Even after being online for 16 years you can still be surprised. Well, at least I can.
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On August 25th I was notified by Spoonflower that twelve of my nurses designs had been removed from my Spoonflower account.
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I thought, "What! They were all my original designs from close to a decade ago based on the nurse handmade dolls I had designed and made years ago. What could possibly be in violation?"
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Well, it turns out I had made a mistake in the design that I was totally unaware of and never gave any thought to. I would never have thought what they were citing would ever have been a problem.
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It seems that Spoonflower had been notified from lawyers representing the Red Cross, holders of the Red Cross mark and name, that they had identified one or more of my designs that they thought might infringe upon their registered trademarks or copyrights.
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According to Spoonflower, the objection was the red crosses I had placed on the front of the nurses hats and medical bags, as well as some I used on a couple designs in the background.
I was surprised as I'm a believer in copyrights and try not to violate anyone else's copyrights or trademarks that I'm aware of.
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I was never aware that using a cross, which I have always believed is a geometric symbol, would violate someone else's trademarks or copyrights. I guess, if it's red in color, then it is in violation.
Spoonflower had no choice but to remove my designs and I totally understood this.
However, given what a wonderful company Spoonflower is they did allow me to re-work the design and remove any imagery or mention of red crosses and then upload the revised designs back to my Spoonflower shop, which I did.
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I have always loved my original nurses designs and didn't really want to drastically change the design so I decided that since most people love nurses that I'd just change the red cross to a red heart and place that on the nurses hats, medical bag, and throughout the backgrounds where it made sense.
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Out of curiosity I decided to see if there were any other Spoonflower designs that had red crosses on them and didn't find any on Spoonflower but, did find hundreds of thousands of designs with red crosses on them in a google image search.
Whether or not any of them are in violation of the Red Cross copyrights and trademarks is not for me to decide. I know mine no longer are.
I hope you like all my revised designs.
© 2020 - 2023 Copyright Linda Walsh Originals - Designs By Linda Walsh.
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