Pirated Doctor Who Merchandise…
The other day I posted an article about David Tennant. The article contained a picture with Tennant wearing a t-shirt that said “Trust me, I’m a doctor.” That got me thinking. What if there was a t-shirt that said, “Trust me, I’m the Doctor”? So about an hour later I had my design done and posted in my old Cafe Press store. Not twelve hours later I received an email from Cafe Press saying I violated copyright policies and all that jazz and they took my design down. The kick in the teeth is that there are over seven hundred designs on twenty-three thousand products! A lot which actually do violate their copyright policy (such as using photos of actors, etc.). I point this out to them and yet those designs are still up. Am I sore about this? Yeah, admittedly I am. It was a cool design and I really wanted to have that shirt made. I don’t know, am I overreacting?
7 responses so far ↓
1 greenbaby // Apr 10, 2008 at 10:35 am
I wonder if you “tagged” it with keywords that are specific to the show. If you tagged it Tennant, or Dr Who or if you used similar words in the description, that’s enough to get it removed. The design itself looks innocent enough but you know the copyright rule, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc . So if your design immediately calls to mind the TV show, that also could be enough. Sorry dude! I like the tee.
2 Tim Buchheim // Apr 10, 2008 at 2:55 pm
The BBC owns the trademark for the Police Box design … if you hadn’t put the TARDIS on there, then there wouldn’t have been a problem.
The BBC tends to be pretty strict on the use of their intellectual property.
3 Richard Kirsch // Apr 10, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Yeah, Tim, I’ll buy that. Like I said though, the thing that irks me is that there are just hundreds and hundreds of designs on there, some of them using actual photos of the actors and such. And when I point this out Cafepress was like, “Oh look! Butterflies…” There is no consistency with their actions. If mine is a violation, then all those designs are as well, know what I mean? Not that it matters much now anyway, I’ll just find a different company to make the shirt.
4 Tim Buchheim // Apr 11, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Well, the real problem is that CafePress is a front for the latest Dalek plot to take over the planet.
You’d best move to the top floor of a tall building w/o an elevator, now that they are on to you.
5 Richard Kirsch // Apr 11, 2008 at 10:30 pm
But Daleks can fly…
6 Catt of the Garage // May 22, 2008 at 3:23 am
I encountered this too. There are literally hundreds of Doctor Who designs on CafePress, many of which are grey areas in copyright terms, but loads of which have Tardises, photos of actors, etc. CafePress themselves know this and are very sly - you will not turn up anything if you search for “Doctor Who” or “Dr Who”… but if you search for “Dr. Who”, there they all are! My image had a Tardis on it, so granted it wasn’t a grey area, but it was untagged and not available for public sale (I only wanted one for myself) and yet I still got my knuckles rapped. How is this fair? Do you only get away with it if you put it up for public sale so they can make more money from it??
7 Catt of the Garage // May 22, 2008 at 3:29 am
Plus, if BBC wants to restrict pirated Doctor Who merchandise, they should have a better range of the genuine stuff. Why don’t they have a CafePress shop of their own? Star Trek does.
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