Adventures In Selling Online #7

Amazon's Problem With Image Thieves...The Story So Far!

Ah-harr me hearties, come with me, Davy Brodie, a Scottish Artist, Illustrator, And Film Maker, on a tale of  Image Thieves operating on the high seas of the Amazon marketplace.

It’s not for the lilly-livered! Along this journey you’ll find danger, thrills, and some damn funny illustrations. But beware - the tentacles of the ‘Image Thieves’ are wriggling around waiting to trap you at any moment!

'Tis the story of one plucky little guy asking Amazon to do the right thing, and support artists in making 'image thieves' walk the gangplank!

Read on, ship-mates, and together we’ll defeat the ‘Image Thieves’  and clear Amazon's briny sea of these ne'erdowells!

Here follows the illustrated adventure so far (these will also be animated into a short film)

The moment I realised Amazon's 'Image Thieves' had been selling my designs for over a year!

Having realised how many designs were being sold illegally, I set sail to rescue them all! (Notice the Amazon 'Image Thieves tentacles - scary!)

My first design rescued - Little Fox - who is also my store logo.

Next design to be rescued is Alfie and his apple. This design was highlighted on Image Thieves stores as 'Hurry selling fast - only 20 left' seething, yup..but Amazon are still profiting from this - so is it in their interest to stop it?

Sometimes there was as many as 11 different sellers offering my designs for sale on Amazon. That's one big mountain of pillows with my work on them!

Getting to the end - or so I thought - the 'Image Thieves' are fighting back..re-listing my t-rex design. One seller has it on each size and colour of t-shirt - these T-shirts stretch over 9 pages on amazon. Amazon stipulates that you have to report each of them individually - 9 pages worth!

The lighthearted sketches highlight a serious subject of copyright theft, and of course, each time I have to report a copyright infringement on Amazon, it eats into the time I should be working on creating new products, developing new work.

I'm only too happy to chat away on this subject. It's the first hand experience of a Scottish artist, who's trying to stop thieves stealing his original work.

So, join the adventure, let's sail on and ask Amazon do the right thing!

​Davy