thefind.com - a sleazy rip-off of etsy artisans?
This topic has been closed.
This discussion is public.
Original Post
I'm starting a new thread about the find for the following reasons:
1. They have taken my, and other etsy makers', photos and hosted them on their own site, totally without permission or acknowledgement.
2. The images are of abysmally poor resolution.
3. They show sold and unavailable items.
4. They link in a quite arbitrary fashion to other items, many of them mass-produced.
Leaving 1. aside for the moment, the last three are definitely damaging to a artisan's business.
Using images of a person's good without their permission is THEFT. As a resident of the UK, local law applies to the misuse of my copyright images, no matter where the images appear. I will definitely be taking legal advice about thefind.
Why? Because I contacted them yesterday and asked them to remove my images and any links to them, and they have done nothing.
On another thread etsyans were posting saying they were pleased to be on the site, I am not and I feel violated and devalued to be there.
I am careful about where I sell my bags. I have now put a notice on the shop page of my website to let people know that I only sell through the sites and shops linked from that page.
Is anyone else peeved about this?
Posted at 4:26pm Mar 14, 2008 EDT
Responses
Not any more than I am peeved to be shown in Google, Oodle the other one I always forget. Shopping portals adding me is something I don't mind (that is *me*) as the sales would still be via Etsy. It would be different if my items were picked up by a thrid party vendor site...
But it is not cool that they aren't allowing you to Opt Out, Sarah. You absolutely have a copyright on any photo you take of your work - - and even portals should respect that. Perhaps they will remove your items today?
Posted at 4:34pm Mar 14, 2008 EDT
I see your points about the image quality and listing items that have already sold. However, they do link straight to Etsy, so I don't know if it's a matter of being conscious about where our items are being sold.
Although if you've requested your pictures to be taken down, I would be annoyed if they didn't respond in a timely manner.
Posted at 4:36pm Mar 14, 2008 EDT
Gosh, I just looked and they have dozens of my images. I had no idea.
Posted at 4:39pm Mar 14, 2008 EDT
i saw some of my items on there and i wasn't particularly pleased with the randomness of the ones that showed up. i would have preferred that my top featured items were selected but instead, some other items were. i also noticed the resolution of the pics were bad. i don't know who owns that website or what their mission is but i agree with you.
Posted at 4:40pm Mar 14, 2008 EDT
Yeah, I don't like that some of them look like utter crap.
Posted at 4:42pm Mar 14, 2008 EDT
Of my dozen pics there, only 1 is of very very poor blurry quality, and 4 or 5 of them are old sold items. I don't mind in most cases that they've posted sold items, it is a little annoying to see the "you might also like" and they are items outside of my own shop. But it isn't any different than the way amazon does that, and I'd imagine that an author wouldn't be too pleased to have the "89% of people looked at this book but bought this other one" at the bottom of their listing either, so it is just the way of online retail.
You can probably email them to request that your items be removed. They had a good write up in the new york times, and are a legit business, so they'll probably be very responsive.
Posted at 4:46pm Mar 14, 2008 EDT
Wow...yeah, I'm not happy with that either. Poor choice on picks, terribly blurry images (what do they do, copy the thumbnails then enlarge them?)...and obviously the images aren't updated regularly at all.
Posted at 4:55pm Mar 14, 2008 EDT
Whew - glad it isn't just the cranky old woman (me!).
Yes it does link to etsy BUT if the item is unavailable - you just get the etsy "i am error" screen which is cute and funny if you know etsy, but if you don't it could leave a bad impression.
There are lots of sites our there which function as linkages but...they have taken the trouble to render my images correctly.
I also don't want my bags to be on a site with mass-produced items. That's not what I want my work to be associated with.
Part of being a maker is to help educate people, aesthetically and ethically, about why handmade is great, you can't have that opportunity when a commercial site takes your images and shows them any old way.
Sigh......... maybe I'm over-reacting, but their lack of respect on the copyright issue is not a good reflection of their business "ethics"
Posted at 4:56pm Mar 14, 2008 EDT
I kind of looked at is as one more way for people to find my shop...
Posted at 4:57pm Mar 14, 2008 EDT