I’m starting to migrate EVERTHING all into one place, as much as possible! That place is currently Ko-Fi.
Want to get my latest patterns? Ko-Fi shop.
What about charms and plush? Ko-Fi shop.
Want to sign up for a membership and get access to my WIPs, monthly rewards and educational posts? Ko-Fi!
It’ll be so much more helpful to have everything in one place \o/
I’ll be updating the menu on this place so that all the links go where I want them to!
This is hard for me to write, as from the beginning I hoped it could be resolved quickly, but it has been a week now and I don’t see an end to the situation unless I go ahead with long, drawn-out legal action.
I have been made aware that they have accused me of slander, so I will be frank: All of the information in this post, in all posts I have made and may make in future, is to the best of my knowledge, completely factual. Anything I might say about my personal feelings on their practices and behavior is MY personal opinion, but my claims of their misuse of my IP is to my knowledge true and backed up with numerous amount of evidence. I have been made aware of personal views held by Lindsey Davis and her wife and we will never share those views; we will never be friends. I will struggle to forgive such major breaches of my business’s terms of use, but I wish her good health all the same.
I do not normally react with Cease and Desists when I see artists forgetting/not crediting my work. We are all human, I have a couple of times forgotten to mention where I got assets for projects but have always gone back to edit the post when I remembered. I normally start off with a small message asking artists if they’d mind crediting me, however in this case the artist has breached all three terms of use, and has not adequately responded to my requests.
Last Saturday I came across a page called Wonderland Arts by Lin Davis. I noticed that the artist was using embroidery files purchased from me and that they were not crediting my name in their posts.
My terms of use in all my digital files are that I would like to be tagged/credited in posts showing works that have used my files and patterns.
I wasn’t particularly upset until I noticed that my embroidery files had been used/traced on mass-produced factory plush. This is also against my terms of use. At first I thought they had sent the files to the factory. Wonderland Arts denied sharing the actual files and I believe them, but when shown side by side the design is clearly traced or copied, and I have a receipt for their purchase of this eye pack, so this is not a coincidence and is still being taken seriously.
The third thing I found while checking the page for any further instances of factory use was a photo of my Anthro pattern’s pieces shared to their facebook. The post did not credit me as the maker, and the text of the post by omission misled followers to believe that the pattern was created from scratch. This is also a violation of my terms as I do not allow reproduction or redistribution of any of the content within my pattern PDFs.
Wonderland Arts has denied using my patterns for commissions or shop orders. THIS IS NOT THE ISSUE. My patterns are fine to use for commissions, as long as I am credited within public posts, but again, I do not allow sharing of my pattern content. This post is sharing that pattern and not crediting me. Those are my issues that I wish resolved. I have asked multiple times for this post to be deleted and so far it is still active as I write this.
On Saturday I received a facebook message from Lindsey’s wife, however she did not admit who she was in the message, throwing up a fourth red flag. I did not know who she was and I felt uncomfortable, I was suspicious and responded in such a manner. I blocked her and Lindsey on social media and resolved to send them an email instead, as I felt like emails were a more secure option. I sent a Cease and Desist, asking them to remove the photos of my pattern pieces, credit my files, stop using them in a commercial manner and apologize to me for the record-breaking violations of my terms of use. (seriously, nobody has ever broken all three rules before!!)
The only email I have since received from Wonderland Arts was disappointing at best. Their claims have been contradictory to public comments to their followers, and they’ve denied using my IP for the commercial plush (see the photos above for side-by-side comparisons)
I did tell them in my email that I would be contacting the other artists whose files had been used commercially, and if they couldn’t credit/delete the posts I had asked for that I would be writing an artists’ beware post, so that they can’t continue doing it to other artists (there are two others whose files have been used) I have not received any further contact, the posts have not been deleted, so here’s my artists’ beware:
Wonderland Arts by Lindsey Davis (and also of Fruit Buddies) has purchased my files, but then has not followed the terms of service present in the shop listing nor in the manuals that come with the items.
When contacted, they denied using my files for commercial plush, but said they would change the design. The listings with the copied/traced/stolen eyes are still active in their shop. They refused to take down the posts with my pattern pieces in, and have denied using those too. They have not added any credit to any of the many posts using my eye files. They offered to add credit if I sent them links. There are hundreds of posts. I went to their photos tab and took a screenshot any time one photo included my eyes anywhere. There were many collages featuring multiple plush with my eyes, but I only took one per photo. There were 200+ instances where I should have been credited.
Had I been credited in the first place, as they were being posted over the last four years, I would have been ecstatic each time to see my eyes used in such cute colourful ways. I would have been an absolute cheerleader for this page. If I’d been aware of them due to credit I would have sent potential fursona clients their way. As it stands, my experience with them has been forever tarred. I can’t imagine feeling comfortable with them using my work ever again.
I urge any artist who provides digital patterns, embroidery files or other plush-making assets to assess their terms of use and, if they are not comfortable with factory use / artists allowing the files’ creators to be misinterpreted, to block Lin Davis of Wonderland Arts and Fruit Buddies. Anyone who needs her email addresses to block on etsy / shopify etc can contact me for assistance.
My Etsy shop is closing! That’s right, FeatherStitched is no more on etsy.
Over the years they’ve made some decisions I’m just not on board with…
-rising fees
-the $35 dollar free American shipping initiative that helps NOBODY, is very exclusionary of anyone not in the USA, and also can make returns/refunds, taxes and customs a nightmare when trying to sort out how the postage was paid for.
-mandatory offsite ads the seller has NO control over with extortionate charges and a questionable algorithm
-removing support for users not on the paid tiers
-removing any sort of contact on social media (again, to encourage you to sign up for paid support)
-not looking into legitimate reports of monetary scams.
-not properly blocking users who harrass you. A customer angry at me for saying “no” to their custom request and sending me explicit imagery was able to walk straight back into my inbox later after being “warned” by staff not to. How effective!
-the sheer AMOUNT of bootlegged and mass produced items on a site supposedly aimed at vintage and handmade items.
The list just goes ON!
So, I’ve been trying to wind down the shop for a while. I haven’t uploaded anything new or relisted anything. I pay upfront for every listing (20c plus VAT!) so I figured since the “ads” were paid for, I’d leave them up until they expired and slowly they have been doing so. The plan was always to let as much expire as possible and then close.
A few days ago I got an email from Etsy letting me know that putting my new website/shop information is against policy, and they’re going to shut me down if I don’t do something about it.
I don’t contest that, and I can see whyyyyy they would not like this (bc they want the fees for the buyer clicking on my shop! They don’t want the buyer to be redirected and so they lose out on their marketing fees)
BUT. One of the lines they want me to remove is saying that, if you’re looking for my physical goods to go to my new site, and I told them that those goods were never on my etsy, so redirecting them loses them nothing, because the items were never there, and honestly, most people despite following me on social media seem to prefer messaging me there (please don’t, I hate it)
I find it just that little bit militant of them, and honestly it’s a great excuse to go back to them and say “no need to close my shop, I’ve done it for you.” it’s the kick in the ass I needed to finally just hit “close” on the shop.
Do I worry I’ll miss out on their traffic? A little, but I keep a good eye on my own posts and checking how visits were directed, and I’m not entirely sure Etsy is being honest there either.
A couple of years ago I put a new charm design up, posted it to my twitter and it blew up a little. A lot of people were messaging me on twitter to ask about custom colors and I fielded questions from there and had a pretty good idea of who everyone was based on their orders. In one night I made 200€ in sales, and according to etsy THEY’D fielded over 60% of them! There is no way that was true! Not when I had orders with notes attached from the customers telling me they’d seen me on twitter!
So I guess one warning I have is to be careful if you’re looking to transition from etsy to your new store over a period of time (weaning instead of going cold turkey) which, I can understand! You have an existing shop, you want to give people time to get used to it/ find out the news, and you want to make sure your new format works before you pull the plug on your old shop. But it’s against their rules to let them know ON etsy that you’re leaving etsy. Sad times.
Things you cannot do on etsy:
Talk about your other sites/shops or offer any sort of incentive to leave etsy.
Put your other shop info on your banner or anywhere else on etsy.
Direct anyone to your new site if they ask. You must “set up a custom order”
Those are their rules, I don’t want to make custom listings for everyone who wants to ask me a question, and I also don’t really want to keep trading there considering the fees they take and what I know about their algorithms and their idea of traffic driving. So I’ll go, I guess!
So long and thanks for all the fish! Stick around here for future codes, products and updates because they will NOT be going on etsy (and let’s be honest, haven’t for some time!!)
The site is up and running! All the necessary links and information has been added, all that’s left is to fill it up with blog posts, future releases and freebies!
Commission information is available, I may look into adding a queue counter or open/closed sign, but for now I’m just happy that it’s up in its own permanent space! I’m very happy to have a site that is mine (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡
Keep checking back for more updates, or follow me on Twitter!