I don't do slam pieces it's not me and it's not what I do and I've been sitting on this information for almost a year just hoping that creative Fabrica would make this whole situation right but they haven't so today I'm sharing the reason why I've chosen not to support creative Fabrica as well as why users of their platform should be wary when using assets from creative Fabrica for your business assuming you're new here my name is Starla Moore founder of the handmade elf Academy for Etsy Sellers and manager at rank.com and as someone who teaches
within the Etsy space myob job has and always will be to stand by my sellers because let's face it most of us aren't exactly raking in millions of dollars in sales a year so when two of my own community members contacted me about being sued after using assets that they downloaded from creative Fabrica last April I got in touch with a few of the heads of creative Fabrica to see how the heck this could have happened as well as what creative Fabrica planed to do in order to help rectify the situation and for the sake
of legal transparency here in case anyone at creative Fabrica is watching today's video is going to focus on facts and my personal opinions based on this situation that took place last April because while I'm not telling everyone to run and cancel their creative Fabrica memberships I do think it's important for their users to understand the fine print within creative fabrica's terms and policies that most users very likely haven't read for those who are unfamiliar with the platform creative Fabrica is a site that provides fonts graphics and other creative assets with commercial licensing essentially allowing small
business businesses to browse for artwork that they can utilize for things like product design similar to canva you pay one small monthly fee in order to gain access to thousands of illustrations and various designs now before we continue it is important to note that etsy's creative policy defines items designed by a seller as a seller's original design that are produced or printed by a third party or offered as a digital download the key phrase here is designed by a seller this means that sellers who grab Asis designs from platforms like creative Fabrica and slap them
shirts or mugs are technically violating etsy's creative standards you cannot buy a completed design stick it on a shirt and sell it you can however use a site like canva to combine multiple elements together to create an original and new design because this results in an original design that no other sellers will likely be offering this is one of the biggest contributors leading to pod sellers being suspended on Etsy because etsy's image recognition system is able to identify the exact same designs used across multiple shops with a majority of my subscribers being Etsy sellers I
just wanted to point that out but back on the topic at hand when using a site like creative Fabrica users assume that their monthly subscription goes towards a license that allows them to use these assets safely after all that's what creative Fabrica advertises but this may not actually be the case in April of last year I received two unsettling emails around the exact same time from members of my community one of which was a student of mine rightfully so this student assumed that the threatening legal email that she received must be a scam with the
title notice of lawsuit and temporary restraining order the email stated this office represents plaintiff the above reference copyright infringement lawsuit it was discovered that you were offering to sell or selling through your account with Etsy certain products merchandise and or digital files that infringe upon our client's copyrights as such a copyright infringement lawsuit has been initiated against you the email also included the official summons as well as information about the tellah Heering where the seller was told that she would need to appear now if your BS detector is going off right now you're not alone
which is why I immediately started looking into the law firm that issued the summons but shockingly the law firm as well as the lawyer representing the artist in question both checked out with this particular lawyer being known for similar infringement cases especially those involving creative Fabrica assets the more I dug the more similar cases that I found through platforms like Reddit where sellers experien the same exact issues dating back over 2 years rightfully panicked my student emailed me to say bottom line I could take a chance and wait to see if it goes away or
pay $650 to make it go away I have too many troubles in my life to deal with this to which I obviously told her that she needed to get a hold of creative Fabrica immediately as anything that she downloaded from their Library should be covered by their licensing otherwise what the heck was she paying for to make matters worse by this time her shop had already been suspended on Etsy with the alleged copyright holder for the assets that she'd used already taking action against her through Etsy 's IP portal despite having used the Assets in
a creative way per etsy's policies and despite using designs that she believed were safe per creative fabrica's policies but what do these policies actually say the truth lies within the fine print of their extensive terms of service page located under Section 13 titled disclaimer of warranties limitation of liability now this is a mouthful but I think it's important that you hear this part in full so bear with me we do not guarantee represent or warrant that your use of our service will be uninterrupted timely secure or error free we do not warrant the results that
may be obtained from the use of the service will be accurate or reliable you agree that from time to time we may remove the service for indefinite periods of time or cancel the service at any time without notice to you you expressly agree that your use of or inability to use the service is at your sole risk the service and all products and services delivered to you through the service are except as expressly stated by us provided as is and as available for your use without any representation warranties or conditions of any kind either Express
or implied including all implied warranties or conditions of merchantability merchantable quality Fitness for a particular purpose durability title and non-infringement in no case sh creative Fabrica our directors officers employees Affiliates agents contractors interns suppliers service providers or licensers be liable for any injury loss claim or any direct indirect incidental punitive special or consequential damages of any kind including without limitation lost profits lost Revenue lost savings lost data replacement cost or any similar damages so essentially you're paying for a license but that license doesn't guarantee anything nor does creative Fabrica take responsibility if you get in
trouble for using the assets that were supposed to be protected under that license while waiting for a response from creative Fabrica my student began weighing her options here's a snippet from an email that she sent me my options are one settling now and making it go away my Etsy gets reopened I will press creative Fabrica the lawyer asked for $1,000 if I pay overtime or $650 if I choose one payment I wrote to him last night stating the facts that I haven't been sued yet so he is also taking a chance to move forward so
I asked to lower my damages if he wants me to pay while in the notice stage two waiting to see if it goes away or three paying a higher fee if it doesn't go away because the lawyer will add his time which was a huge decision to make because she was essentially stuck between a rock and a hard place with a ticking clock looming over her shoulder but finally creative Fabrica reached back out to her and basically stated their policies leaving her completely and royally screwed unfortunately due to fear and time constraints she went ahead
and paid the settlement on April 12th a total of $650 which thankfully led to her shot being restored by Etsy and the case was dropped but if you thought that was the end of the shenanigans my friends it gets worse so much worse because remember I said that there were two community members who had this exact same thing happen around the exact same time seller number two received the exact same email for a different design same lawyer same basic case and her shop had been shut down she said the artwork design was downloaded from my
creative Fabrica subscription that included commercial use for the design I did not know the design was copyrighted it was sold only in my Etsy shop as a vinyl sticker the sales report from Etsy showing that it was sold 16 times for a revenue of4 604 after which the lawyer informed her that given the circumstances here my client has authorized me to make a settlement offer of 2,500 USD she said I'm not able to pay that amount to settle with your client as I do not have that amount of money my full-time job was my Etsy
shop and that has had zero income since the shop was removed offline at the request of your client due to declining e-commerce sales leading up to this lawsuit I'm not able to pay this aail this line of emailing went back and forth for a while with the seller hiring her own lawyer in the meantime to look over the case which obviously led to even more that she had to pay to resolve the case in total this seller paid for $800 for legal advice from her lawyer and she was able to get her settlement down to
$1,250 after negotiating with the lawyer a total of $2,50 all for a service that specifically advertises personal commercial and pod use of files included right on their header a few weeks later I personally received an unrelated email from creative Fabrica requesting a partnership request on my YouTube Channel I'm not going to read through the full email that I sent to them but feel free to pause here if you want to read it the gist of my response outlined the experience of those sellers along with the line how can I as a large YouTuber with nearly
90,000 subscribers confidently recommend a service where sellers are prayed upon for utilizing licensed assets the support member was extremely helpful putting me in touch with creative fabrica's director of growth as well as their affiliate marketing manager they seemed extremely concerned about the issues that these sellers had faced and scheduled a zoom meeting with me where I outlined the cases forwarded them all of the legal emails on behalf of my Sellers and explained that for small Etsy sellers cases like these can literally destroyed their entire livelihood after getting off the call these creative Fabrica support members
reached out to my two community members and set up their own meetings and after weeks of stress and back and forth communication I thought that we'd finally reached a resolution oh you you thought it couldn't get worse it did here's what my students sent me on August 22nd nearly 5 months after the initial case was opened they said sent me $19 which after PayPal fee was $18.15 that is the membership time remaining from the time I canceled to the time expired I was speechless that amount is beyond ridiculous wouldn't even have covered my time spent
to talk to him for over 1 hour as an educator my goal is to stand by my sellers through thick and thin and no matter the company I cannot stand behind Anyone who puts the livelihood of small independent sellers at risk it's clear that the art in question was likely uploaded by a vendor within creative fabric platform without the permission of the original artist but if not for reasons like this my question from the beginning has been what are sellers paying for if not a license to use assets safely again I'm not telling you to
all go cancel your creative Fabrica subscriptions but I am leaving a link to their terms of use page down below if you currently use creative Fabrica for your business whether that be on Etsy or elsewhere I encourage you to read it consider this video my official statement Regarding why I don't personally recommend creative Fabrica even after doing everything in mind my power to try to convince them to compensate the sellers who were sued for using assets downloaded from their site do with this information what you will but do so with the possibility of risk as
well as creative fabrica's written policies in mind when using them for your business [Music] [Music]
