I find this very Big Brother-like. A couple of months ago I created a T-shirt for myself about the Olympics. At first, I had the words Olympics in the T-shirt and as a result it was removed from Zazzle. Fair enough.
So, I thought to myself, well, if that's a copyright infringement then I'll just refer to the Olympics without actually using the word: Olympics.
Once again, it took them a while but they found me and they have asked Zazzle to remove my shirt. Unbelievable. I don't even use the word Olympics in the text. I don't understand how they can have the power to do that when I'm not even using the word Olympics in the text.
Here's what Zazzle sent me in an e-mail.
Dear Zazzler,
Thank you for your interest in Zazzle.com, and thank you for publishing products on Zazzle. Unfortunately, it appears that your product, “Five Ring Circus T-shirt”, is in violation of Zazzle’s Copyright policies. Specifically, your product has violated the intellectual property rights of the United States Olympic Committee.
We have been contacted by the United States Olympic Committee and we will be removing this product from the Zazzle galleries shortly.
Apparently the United States Olympic Committee has a lot of time on their hands and are really insecure about the Olympics.
I'd like to know why the United States Olympic Committee gets to make that decision when the Olympics are an international event - I'm a Canadian so I'm not one of their citizens - Thank you God - and they don't own Zazzle as far as I know.
And, everyone is going on about how there's no free speech in China and about how certain websites have been blocked. What did I say before in another post?
Get a mirror. Breath on it. Wipe away the fog!
2 comments:
They did the same thing to me. I made a postcard with a picture of the birds nest. I took the photo when I was on location and then manipulated the image in Photoshop so that it did not even look like a photo anymore, just a piece of art. They said the same things to me that they did to you.
I believe that Zazzle's stance violates my rights as an artist to make derivative works based upon publicly displayed buildings. Have to check with the lawyer though.
Go for it. The day it happened I was going to tell a friend of mine in the media but then I thought, just a minute, do I want my mug plastered all over the newspapers related to a t-shirt that says Vancouver 2010: Addiction & Homelessness. Maybe not. Let me know what happens if you proceed and things get "exciting".
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