Just a heads up, not trying to start a debate or lengthy discussion about trademark law:
The person who has “boymom” trademarked is known to go after people using that phrase online. I have heard of many people getting their items removed from Etsy. I do not know what other places this person checks, but I just wanted to give anyone a heads-up that if you make this item, there is a risk that they will come after you.
I will not speak more about my personal opinion about this, because my personal opinion in this matter does not matter at all. I just don’t want to see anyone making items from the catalog, selling the items and then having problems as a result. We are all responsible for chosing what we create and share and sell, and we must each make these decisions for ourselves!
That is all… continue on with all of your glorious creating!
P.S. In case you are wondering why I don’t just report the design, I don’t own the trademark. The person who owns the IP apparently has to be the one making the report.
I hate the whole “boymom” thing, but I also have a strong opinion about that trademark situation. It also doesn’t matter, so I’m just sending a nod your way.
There is a cottage industry in making money by suing folk who come up with obvious names. Open a flower shop named Bonnie’s Bloomers in Podunk, Alaska and the person with the “bloomers” trademark will come sue you for using the trademark. They don’t have or need a flower shop of their own as they make plenty in just lawsuits. I recall this from the 1960s but folks are getting away with it more now.
I don’t have to worry too much about it because I’m not selling a lot of things so I have avoided that group. I just think I’ll end up extra angry all the time with all of the nonsense trademarks out there!
I don’t sell things with trademarks, either. (Well right now I’m not selling anything, too many irons in the fire.) But it’s super interesting, so I stay in there.
Did you know that “superhero” is trademarked by DC/Marvel (jointly)?
I just learned that today.
I probably would have used that word at some point.
Yes. There are so many ridiculous trademarks, it’s awful. I don’t think a lot of people (I didn’t previously) realize that other people have to file letters to contest trademarks getting approved. And from what I understand, it’s no longer free to do so, it’s like $50 to file that.
The point of that group I mentioned is to try to stop this from happening. (The name in its entirety is Trademark Watch Dawgs - Stop Frivolous Trademarks) I’ve learned so much just from reading posts there. (There is a lot of drama around “But did you dye,” too. Used often with Easter designs with pics of dyed Easter eggs.) It’s ridiculous. There are so many people trying to trademark things that are used in everyday conversation and then stop others from making/selling products with those words/phrases. I’ve heard many people getting false reports on Etsy, too. Like competitors who report someone for posting something just to get their item taken down.
I haven’t even made a decision yet about whether I want to sell on Etsy. I probably will but all of these things just make me discouraged with it. That’s one of the main reasons I haven’t been selling designs on Etsy. They did make some recent changes to Etsy, and I haven’t fully researched those. Those changes might make it better with regard to the false reports, at least.
Thank you for the info. I clearly had no clue. And I know its just my 2 cents, but some of that is beyond dumb to me. Like boymom. I have such better things to do with my time than hassle people over “common” sayings. Clearly others do not. Thanks again. I will surely be reading more on this. lol
Exactly… I don’t have time for all of that! ugh. And I also don’t have time for all of that drama with Etsy. So frustrating when people do this stuff. (Or in some cases large companies, I mean “super heroes?” come on… What I hear is that they usually settle out of court because if DC/Marvel goes to court and loses, then they will be in trouble.)
Another really interesting Facebook group I wandered into and never left is the " TheLawTog® - The Go-To Legal Resource for Photographers." A lot of really informative copyright discussions go on, and the contract issues and situations can be super entertaining too.
oh that sounds great! I had a weird situation happen once, but it’s not super exciting or anything. lol
I had nice photos on Flickr but it happened with a crappy photo I took at home in the dark living room of my dogs sitting in front of a space heater. The discovery channel had a blog (I can’t remember off the top of my head the name of it) and they took that photo without permission and used it for an article about space heaters. If they had asked me, I would have given permission (though probably would have wanted to make the photo a little nicer lol). Someone messaged me and let me know about it. I was disappointed that this blog, associated with a large profitable company like the Discovery channel, would do something like that. I contacted them and they removed it but didn’t even apologize or anything. They went and found another photo from someone else and used it without their permission next.
I’m so tired of people stealing things. I just don’t have time to deal with that in my life! ugh.
Today I just saw someone sharing about how they got trademark infringement notifications from using girldad and boydad. I hadn’t even realized those were also trademarked.
Your situation comes up all the time in the group! It’s run by a media/photography lawyers with a few thousand professional photographers from around the world participating, and it’s one of the few FB groups I interact with. And just like we see here with people selling stuff, it’s amazing (and scary) how little so many in the business actually know the laws surrounding copyright and trademark.
i deal with copyright issues all the time at work. people think they can just take images off the web and then publish them in their documents. our corporate response to that is, “no.” but people often do it anyway. just not in any documents i work on.
I’ve been an etsy seller for more than 10 years. I’ve had some copyright claims over the past 3 years and at first I didn’t think much of it because I just removed the item. The last one though was ridiculous. I had some charms that were hearts with arrows through them. I had purchased the charms from an etsy seller and made them into earrings. A very well-known pop star has a legal firm claiming all of the merchandise with his trademarks although this item is not one of his trademarks. It is impossible to file claims to dispute this as it took 3 months for etsy to give me the name of the person contesting the item. They warned me that this could lead to lengthy litigation at a very high price tag. I didn’t even have contact info for the law firm representing the artist. I was also told if it happened again I would be banned from selling on etsy. Basically they don’t care if it is false and will not look into why this claim is not valid. I have resigned myself that sometime someone else will make a claim and then Etsy will close my store. I’ll just have to go elsewhere then.
I just don’t want to see anyone making items from the catalog, selling the items and then having problems as a result. We are all responsible for chosing what we create and share and sell, and we must each make these decisions for ourselves!
So frustrating when people do this stuff. (Or in some cases large companies, I mean “super heroes?” come on… What I hear is that they usually settle out of court because if DC/Marvel goes to court and loses, then they will be in trouble.)
