So far it does not appear that they are selling the wearable wings, however this is mistakenly suggestive to the public that SHEIN has been working with or licensing IP from me, when that has absolutely NOT happened. I’ve never even purchased product from that company and they’ve never ordered from me.
There are even more photos of various models wearing other knock-offs of this design on their website as well under ‘grunge fairy’ clothing listings.
All of this info and documentation has been submitted to the CCB, though it may take a couple days for it to be publicly visible on the page for the claim docket, but you can follow that case here once it’s been processed: https://dockets.ccb.gov/case/detail/22-CCB-0050
This time, I noticed the CCB made changes to the submission process and now there is an alert that wasn’t there before, letting the claimants know that although our contact info will be hidden from public view, everything else submitted would be publicly viewable to everyone.
Over all, now that the private info issue has been fixed as well as the document attachment glitch, it’s a pretty easy and smooth process to file a claim. Now I wait for the CCB to process the claims and send me forms for the next step in the process. It was only $40 for each claim, and I’ll only pay the remaining $60 for them if the respondents decide to proceed rather than opt-out.
Yes, this is a voluntary process, so respondents can decide not to move forward with a claim and if so, then the only option is federal court. It’s true that would put me back to square one if that happens. However, even as expensive and stressful as federal IP cases are, does the respondent know for sure that the claimant won’t pursue the case in federal court if they opt out?
If a federal suit is then filed, will they have regret that they opted out of a far less costly way to solve the issue?
As far as I know, whether they opt out or not, the claims stay on record and remain publicly viewable. I think there may be benefits to this aspect of it.
Will respondents see this record of accused infringement as a stain on their public image? Or are they too wealthy and powerful to be bothered by yet another accusation if they already have a reputation for IP theft?
Only time will tell.
One thing I’ll say is, contradictory to the anti-copyright groups who warned us that grandmas and average Joe’s would be sued for thousands of dollars for making memes by copyright trolls, it’s simply not happening.
In fact I was pretty surprised to only be the 10th filing in line on the first day. I rushed to get it in there because I was imagining an avalanche of claims to be filed, considering how big of a problem IP theft has been for artists in the last few years especially. I worried that there was no way that only 3 people would be able to handle the massive amount of infringement happening in this country, but I’m relieved to see that I was wrong!
Instead, after just a month of being open, there are only 50 cases filed so far, including mine.
My hope is that all of us artists, most of who are struggling, will finally see some fairness restored to the rights over our works.
We haven’t had much access to the justice system, as without deep pockets we can’t afford the tens or hundreds of thousands a typical IP court case costs. This has meant that only the biggest infringement cases involving huge companies are usually worthwhile for an attorney to take a case on contingency or pro-bono, if you’re lucky.
What I actually see as a positive in this, is that the people reviewing the claims are all copyright experts unlike in a federal court case where judges & juries may not even fully understand copyright law.
For me personally, I’m happy to now have an option to pursue infringers officially, and legally, and most of all inexpensively!
It’s gotten exhausting getting nagged with “handle this through a lawyer!” or “be professional and just sue them” as if those were realistic options for everyone, because they’re not.
Even reporting to platforms with DMCA’s are not always reliable, it’s not uncommon to get a refusal to remove what seems to be an obviously clear infringement from platforms like Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.
It’s why I’ve had to resort to calling out an infringement in my social media as a last resort when the infringing party refuses to credit or remove a post using my IP without permission and I hate it every time. But for a long while it was the only thing left to do, and often it would work to get the content removed.
Now, I’m looking forward to my work seeing some validation from an official source straight from a government branch. After hearing the annoying refrain of “they’re just fairy wings” when I’ve pointed out infringements of my work, it will be nice to get an official ruling on public record that I can point to when that argument is thrown at me again.
