Copyright infridegment ?

[tigerpants1]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? AZ
Hi,

Our company is selling an item on Amazon.com. Amazon is fulfilling the item for us (FBA).
The company who manufacturers the product we are selling is asking us to remove the listing because 1. it is priced too low (we are not an authorized dealer and have no MAP agreement with them), 2. it is violating copyright laws.
They seem to have dropped the pricing issue and they are focusing on the copyright issue and are threatening to press legal action against us.
They are accusing us of using their copyrighted videos and pictures on Amazons' website.
There are currently 65 other sellers (including Amazon) that are selling on the same web page using the same web address. Our company did not create the page and a quick Google search of "who owns Amazons listing pages" directs you to Amazons own help page that clearly states they own the listing.
Should we be worried?

 

[quincy]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? AZ
Hi,

Our company is selling an item on Amazon.com. Amazon is fulfilling the item for us (FBA).
The company who manufacturers the product we are selling is asking us to remove the listing because 1. it is priced too low (we are not an authorized dealer and have no MAP agreement with them), 2. it is violating copyright laws.
They seem to have dropped the pricing issue and they are focusing on the copyright issue and are threatening to press legal action against us.
They are accusing us of using their copyrighted videos and pictures on Amazons' website.
There are currently 65 other sellers (including Amazon) that are selling on the same web page using the same web address. Our company did not create the page and a quick Google search of "who owns Amazons listing pages" directs you to Amazons own help page that clearly states they own the listing.
Should we be worried?

Any time someone notifies you that you are infringing on copyrighted material, there is reason to worry.

If you are not an authorized dealer and if you have no license to use the copyrighted videos and pictures, the copyright holder can ask that you to remove the infringing material and/or send you a cease and desist letter and/or sue you for infringement. A copyright holder will generally provide you this notice of infringement by filing a DMCA takedown notice and the infringing material will be removed from its place online. You have the opportunity to dispute the removal.

I am a bit unclear, though, what exactly it is you are selling. Are you selling the copyrighted videos and pictures, or are the videos and pictures juxtaposed on the website with the products you are trying to sell?



(something seemed to have happened to my earlier post on an edit, so this is a re-post)

 

[single317dad]

Companies use DMCA notices and other complaints of copyright infringement regularly in online marketplaces to stifle competition. I, personally, have been the target of this kind of action nearly a dozen times. I won't name names, but sufficeth to say I had some well-earned schadenfreude when I heard of the recent North Korean hacking debacle, and there's one particular company I'll never buy sportswear from.

That doesn't mean this company is using underhanded tactics, but it does happen.

I also am not entirely clear what you're selling and what the alleged copyright owner's claims are. Are you, for example, selling retail packaged movies that you bought legitimately? Are you using photos you found on the internet or screen shots of the media to advertise the product?

 

[FlyingRon]

While the original post is sort of garbled, what he is referring to is that Amazon's agreement with anybody who uploads descriptions for sale permits them to coalesce the same item for sale from disparate venders and pick and choose any of the material provided in anybody's listing without their further control. The only way a DMCA or other complaint is legitimately going to work is if the uploaded pictures were not done with the permission of the copyright holder at all.

 

[quincy]

While the original post is sort of garbled, what he is referring to is that Amazon's agreement with anybody who uploads descriptions for sale permits them to coalesce the same item for sale from disparate venders and pick and choose any of the material provided in anybody's listing without their further control. The only way a DMCA or other complaint is legitimately going to work is if the uploaded pictures were not done with the permission of the copyright holder at all.

So tigerpants1 and the other 64 vendors are all using the same (potentially infringed) copyrighted photos and videos as a way to describe their products (the photos and videos of which were provided by one of the 65 vendors)?

Why am I not understanding this?

 

[single317dad]

So tigerpants1 and the other 64 vendors are all using the same (potentially infringed) copyrighted photos and videos as a way to describe their products (the photos and videos of which were provided by one of the 65 vendors)?

Why am I not understanding this?

If it's anything like eBay, then when a seller is logged in, at the top of other sellers' listings is a "Sell one like this" button. Clicking that button will take you to an item listing page with much of the other seller's information already filled out: price, shipping dimensions, and item description. The photos that are uploaded to the eBay system are not included in that, but any photos embedded in the HTML of the item description can be very easily kept from one's listing to another's.

I have caught several sellers using my photos (also to include my custom layout graphics) over the years. Sometimes they download them and reupload to another source; sometimes they hotlink them right off of my server (which is quite foolish of them, as I can then wreak havoc with their listings). Usually, communication with eBay ends with the other seller's listing being taken down, without the hassle of any DMCA requests.

My Amazon listings aren't fancy and use only stock photos or actual item photos, so I can't speak to the process over there.

 

[quincy]

If it's anything like eBay, then when a seller is logged in, at the top of other sellers' listings is a "Sell one like this" button. Clicking that button will take you to an item listing page with much of the other seller's information already filled out: price, shipping dimensions, and item description. The photos that are uploaded to the eBay system are not included in that, but any photos embedded in the HTML of the item description can be very easily kept from one's listing to another's.

I have caught several sellers using my photos (also to include my custom layout graphics) over the years. Sometimes they download them and reupload to another source; sometimes they hotlink them right off of my server (which is quite foolish of them, as I can then wreak havoc with their listings). Usually, communication with eBay ends with the other seller's listing being taken down, without the hassle of any DMCA requests.

My Amazon listings aren't fancy and use only stock photos or actual item photos, so I can't speak to the process over there.

Thanks, single317dad. With your post and FlyingRon's (and a very brief look at Amazon), I think I understand what tigerpants1 might be referring to in his post.

By the way, there was a study done years ago that showed over half of all DMCA notices were filed by businesses against their competitors, not over copyright infringement but to gain a competitive edge. So your experience is not unusual.

Notices are also being filed with some frequency by individuals trying to remove negative/derogatory/defamatory material from its place online. And there was at least one notice filed with the (arguable) purpose of having a political ad removed (the ad did use a small portion of a copyrighted song).

It appears the DMCA is actually used less by copyright holders to remove copyright-infringed material than it is by others for various non-copyright-infringement reasons.

I suppose to curb the abuses, the penalties for filing false takedown notices could be harsher. I would not like to see the process become more difficult for copyright holders, though.

 

[single317dad]

I suppose to curb the abuses, the penalties for filing false takedown notices could be harsher. I would not like to see the process become more difficult for copyright holders, though.

At the risk of digressing further from the topic at hand (though it's hard to be sure without further input from the OP), I'll add that Youtube has taken quite the public lashing over their takedown policies. (Alleged) rights owners use automated systems to analyze most every video posted to Youtube. If those systems get even the tiniest hit on a matching pattern in either the video or audio stream, the "owner" submits the request automatically. This results in thousands of DMCA requests every day, which no company could bear with manual verification, so the videos are removed automatically when reported by those few big name media companies. The end result is a mostly accurate system that deprives a small portion of Youtube's userbase of their legitimately posted videos.

Google publishes statistics on received DMCA requests; with one coming in every 5 milliseconds, it's a fully automated task.

https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/?hl=en

Interesting that the top-reported site according to the most recent Google data is a site that doesn't host any content at all; rather, it's a site designed to assist users in circumventing blocks put in place to prevent users from accessing certain material by their workplace, school, ISP, or government.

 

[quincy]

At the risk of digressing further from the topic at hand (though it's hard to be sure without further input from the OP), I'll add that Youtube has taken quite the public lashing over their takedown policies. (Alleged) rights owners use automated systems to analyze most every video posted to Youtube. If those systems get even the tiniest hit on a matching pattern in either the video or audio stream, the "owner" submits the request automatically. This results in thousands of DMCA requests every day, which no company could bear with manual verification, so the videos are removed automatically when reported by those few big name media companies. The end result is a mostly accurate system that deprives a small portion of Youtube's userbase of their legitimately posted videos.

Google publishes statistics on received DMCA requests; with one coming in every 5 milliseconds, it's a fully automated task.

https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/?hl=en

Interesting that the top-reported site according to the most recent Google data is a site that doesn't host any content at all; rather, it's a site designed to assist users in circumventing blocks put in place to prevent users from accessing certain material by their workplace, school, ISP, or government.

That is interesting.

Although you are probably right that we may be wandering a wee bit too far from tigerpants1's concerns , I thought I should probably provide a link to the study I mentioned earlier.

It is from 2006, titled "Efficient Process or 'Chilling Effects'? Takedown Notices Under Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act," and it is written by Jennifer M. Urban and Laura Quilter.

http://lquilter.net/pubs/UrbanQuilter-2006-DMCA512.pdf