Tabberone's Hall of Shame

Home | Site Index | Disclaimer | Email Me!

ScotiaStarr
Hall Of Shame Member

ScotiaStarr, who is also using her eBay ID as her ID on her membership with the CKDA( Canadian Knitwear Designers & Artisans), shut down auctions where the sellers were selling knitted dog sweaters which she alleged were infringing upon her protected rights.
The problem we see is that she can stop others from copying and selling her copyrighted designs, if she bothered to take the time and expense to copyright them, but she cannot lawfully stop folks from being creative and doing the designs from memory and/or knitting the designs from her patterns and then selling them. Her copyright protection only applies to her copyrighted patterns, again if she actually copyrighted them by registering them with the copyright office, and not the work product of someone using the patterns.
From the US Copyright web site (copyright in Canada is very similar to US copyrights):
Useful Articles
A 'useful article" is an object having an intrinsic utilitar¡ a function that is not merely to portray the appearance of the article or to convey information. Examples are clothing, furniture, machinery, dinnerware, and lighting fixtures. An article that is normally part of a useful article may itself be a useful article, for example, an ornamental wheel cover on a vehicle.
Copyright does not protect the mechanical or utilitarian aspects of such works of craftsmanship.
ScotiaStarr seems to believe that eBay has a sole-ownership program, which it does not. She alleges that her "sole-ownership" does not have to be registered to be exclusively hers! She is really clueless. She actually thinks all she has to do is snap her fingers and the rest of the world must comply with her wishes. When notified, ScotiaStar replied:
Once again I fail to see where you are going with this. I am registed in Vero under the sole ownership program. Not under the copyrighted items program. This DMCA deals with digital media, service providers etc. Not with Artisans and sole property ownership. This Sweater pattern is not a registered copyrighted pattern as the pattern has never been written out for sale, and therefore it doesn't have to be legally registered. You have filed a complaint wrongly!. I can't understand why you are so insistant on this since you have already admitted to copying my pattern (which has been filed with Vero). I have contacted Vero again concerning this issue to notify them that you filed a wrongful complaint.
Once again I have read the link you sent me and I fail to see how the copyright act 17 USC section 512(f) relates to me. I have read that act before and have found nothing that even remotely relates to artisans and their original designs. If you wish to copy and paste it to me I will read it. This is really get old and tired.
Maureen
The terminated person filed a counter notice and received from eBay an email that stated ScotiaStar had until November 30, 2005 to file a federal lawsuit to stop the re-listing of the items. ScotiaStar did not challange the counter notice.
As of December 4, 2005, ScotiaStarr has on her About Me page on eBay:

NOTICE!!!
I have been a seller on Ebay for the past 3 years with my designs. Many new Ebayers may not realize that all creative works are deemed the sole property of their owners. I have not sold this pattern. I do not sell my Dog Sweater designs under any other eBay ID so if you see my sweaters under any other name I can assure you that this seller has not been given permission to make or sell these sweaters. To protect my good name, I became a member of the Ebay VeRO Program this year and I periodically check eBay auctions. If there is a violation or an infringement on my designs and/or patterns, I will cancel the auction and you will be contacted by VeRo.

WRONG! Creative works are not deemed to be the property of the originators unless the originators take the required legal steps to register those works with the respective government agencies. This requirement protects the creators as well as the general public by establishing a process by which actual originial works are registered and thererby protected. This process also does not allow parties to falsely claim they own an idea when in fact they do not.
In our opinion, ScotiaStarr is abusing the eBay VeRO program to stiffle competition. She does not have any intellectual property rights as she claims and she has no real idea of what those rights entail. In fact, as of December 4, 2005, she is still using in her listings that, "This Pattern design is protected by VeRO (Ebays Verified Rights Owners Program)", when in fact that is NOT the case.
By becoming a member of eBay's VeRO program, ScotiaStar has forfeited protections and privacy. By shutting down auctions to which she has no valid rights, ScotiaStarr is opening herself up to potential federal court cases which will become a matter of public record as are the takedowns. This posting about ScotiaStarr complies with eBay's privacy regulations as we have not posted her full name, address, city, or contact information. The fact she uses her eBay ID in other locations and on a web site is not our problem.

Rebuttals
In an effort to provide a balanced view, we make the following offer to anyone who feels they have been wrongly accused on this web site.
If you, or your company, have been referenced on these pages, and you would like the chance to post a rebuttal, we will post your rebuttal (provided it is in good taste) so others can read it. The rebuttal must be submitted in a format that can easily be converted into HTML. We reserve the right to alter the rebuttal to make it more readable. However, we will not alter the content (unless there is offensive material to be removed). We also reserve the right to comment on any rebuttal received. Emails protesting the content of this web site may be treated as rebuttals by us at our discretion.
We made this offer a very long time ago and as of September 2008, only AnimieHot.com, in our Hall Of Shame, and Charlotte Perman (Sevenarts in our Hall Of Shame) have chosen to submit a formal rebuttal.