How to stop copycats from stealing my designs and photos
Online marketplaces often flag the original creator's listings for copyright infringement or lack of handmade status while copycats mass-produce their designs. Filing individual takedown notices quickly becomes an overwhelming, endless task that destroys sales and forces creators out of business.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1filing manual copyright infringement and DMCA takedown notices
- 2subscribing to professional IP management and monitoring services like Pixsy
- 3ignoring the copycats and focusing entirely on creating new designs and maintaining one's own shop
- 4stopping the online posting of creative work and designs to prevent theft
- 5abandoning online marketplaces entirely to close shops or transition to in-person craft shows
- 6sending a cease and desist letter
- 7using social media to call out the copycat and damage their reputation
- 8modifying product designs to make them harder or more expensive to copy
- 9using updated intellectual property reporting forms provided by community members
- 10Filming comparison videos showing the difference between real and fake products
- 11Running educational awareness campaigns and updating marketing to emphasize being the original
- 12Replying publicly to negative comments with explanations and verification steps
- 13Refusing to provide detailed step-by-step blueprints and scoping only by strategic outcomes
- 14Charging clients for detailed project proposals upfront
- 15Charging a significantly higher rate to fix broken AI-generated code or projects
- 16Walking away or refusing to work with clients who attempt to bypass the developer
- 17Actively marketing and making known what is being done despite the risk of theft
- 18Sharing ideas publicly to build awareness despite lacking connections
- 19Sending a message asking to be tagged as the designer
- 20Calling out the planner on social media posts
- 21Leaving negative reviews on various platforms detailing the planner's failures and plagiarism
- 22Avoiding purchase and reporting the shop
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Every design, even the poor selling ones. Every photo I posted to my shop or social media. When I started adding videos to my listings they stole those too.”source ↗
“I tried my best to file takedowns for IP infringement. I did hundreds of takedowns. It was too much to keep up with.”source ↗
“Then Etsy started shutting down some of my listings because of stolen photos they saw on other platforms.”source ↗
“An Etsy seller is selling a blatant ripoff of my designs.”source ↗
“I have tried submitting an infringement report to Etsy, but when I do it requires a video from the shop...”source ↗
“I have tried Etsy "help", which has been no help at all, and had 3 agents close the chat on me without giving any solution or help.”source ↗
“I had about 10 bestsellers at one point and was making thousands per week. But now I make $100 a week because every single design I’ve made has been stolen hundreds of times.”source ↗
“Long term client whom always accepted my quotes used my highly detailed proposal to Chatgpt DIY a project.”source ↗
“Same happened to me last year but on top Etsy kept taking down my listings as the copycats kept reporting mine for not being handmade.”source ↗
“After recently restocking months later and restarting Facebook ads, I began seeing comments on my new ads calling the product a “scam” or saying it was missing its core feature.”source ↗
“Customers who unknowingly bought these counterfeits now believe they purchased from me and started spamming all my ads that it was a scam.”source ↗
“Right now, I can’t run Meta ads without a ton of “scam” comments, and it’s directly hurting performance and ROI.”source ↗
“Clients are letting Claude create an entire set up. Fonts, colors, text.. desired functionalites.”source ↗
“Client tells me that have someone on staff and I am no longer needed. Then weeks later that someone else on staff contacts me because they don't know how to deploy a shit ton of spaghetti code that Claude spit out.”source ↗
“About 45 minutes into the call, I am told that "Claude actually already made something".”source ↗
“Every design book, inspiration board, piece of signage, menus, set up guide binder, etc was done and/or sourced by me.”source ↗
“All the details like the unique place cards, the custom touches, the additional faux floral displays that I built, she is posting pictures of herself next to them acting like her team created them.”source ↗
“I designed it so that it came as one piece to the venue and literally spent 6 hours building it. She posted a picture with her hands in the flowers acting as though she was “setting it up”, when setting it up was literally just carrying it out of the storage room at the venue and putting it outside the door.”source ↗
“another "non-profit leader" keeps taking the ideas I am sharing that my group is doing and using her connections to do them first and make it seem like her idea without including me.”source ↗
“It has me annoyed as I am worried that her actions will cause my group to fall apart, and make all my efforts for nothing.”source ↗
“Whats worse is I cant not share my ideas, as I have to actively market and make known what I am doing as I am not as well connected as her.”source ↗
“How can I do this correctly? Do I have to hire a ugc creator or an agency?”source ↗
“I wouldn't know how to make the script get a good enough camera to record it etc.”source ↗
“she's basically using your work as portfolio content without permission. you designed and built that stuff, it's your creative property even if it was for your own wedding”source ↗
“I recently came across a seller that strictly sells downloads of full series of tv shows, the seller has 5 buys and no reviews yet. I haven’t purchased as I assume it’s a scam but just wanted to see if this is even a thing on Etsy? It seems illegal.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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