BARBIE TAROT THEFT

After much agonizing, I have decided to leave the Barbie Tarot online because I created it for shared fun and I have received many wonderful comments and had many wonderful conversations because of it. But I want to begin with a cautionary tale before anyone looks at the images about how Etsy condones artistic theft and profits off people like me.

In January 2006, I created the Barbie Tarot using manipulated images primarily from Mattel's official Barbie web site and posted it on my own web site and on LiveJournal. I made clear at the time that I had no intention of selling or profiting from the deck; I acknowledged that Mattel owned the Barbie trademark, all images of Barbie dolls, the background imagery from the promotional material, and the names Barbie, Ken, Teresa, Stacie, Christy, et al. I stated at the time that no infringement was intended, though I believed the use of the images was legal under fair use since no profits were being made, and I noted that it was fine with me if readers wanted to save the card images for their personal use but asked that they not repost or otherwise reproduce them.

In February 2021, I discovered that someone had printed the Barbie Tarot cards and was selling them on Etsy for nearly $50 per deck. The cards were being shipped from the Ukraine in Etsy's DevaniShop, along with several other rare and out-of-print decks that I suspect were acquired and reprinted just as illegally. When I filed a complaint with Etsy, I was told by Etsy Legal that my claim had been rejected because Etsy was "unable to verify that the point of contact is authorized to act on behalf of the intellectual property owner" -- which basically means that unless you have trademarked your own artwork, anyone else can steal and use it on Etsy without Etsy taking any action or responsibility. I was also told, "This is a confidential matter, and Etsy requests that you not discuss this issue in the Etsy Forums or otherwise violate the confidential nature of this email."

Obviously it is far more important to Etsy to make money off illegally used artwork than to protect the creators of that artwork, though I'm unclear how it is legal for Etsy to demand that we not even discuss our rights -- obviously they control their own forums and will probably delete my account for my complaints, but they have no right to tell me that their response to my request for my legal rights is "confidential" when they have chosen to side with the person breaking the law. Just as obviously, I'm not going to hire an attorney over artwork from which I've never tried to profit -- that was the point, that it was made for fun under Fair Use, and Mattel owns the rights to the Barbie trademarks -- though I am hoping that Mattel now sues Etsy as well as the seller and have written to notify them of the situation. If Mattel demands that I take the Barbie Tarot cards off the web, I will do so. They're only protecting their own rights, not profiting off someone else's work.

After at least 13 years as an Etsy customer, I will not be buying anything from an Etsy seller again. This makes me sad, as I know many shop owners -- mostly women making products in their own homes -- who sell exclusively on Etsy because unlike eBay and Amazon, it is known specifically as a site for small business owners. But Etsy is refusing to protect both its sellers and its customers by siding with sellers who flagrantly violate copyrights, trademarks, fair use, and legal ownership of intellectual property. They're basically saying that unless a seller has another store or some other way to prove ownership of a product or idea, it's not Etsy's responsibility to protect the products or ideas of its sellers from poachers.