Teechip stole all of my Threadless T shirt art........... Have they stolen yours too?

I found out this weekend that all of my Threadless T shirt art has been stolen and posted for sale on Teechip.com on hundreds of items showing hundreds of sales.


This appears to be an ongoing problem for artists who have their art stolen and put for sale on Teechip.


Basically the thieves took my art from Threadless including my titles and put them for sale on Teechip.


Out of curiosity I looked to see if other artists from Threadless have been pirated and posted on Teechip and it appears they have.


I typed Threadless into Teechip search box and theives have even stolen the "Threadless" logo and posted it for sale on Teechip.


I suggest that artists who have set up shops here at Threadless, look at Teechip
and type in some of the titles to their artwork to see if they also have had their art stolen.


The procedure that Teechip uses regarding contacting them and issueing a DMCA takedown notice is I believe a tactic to enable thieves to get away with stealing art without revealing their identity. Basically the procedure is that an artist who has had their art stolen has to fill in an online form with their full name and address and electronic signature (whatever that is) Proof that they own the art with links etc.


(Original art is automatically copyrighted when displayed in public, online or in a gallery etc.)


Then what Teechip does is forward all of this information to the thief or thieves who stole the art.


Then only if the thief makes a counter claim saying they do have the right to reproduce and sell the art does the artist who had their art stolen get forwarded the details supplied by the thief.


My theory is that not one of these theives who blatantly stole art have responded and revealed themselves. Which means that teechip simply after a few convenient days deletes the items with the stolen art from Teechip and does not forward to the victim any information it has about the thief, name adress paypal account email they used etc etc. Which the victim can forward to the relevant authorities.


The whole set up looks geared to be able to cover up the identity of the thieves who sell stolen art on Teechip to vanish and to re emerge a few days later posting more stolen art and designs on Teechip.


Teechip is an international site.


One thing I do know is that Teechip uses dishonest tactics and false advertising (I have proof).


and this is just a theory at this stage and the theory is that it is Teechip insiders staff or management are involved in the theft of other peoples art from other Teeshirt sites.


So beware of Teechip.com if you have art for sale on Threadless.

Look at teechip and see if they have stolen your art and titles too.


I suggest also that someone from Threadless has a look at the Threadless logo being sold on Teechip.


I have contacted Teechip legal dept directly and will phone them directly if any of their lines are real.


I will also use social media in a direct way to make people aware of Teechip and the ongoing fraud this company appears to allow.


I have made screenshots of all my stolen art and saved web pages and links. I suggest others do the same.

Watch this
superdesigner
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I had this problem as well. They respond well to twitter messages, and took down the art within 24 hours, even some of the links I hadn't found yet. But it is still a problem, and soooo frustrating to deal with. I am sorry this happened to you.
ploppi
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superdesigner said:I had this problem as well. They respond well to twitter messages, and took down the art within 24 hours, even some of the links I hadn't found yet. But it is still a problem, and soooo frustrating to deal with. I am sorry this happened to you.
How did they respond when you sent them a message via twitter, ? Did they ask you to provide proof that you are the copyright holder or did they just take the items down? I have been saving screenshots from Teechip and one thing is certain they can be prosecuted for false advertising. From where I see things responding well to twitter messages is not good enough. It is an ongoing problem and Teechip have made thousans of dollars from these illegal sales when the copyright owner usually small independant artists does not spot their design or art on teechip in time. I believe the people who run Teechip are complicit in profiting from stolen art. Why do they not hand over the informtion that they have on the copyright thieves to the person who owns the copyright once the copyright holder has proven they own it in order for the copyright holder to be able to take action against the infringer? Instead all they do is delete teh item and delete the information. That looks like a cover up to me.
rodrigobhz
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Man, I hate this. I have found 7 designs of mine. I'm tired of spending the time to ask these people to remove stolen artwork from their websites. It's exhausting. I do think Threadless make their lives easier, it's so easy to stole artwork from here and on the Artist shops, the images previews are HUGE and without any watermark or disabled right-click. Seriously, people complain about this for a long time and we don't even receive an answer or position from the staff about this issue.
rodrigobhz
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ploppi said:
superdesigner said:I had this problem as well. They respond well to twitter messages, and took down the art within 24 hours, even some of the links I hadn't found yet. But it is still a problem, and soooo frustrating to deal with. I am sorry this happened to you.
How did they respond when you sent them a message via twitter, ? Did they ask you to provide proof that you are the copyright holder or did they just take the items down? I have been saving screenshots from Teechip and one thing is certain they can be prosecuted for false advertising. From where I see things responding well to twitter messages is not good enough. It is an ongoing problem and Teechip have made thousans of dollars from these illegal sales when the copyright owner usually small independant artists does not spot their design or art on teechip in time. I believe the people who run Teechip are complicit in profiting from stolen art. Why do they not hand over the informtion that they have on the copyright thieves to the person who owns the copyright once the copyright holder has proven they own it in order for the copyright holder to be able to take action against the infringer? Instead all they do is delete teh item and delete the information. That looks like a cover up to me.
They usually remove the stolen content and that's it. No punishment for the thieves. None of them does nothing to prevent or punish anyone. It's a no-man's-land.
ploppi
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rodrigobhz said:Man, I hate this. I have found 7 designs of mine. I'm tired of spending the time to ask these people to remove stolen artwork from their websites. It's exhausting. I do think Threadless make their lives easier, it's so easy to stole artwork from here and on the Artist shops, the images previews are HUGE and without any watermark or disabled right-click. Seriously, people complain about this for a long time and we don't even receive an answer or position from the staff about this issue.
I think it is time to stop playing their game. I am sure the owners of Threadless are not happy that thieves are targeting Threadless artists shops and stealing designs. The Teechip online form which asks artists to submit their name and address first which will be forwarded to whoever stole the art work in some way is designed to put people off filling in this form. When the form is filled in I doubt the thief or thieves respond. Teechip deletes all the items after a few days which is also deleting all the evidence about the thief. Which means the thief can just do the same again after a week or so. Teechip and other companies should be made to store a record of these infringers and if requested by an artist or designer who proves they are the copyright holder, pass on the information of the infringer, name email address paypal acount used etc etc so that the artist can pursue their own legal action against the infringer. Another aspect of this I noticed is that sites like Teechip allow people to create a T shirt campaing anonymously with no shop or store name and no way of knowing who these people are. Why do they allow this? I sent Teechip a link to my post on this forum and also the full text of my post. I wrote that they are free to pass on what I have posted on here to their legal department. More to come.
ploppi
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rodrigobhz said:
ploppi said:
superdesigner said:I had this problem as well. They respond well to twitter messages, and took down the art within 24 hours, even some of the links I hadn't found yet. But it is still a problem, and soooo frustrating to deal with. I am sorry this happened to you.
How did they respond when you sent them a message via twitter, ? Did they ask you to provide proof that you are the copyright holder or did they just take the items down? I have been saving screenshots from Teechip and one thing is certain they can be prosecuted for false advertising. From where I see things responding well to twitter messages is not good enough. It is an ongoing problem and Teechip have made thousans of dollars from these illegal sales when the copyright owner usually small independant artists does not spot their design or art on teechip in time. I believe the people who run Teechip are complicit in profiting from stolen art. Why do they not hand over the informtion that they have on the copyright thieves to the person who owns the copyright once the copyright holder has proven they own it in order for the copyright holder to be able to take action against the infringer? Instead all they do is delete teh item and delete the information. That looks like a cover up to me.
They usually remove the stolen content and that's it. No punishment for the thieves. None of them does nothing to prevent or punish anyone. It's a no-man's-land.
I am looking at the possibility and it is only a theory at this stage, that it is Teechip management or insiders behind these thefts of artists art and designs. Point being that there are in my view a lot of online companies offering T shirt print on demand services. In other words a lot of competition out there. These companies need to make a profit and depending on their business ethics and how they vet employees makes a lot of difference.
rodrigobhz
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ploppi said:
rodrigobhz said:
ploppi said:
superdesigner said:I had this problem as well. They respond well to twitter messages, and took down the art within 24 hours, even some of the links I hadn't found yet. But it is still a problem, and soooo frustrating to deal with. I am sorry this happened to you.
How did they respond when you sent them a message via twitter, ? Did they ask you to provide proof that you are the copyright holder or did they just take the items down? I have been saving screenshots from Teechip and one thing is certain they can be prosecuted for false advertising. From where I see things responding well to twitter messages is not good enough. It is an ongoing problem and Teechip have made thousans of dollars from these illegal sales when the copyright owner usually small independant artists does not spot their design or art on teechip in time. I believe the people who run Teechip are complicit in profiting from stolen art. Why do they not hand over the informtion that they have on the copyright thieves to the person who owns the copyright once the copyright holder has proven they own it in order for the copyright holder to be able to take action against the infringer? Instead all they do is delete teh item and delete the information. That looks like a cover up to me.
They usually remove the stolen content and that's it. No punishment for the thieves. None of them does nothing to prevent or punish anyone. It's a no-man's-land.
I am looking at the possibility and it is only a theory at this stage, that it is Teechip management or insiders behind these thefts of artists art and designs. Point being that there are in my view a lot of online companies offering T shirt print on demand services. In other words a lot of competition out there. These companies need to make a profit and depending on their business ethics and how they vet employees makes a lot of difference.
The best thing we can do is to post on their social media, warning the customers that Teechip/other companies print stolen art. These companies are not afraid of us or Threadless.
EZFL
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Seems like you have one site remove your stolen designs, and then three more sites pop up doing the same damn thing. So frustrating.
ploppi
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Ohio State sued Teespring for millions and altho I found four items stolen and for sale on Teespring I emailed them and they removed them within 24 hours. Sunfrog got sued for 19 million by Harley Davidson. I think Teespring are taking it seriously as opposed to Teechip where all of my Threadless store is on Teechip on hundreds of items. This is the law in US regarding copyright theft. "Criminal Copyright Infringement:  Copyright infringement is a felony punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment and a $250,000 fine under 17 U.S.C. § 506(a) and 18 U.S.C. § 2319 where a defendant willfully reproduces or distributes at least ten copies of one or more copyrighted works with a total retail value of more than $2,500 within a 180?day period. The maximum penalty rises to five years’ imprisonment if the defendant also acted “for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain.” Misdemeanor copyright infringement occurs where the value exceeds $1,000 or where the defendant willfully violated any of the exclusive rights “for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain.”" https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ccips/file/891011/download
rodrigobhz
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ploppi said:Ohio State sued Teespring for millions and altho I found four items stolen and for sale on Teespring I emailed them and they removed them within 24 hours. Sunfrog got sued for 19 million by Harley Davidson. I think Teespring are taking it seriously as opposed to Teechip where all of my Threadless store is on Teechip on hundreds of items. This is the law in US regarding copyright theft. "Criminal Copyright Infringement:  Copyright infringement is a felony punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment and a $250,000 fine under 17 U.S.C. § 506(a) and 18 U.S.C. § 2319 where a defendant willfully reproduces or distributes at least ten copies of one or more copyrighted works with a total retail value of more than $2,500 within a 180?day period. The maximum penalty rises to five years’ imprisonment if the defendant also acted “for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain.” Misdemeanor copyright infringement occurs where the value exceeds $1,000 or where the defendant willfully violated any of the exclusive rights “for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain.”" https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ccips/file/891011/download
Wow, that's awesome news!
Ryder
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they always steal my World Record design... I once found a pub in England who made it their logo and when i confronted them they told me to piss off....
lxromero
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rodrigobhz said:Man, I hate this. I have found 7 designs of mine. I'm tired of spending the time to ask these people to remove stolen artwork from their websites. It's exhausting. I do think Threadless make their lives easier, it's so easy to stole artwork from here and on the Artist shops, the images previews are HUGE and without any watermark or disabled right-click. Seriously, people complain about this for a long time and we don't even receive an answer or position from the staff about this issue.
Artist Shops do, by default, have right clicking disabled to try to curb it. You can add a watermark to your design if you wish by adding a new display image. Hit "edit image file" and add an version with a watermark, just make sure you don't click "apply to all products" This will be the new "master file" for the design so any time you reset a file it will use this but if you're aware of that or use it as a last step it's a way around it if you want to add a watermark.
badbugs_art
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sadly this will not work very well :( a lot of ripoff designs are generated by bots that remove automatic (mostly with bad issues) watermarks, backgrounds etc...
Musarter
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EZFL said:Seems like you have one site remove your stolen designs, and then three more sites pop up doing the same damn thing. So frustrating.
For real. It is a constant struggle
ploppi
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Teechip produces and sells T shirts prints etc with very low resolution images on them and badly placed images. I think they are produced from stolen low resolution images. So clearly Teechip does not care about quality control. Teechip hides behind the DMCA safe harbour BS but in reality Teechip are a manufacturer and produce and advertise and sell products which feature stolen copyrighted images world wide. I asked Teechip, once they find out an image has been stolen and produced on products by Teechip and sent to buyers. Does Teechip inform the buyer they have purchased a fake item and reimbourse the buyer or does Teechip say nothing and keep all of the money? Teechip have not replied. From what information I have gathered. regarding stolen art on teechip. The person who stole the art and put it for sale in an individual campaign is guilty of copyright theft. Teechip is also guilty of copyright theft for advertising items which feature stolen art on the Teechip website.
muzehack
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I tried selling on TeeChip, but quit after they pulled down one of my campaigns because someone on FB had reported it as abusive. It was a Truck Fump t-shirt. I had already paid for ads pointing to their page, and both FB and Teechip could not explain why that would happen. So I dumped them. They seem really sketchy.
ploppi
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I sent Teechip an email with links and proof I own the copyright on 4th August and they have ignored it. I agree there are lots of negative reviews about Teechip including many from buyers who feel they have been ripped off overcharged and not received the items. One issue is Teechip sending out products with very low bad quality images. Teechip hides behind DMCA and says it is a service provider. It is not. Teechip is a manufacturer. There are two ways Teechip are in breach of copyright. One is when someone uploads a stolen image to Teechip and Teechip produces and sells an item and sends it to the buyer. When Teechip is notified that the item contains stolen copyright image. It means the item they have sent to a buyer is a fake item. Does Teechip notify buyers and tell them they have purchased items with pirated stolen designs and re im burse the buyers? I very much doubt it. Second way Teechip is in breach of copyright is in using copyrighted images on it's website as in when someone browses Teechip and sees random designs come up. Some of which are in breach of copyright. Or when someone types in a search word into the search box on Teechip and rows of items show up, some which contain stolen copyright images. These images are used by Teechip to attract people to go to a listing and purchase an item manufactured by Teechip. In effect the same stolen image is used for two different purposes by Teechip. One is in the campaign and the other is as advertising on Teechip site. Teechip can use the excuse that the image in the campaign is not down to Teechip uploading the image for the campaign. but then Teechip uses that same image in a different way which shows up on Teechip when someone browses the site. Teechip also posts fake false sales figures on it's site. When one goes to a campaign Teechip writes clearly stuff like this. "779 sold towards goal of 1000" LIMITED EDITION ****** WORLDWIDE SHIPPING ****** 779 sold towards goal of 1000 Buy yours now before it is too late! Here is why these figures of amounts sold are fake. I have had 12 original artworks stolen from my Threadless online store including titles. Every one of the 12 different artworks that I have found in Teechip campaigns say exactly the same thing. "779 sold towards goal of 1000" How is that possible for 12 different campaigns with different images all selling 779 items? If you have had your art stolen and put on Teechip make sure you check to see how many sold have been posted by Teechip and make sure you save the evidence in screenshots and links.
Thomas Orrow
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I clicked on the report button after tweeting them and the designs that I found got taken down. Thanks again for posting I hadn't seen this site before. It took a while to fill out the information, but worth doing as it alerts them to each exact product that needs taking down.
ploppi
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Thomas Orrow said:I clicked on the report button after tweeting them and the designs that I found got taken down. Thanks again for posting I hadn't seen this site before. It took a while to fill out the information, but worth doing as it alerts them to each exact product that needs taking down.
Game of pixels is back on teechip https://teechip.com/young-game-of-pixels-804001?retailProductCode=2238390856B4A6-53C39EDC4546-GS0-TC0-GOL
Thomas Orrow
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Oh, man. I didn't get round to checking if there were other designs on there. Damn frustrating, especially when you find out that fake sellers sell more than us original artists! Thanks pioppi.
Thomas Orrow
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Hmmm, just seen another design of mine on there- World Music. I wonder whether it would be possible to file for a class action lawsuit against Teechip? I think H3H3 said they had some leftover funds form their case. I wonder whether they could help with lawyers. Certainly is frustrating, should be using this time to make pictures!
Thomas Orrow
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Just found one of my designs on Teechip. It said they had sold 779 designs out of 1000.....of my Killer Whale design. Just for reference Killer Whale was first posted on Threadless and then added to my Artist Shop. I've sold zero prints of my Killer Whale design on my Threadless artist shop. It was a completely original design hand drawn by myself. @Threadless Can we have some legal representation for this please? Or if not legal representation at least some advertising for our shops as Teechip seem to be managing it. :(
ploppi
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Those figures of 779 sold out of 1000 are fake and only teechip can post those figures on the site. Teechip are fraudsters. Facebook group to join. If you have had art stolen two the group is taking legal action against Teechip. https://www.facebook.com/groups/442213309304038/ This is the person to contact for copyright takeowns at Teechip. ooshirts, Inc. 3948 PENDLETON WAY INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46226 Designated Agent: Valerie Thompson Scalable Press 3948 Pendleton Way INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46226 Phone: 3179815054 Email: valerie.thompson@scalablepress.com https://dmca.copyright.gov/osp/publish/history.html?search=teechip&id=120393c88d78d91449e7eb80b7fc8e24 Website Owners: Protecting Yourself Under the DMCA Safe Harbor Provisions Once you have decided that you will likely need protection under the DMCA safe harbor provisions, below are the conditions you must satisfy. If you have the right and ability to control the infringing activity, you must not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to that activity. https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=2fbfbf70-a133-4e90-8a50-fd7b41405bc5 Teechip is not protected by safe harbour because it receives a financial benefit from copyright infringement !!
Thomas Orrow
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Hi pioppi Just to make things clear, Valerie Thompson is the owner of Teechip right? I guess I'll be writing her some DMCA cease and desist letters... I don't have Facebook, but I'll try contacting H3H3 to see if they can help. If not, maybe try some other avenues.
ploppi
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Thomas Orrow said:Hi pioppi Just to make things clear, Valerie Thompson is the owner of Teechip right? I guess I'll be writing her some DMCA cease and desist letters... I don't have Facebook, but I'll try contacting H3H3 to see if they can help. If not, maybe try some other avenues.
Valerie Thompson is the official designated agent for Teechip on file with copyright.gov The details on Teechip website for the designated agent are false. This is the CEO of Teechip etc https://twitter.com/Brad_Rose/status/850539114059452417 Raymond Lei with his phone number posted on twitter.
ploppi
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Any images that are stolen from Threadless by sites such as Teechip are stolen from artists profile pages. The images are too big for a profile page in my view.
Tresnatiq
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Yep... 6 of my designs are there as well... So sad and it's my first time fighting this plague
Sailfastest
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So appreciate finding this thread. When I checked, I found almost ALL of my designs (over 100) have been stolen and appear on Teechip!! I will try and join in to pursue shutting down these unscrupulous POD sites.
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For those of you who filled out the Teechip form to report the fraud, what URL or link did you use to prove you are the owner of the design?
ouray
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We've had many of our designs stolen by this company from our Zazzle store. TeeChip has thousands of other websites. They seem to be owned by Valerie Thompson of ooShirts in Indianapolis (BBB link). When you do a reverse IP lookup on their domains you can find that their server hosts over 2500 domains such as these: 01tee.com 05tee.com 101bestgiftideas.com 123456tshirt.com 1moregift.com 2novelty.com 328dailyshopping.com ... They all look the same with very little or no content on the homepage. They do Facebook campaigns that link directly to a shirt on one of these sites. We found one of our designs on Facebook that had thousands of likes and shares. When you click the Facebook ad it goes to one of these sites. When you then go to the homepage of that site only that single shirt appears. I believe they do this so that Google doesn't index any of their pages, so there is no way to do a search to find where your designs appear. Each of these sites has the same "Report this item" form, but when you fill it in and they take it off the site who knows on what other sites it appears.
Kim_Hunter
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FAR too often. Seems every few months I have to spend weeks scrubbing and reporting these print on demand site thieves. Teechip and Sunfrog are the worst. It has gotten so chronic, it is becoming impossible to keep up. Competing with so many thieves that steal all my traffic and all my sales and gut my professional reputation selling low quality web images is impossible.
jamszi
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Just filled in their online standard form for stolen art. Maddening.
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