Shopify took us down for DMCA eventhough we ARE THE CREATOR!?

[john2642]

Hi guys. Long story short, we invested in our equipment, set the shooting scene, edited the content before publishing and also the first to make these content available to the internet.

Our page got shut down immediately when a fresh NEW store, not even registered with a custom domain that literally downloaded and use our (actual owner) materials to file a DMCA takedown on us. Not to mention that the identity provided in their DMCA report is most likely fake.

We sell original prducts that are produced with controlled quality and optimized features. This copy cat store downloaded our materials with our watermarks on it, and reported us for copyright infringement. And yes, Shopify took us down for 14 days just like that, without giving us the chance to respond or dispute the claim.

This is not right at all and it's really unfair to original creators where time, money, and effort were invested in creating these materials. The copyright law is supposed to protect original creators and NOT THIS! Imagine this copy cat repeat the entire process over and over again just because they can abuse the Shopify's DMCA takedown system.

We are currently seeking lawyer's advice to explore the possibilities of claiming for the damages done to our company's revenue, customer's faith, and brand image.

With Shopify being the largest if not one of the largest ecommerce platforms, we're still very surprised by how original content creators are treated here.     

Has anyone experienced anything similar to this before?

Is there any way as the original creator, can prevent immediate store close down due to DMCA reports coming from material theft?

What should I do to shorten the waiting period and protect my store from similar incidents in the future?

[mynameismarco]

Anyone can report anyone and the page will be taken down automatically on Shopify.

It's a concern.

For instance, in the case of our stores we even received claims with:

1. no last name just a letter, ie "L" or "A"

2. content claimed to be the "original content" that looked nothing like the page claimed to be infringing

3. content claimed to be the "original content" that was in another language

4. content claimed to be the "original content" that was published after the page claimed to be infringing

Unfortunately, anything goes when it comes to filing DMCA takedowns on Shopify as we came to notice.

The only solution that worked for us was to take stores that were the victims of repeated DMCA takedowns to other checkout systems.

[john2642]

The way the DMCA takedown procedure is automated is such a joke. The thing is, once you have experienced this once, you will live in fear for your other store or future store as well, as long as they are shopify hosted. 

Legitimate business owners should be able to proritize on growing their businesses, not this. 

We are looking for Shopify alternative. Do you have any suggestion on what platform that we could use to avoid direct DMCA takedowns like Shopify? I'm pretty sure there's better option out. 

I've read about migrating to WooCommerce would be a solution, but would love to get more suggestion on this.

[mynameismarco]

WooCommerce won't be the solution as the takedown process is automated also. It simply requires to fill out a from and it's done. Like on Shopify, since it's automated, anyone can claim anything and takedown any page. This is a major business risk also in my view.

We work with a third-party checkout named Funnelish that requires a lawyer to physically file a DMCA takedown with them before they take any action. This puts a higher barrier to the takedown notices. It also makes it more likely than not that copyright claims are actually legitimate and prevents DMCA spam attacks like on Shopify. 

We actually had one of our brands receive multiple DMCA takedowns a day for weeks on Shopify from people who obviously didn't exist until we decided we simply can't run a business that's exposed to this kind of operative risk.

[brndnlouis]

Hi John, I'm so sorry this is happening to you. I'm currently going through the exact same thing. I made a thread on X (aka Twitter) sharing my story with these fake DMCAs. Tobi (CEO) has responded but we need more people to share their stories. This urgently needs to be fixed.

If you can, please share your story here and tag @tobi and @harleyf: https://x.com/brndnlouis/status/1709296165944983566?s=20