I am having a problem with trademarked and copyrighted products on my website. I recently received an email from the Shopify legal team stating that I need to delete any products that I do not have purchase invoices for or the right to sell.
Currently, I do not sell any branded products at all on my website. I only sell wall art that I have personally created and designed. However, I have been approached by Shopify because some of my artwork contains prints of well-known brands such as Louis Vuitton.
The issue is that the artwork is my own brand, so I am not selling Louis Vuitton products. I do not have any invoices for this product because the art is made by myself. I have heard that it is not illegal to sell this type of art because it is not a product that these branded companies sell. Can anyone help me with the best way to handle this situation? There are countless other sellers on Shopify that sell similar wall art, so how did they get through this process?
I have included a picture of my product in this message for reference. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
The first thing I would need to establish is that we’re not able to provide legal advice from here at all, and would always have to direct you to contact a qualified expert in your jurisdiction.
I would also direct you to address any queries you have about the status of your products as a reply to our legal team via that existing email contact, as they would be the only ones with visibility of these cases.
It is already the case that I have already contacted legal people in this supervision. Their response to this was "However, under U.S. copyright law, it is possible for an artist to use an original copyrighted work, without the author’s consent, as long as it complies with the fair use doctrine. One of the requirements of this doctrine is that the use given to the original work needs to be “transformative”, in the sense that the final work must have a different meaning or message in order not to be considered as an infringing work. " .
Because these are self-made works of art and do not infringe or damage the brands, this is allowed. It is also called artistic freedom.
I’ve been trying to get in touch for days via the email that the legal team sent me, but unfortunately no response yet.
Shopify probably made a mistake in thinking I’m a reseller of existing brand items. I really don’t know what else I can do now.
I’ve been sitting still for days now and my payouts are on hold. While my competitors get sales through my absence.
I hope that the legal team would respond to my email at all, as it looks now, this will not happen.
I want to thank you Don for the effort you have gone to in providing me with this information.
