So, I really don’t like ketchup (I like it even less if you spell it “catsup”). I’m always shocked to see people happily pouring it over their meals, eating drenched soggy sugary red mush. Blech! Anyway, to celebrate my spite, I decided to add an anti-ketchup shirt to my T-Shirt-A-Day catalogue. Reasonable enough desire.
So, I opened up Illustrator and drew a relatively generic ketchup bottle. I hinted at the Heinz chevron-shaped label, but left out any real branding elements. It’s no particular make or model of the stuff I have a problem with. Then I slapped on the witty slogan “KETCHUP SUCKS!”. Pleased with myself, I headed over to Cafe Press to upload the design.
After chewing on the file for much longer than usual, Cafe Press displayed my image surrounded by an angry red box. And the usual option to make it into a product wasn’t available. When I clicked the info icon, here was their explanation:
“All images on CafePress.com are verified to ensure that they do not violate the rights of a third party. This image cannot be added to any product since it is pending image verification for the following reason: Your image may be Copyright/Trademark protected and require a license prior to its use for merchandise sales.”
Simultaneously, they sent me an email:
“We recently learned that your CafePress.com account contains material which may not be in compliance with our policies. Specifically, designing, manufacturing, marketing and/or selling products that may infringe the rights of a third party, including, copyrights (e.g., an image of a television cartoon character), trademarks (e.g., the logo of a company), “rights in gross” (e.g., the exclusive right of the U.S. Olympic Committee to use the “Olympic Rings”), and rights of privacy and publicity (e.g., a photo of a celebrity) are prohibited.”
OK. I had figured that “ketchup” was a generic word. Maybe it had started as a brand name, but now it was in common enough usage to be free from any linkage to a particular company or product, like “band-aid” or “q-tip”. But perhaps I was wrong.
So I went back in and edited my design’s text. “LET’S RUIN LUNCH!” it would now say. Pithy, sonorous, and in no way in violation of anyone’s copyright.
I re-uploaded. Everything seemed to be hunky-dory. No angry red box. It let me create a shirt. I even managed to go through my normal process for blogging it. Look, here it is:
I thought that settled the matter. But no. Just now, an email: the same again, “”We recently learned that your CafePress.com account contains material. . .” and again the angry red box and the product I’d created, Bad Condiment, vanished from my store.
Now, this I just don’t get! Is the problem that the image file I uploaded is called “ketchup.jpg”? Are they somehow doing shape recognition on the bottle’s chevron (hard to believe since I hand drew it and it’s in perspective) or the shape of the ketchup bottle as a whole? What’s in their censorship algorithm? It seems to be much stricter than their articulated policy would lead you to expect. Also shouldn’t there be some kind of exception for satire?
Has anyone else ever run into Cafe Press’s automated censorship or have any kind of sense of what it’s limits are? I’ve read their documentation and I can’t figure out what part of my image is triggering the problem. Grrr. . .
Tagged: cafe press, censorship, scandal
Is the censorship automated? I was under the impression that they paid people to actually monitor all image submissions.
In that case, a person is deciding your image looks too much like a Heinz bottle, and checking the appropriate “send alert email” box on their standard cubicle-bound employer software program.
?
Also, I really, really like the t-shirt, and even think “Let’s Ruin Lunch!” is maybe funnier than “Ketchup Sucks!”
Well done.
The fact that the censorship happens during the upload process implies to me that it’s coming from some kind of filter being run on the file itself. It was just too fast to have involved human intervention.
Their email also made it sound like the process entailed certain designs being flagged for viewing by a human after which point they might become available after all: “Accordingly, we have set the content that we believe to be questionable to “pending status” which disables said content from being displayed in your shop or purchased by the public.”
Anyway, thanks for saying nice things about the design! I was pretty proud of it. . .
Cafe press is getting too big for it’s britches! They actually let lot’s of blatant copyright infringements go through and they encourage members to copy ideas of other members by doing a call for designs on every topic that comes up. Have a clever idea? DON’T POST IT AT CAFE PRESS–it will be gone in a heart beat!
Then on top of it–their customer service to shop owners and individuals is HOPELESS.
Basically they think they can do what they want and everyone will take it.
They just need someone to give them some real competition. Zazzle does not because most TALENTED artists won’t go with zazzle due to their horrible licensing agreement which requires all rights forever!
Well let me tell you about Cafepress. They are TERRIBLE! I just ordered a shirt for my daughter’s birthday of her favorite character, Miffy. She sat online and ordered it herself and has been waiting for a week to get it in the mail. It came today and she opened it and said, “Someone already wore this shirt.” It was totally faded and too small (they advertised the wrong size)I can not believe the quality of this shirt. I have found nothing good on the web about this company except that my experience is not unique.
If you want a shirt that is better quality than anything this company produces, print it out on your HP ink-jet and transfer it w/ an iron. It will look better and cost much less.
Way to go Cafepress…make a 3 year old cry on her birthday!
Avoid this company!
I know I’m awfully late to comment on your cafepress ketchup difficulties… But I understand the automated censorship keys in on the keywords you add to the image… Did you use anything in your keywords that could be a copyright issue?
Cheryl — I didn’t add any keywords to any of my uploads. The whole CafePress upload process is so difficult on its own that I didn’t really take the time to add much metadata while doing this project. Just designing a shirt and struggling through their website was enough for me. I was actually just looking at my T-Shirt-A-Day photoset on Flickr and reminscing about this project the other day.
This whole ketchup censorship episode, really took the wind out of my sails on that one. Clicking around, I discovered that the old shirts aren’t even still up on CafePress, which is depressing.
Now, my only hope is that someone from CafePress discovers this post and all the great sympathetic comments from everyone and learns the error of their ways!
A correction: To be fair, I noticed that some of the old shirts, like the Portland Building shirt, which was one of my favorites, are still available on CafePress.
The word “ketchup” with this spelling is copy protected by Heinz. They OWN the word. Period!
I think I also heard that cafepress has people that go over each Image upload and decides if the image has violated copyright laws.
We have a site that offers t-shirts along with a lot more unique and exciting products.
You could checkout http://www.bravisa.com and offer you feedback to us.
By the way great shirt Greg
Hey did you ever get an explanation form Cafepress?
As someone said above Ketchup is copyrighted, so are band-aid and Q-tip no matter how common a name brand may become in the language it is still copyrighted material and if used in print is a violation of the rights.
Also some companies actually copyright their package designs as well. I think I remember reading long ago that the Heinz Ketchup bottle itself is copyrighted or trade marked so that ketchup manufacturers can’t use a similar design. It may extend to the bottle represented in art also
I swear! CafePress thought almost ALL my designs were copyrighted.
I saw a girl wearing a CafePress t-Shirt that said the typical “I <3 ______" and she put "Zuuki Chan" a girl from a band. So I decide, "Oh, let me make an "I <3 Airi Suzuki" shirt."
Guess. What.
IT GET'S FLAGGED. I'm leaving CafePress after they allow me to buy the notebook I made and have always dreamed of, because I sent them an e-mail "kindly" (SARCASM) telling them off. They haven't responded yet.