is explained easily here. 

Also thank you to Lisa at The Red Thread who told me about her experiences  in the past and also Stacey at Veggie Mama who  explained all this stuff to me a while ago when I was having a similar issue but was not in the headspace to pursue it. 

And thank you for all of you on Twitter who recommended a good lawyer. 

and  THANK YOU  to everyone who sees my Hangry design and tells me if its not credited to me - yes FACEBOOK I am looking at you.