Competitors filing false copyright claims to remove my listings
Rival sellers are abusing the reporting system by filing fake copyright strikes and trademarking everyday phrases to take down competing best-sellers. Victims cannot easily appeal these removals or protect their shops because AI-driven automated support makes it extremely difficult to reach a real human.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Filing a counternoticeDid this help you?
- 2Checking the trademark's specific filing categories to see if their products are actually affectedDid this help you?
- 3Fighting the trademark claim or lawsuit in courtDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“A lot of people selling stickers and other things on Etsy will probably have to stop selling them because someone was given a Trademark for a term used in pop culture. I am often puzzled why they allow some things to be trademarked.”source ↗
“I really hate that people are allowed to trademark words and phrases. It's so greedy. I can't even think of words that are nice to put down it just makes me mad”source ↗
“I am sorry but I am so sick of people trade making everything. This is not something you invented we have been saying it since the 70’s.”source ↗
“A former volunteer got disgruntled, trademarked our name and opened a competing business using the name everyone knew up by. Then tried to sue us, but the first lawyer he contacted was so disgusted with him that he represented us for free. It ended up in court for years.”source ↗
“Another seller saw my best seller as competition and called false copyright and my listing was removed.”source ↗
“Now a year later they did it AGAIN. I have 3 similar listings for the product and they reported all 3”source ↗
“It’s hard to reach anyone at Etsy because of AI. I don’t want these false claims and violations to affect my shop”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 17How to stop copycats from stealing my designs and photos
- 2How to avoid copyright lawsuits over freelancer logos and website designs
- 4Buyer falsely claims item is fake to force a return
- 2Is selling fan art and merch online illegal?
- 4Why is my passport flagged as stolen?
- 11How do I dispute a bunch of incorrect charges at once?