But Did you Dye On the Beach Boutique Legal Fund

 

 

 

On the week of February 21st, 2022, Marissa Garcia owner of Ice By Issa started filing copyright infringement notices on Etsy for "But Did you Dye" designs. She was not following Intellectual Property laws; all of her filings were not for copying her design but were filing these infringement notices because each of these designs had the phrase "But Did you Dye". According to Intellectual Property Laws, you can not copyright a phrase. Marissa Garcia also does not own a trademark for this phrase (even though she's marketing that she does). Marissa also did not create this design. This design was commissioned to a graphic artist in January 2018, who gave the legal rights to that person. That person then has stated that she sold this design to Marissa Garcia.

 

Etsy follows the DMCA (verbatim) and allows sellers to file copyright notices with just an example. However, it appears that Etsy does not look into the validity of these claims (especially when they are so many) and just takes down the listing. Marissa went on many social media channels, falsely claiming that Etsy was siding with her. According to the DMCA, Etsy allows sellers to counter copyright infringement claims. Marissa is on record in writing, stating that she will report them again if anyone counters on these copyright infringement claims (also illegal).

 

On Tuesday, February 22nd Kathy from On the Beach Boutique received one of these copyright infringement notices from Marissa Garcia, owner of Ice by Issa. The ironic part is that Kathy's design is not a copy and Kathy's bunny is registered through the Library of Congress and is officially copyrighted. Etsy not only allowed this takedown of her listing but on Friday, February 25th Etsy notified that her account is now on reserves (75% of funds in reserve for up to 45 days) most likely because of this false claim from Marissa Garcia.

 

Kathy has hired an attorney to fight this. Not only to fight Marissa Garcia's illegal spree of copyright infringement claims but also Etsy, who are harming their sellers not only by allowing this kind of behavior in the first place but punishing their sellers with reserves on their accounts as well. Join the good fight! Donate to help Kathy fight this