Shocked and Frustrated: Account Deactivation Over Unfounded IP Claims Linked to Taylor Swift and Warner Bros.
Woke up to find my Amazon account deactivated on February 9th, 2024, with allegations of intellectual property infringement related to Taylor Swift and Warner Bros. Absolutely confused here, because my products—t-shirts and hoodies—do not violate any IP rights. These products feature common phrases like "A lot going on at the moment" and "We are never getting back together like ever," which are in no way exclusive to any celebrity or brand.
Despite my thorough checks through the USPTO, Google, and the US Copyright Office confirming these terms aren’t trademarked or copyrighted, here I am, dealing with a deactivated account. What’s more, I noticed other sellers with similar listings aren't facing any issues at all. Products under ASINs like B0C38Y3KFV and B0CL9PZ97B are still up and running. It’s hard not to think that Amazon’s automated systems are making some big mistakes.
After the initial notice, I swiftly removed the flagged listings and stepped up my pre-listing review process to ensure total compliance, avoiding any phrases even remotely celebrity-related. Despite submitting two detailed appeals explaining the non-violation of IP policies and demonstrating compliance, both were rejected.
I need advice from anyone who’s faced similar issues: How did you manage to resolve it? Any help on adjusting my appeal or other steps to take?
Thanks in advance for any support. It’s incredibly disheartening to see small sellers treated this way.
Best,
Shocked and Frustrated: Account Deactivation Over Unfounded IP Claims Linked to Taylor Swift and Warner Bros.
Woke up to find my Amazon account deactivated on February 9th, 2024, with allegations of intellectual property infringement related to Taylor Swift and Warner Bros. Absolutely confused here, because my products—t-shirts and hoodies—do not violate any IP rights. These products feature common phrases like "A lot going on at the moment" and "We are never getting back together like ever," which are in no way exclusive to any celebrity or brand.
Despite my thorough checks through the USPTO, Google, and the US Copyright Office confirming these terms aren’t trademarked or copyrighted, here I am, dealing with a deactivated account. What’s more, I noticed other sellers with similar listings aren't facing any issues at all. Products under ASINs like B0C38Y3KFV and B0CL9PZ97B are still up and running. It’s hard not to think that Amazon’s automated systems are making some big mistakes.
After the initial notice, I swiftly removed the flagged listings and stepped up my pre-listing review process to ensure total compliance, avoiding any phrases even remotely celebrity-related. Despite submitting two detailed appeals explaining the non-violation of IP policies and demonstrating compliance, both were rejected.
I need advice from anyone who’s faced similar issues: How did you manage to resolve it? Any help on adjusting my appeal or other steps to take?
Thanks in advance for any support. It’s incredibly disheartening to see small sellers treated this way.
Best,
18 replies
Seller_LVZcgxAgZ2xBv
Once again, poorly tuned automation is locking out legitimate sellers.
You are not the only one with this specific issue; @Seller_BQ0Hb9q8n3EEL was shut down for supposedly violating a trademarked term ("swiftie") which appeared nowhere in the listing or metadata. It was a false positive trigged by a completely unrelated and untrademarked term "Taylor" which the company was using for coffee cups and T shirts for Taylor, Minnesota and other towns. Another user @Seller_QjYfjZwWH8D0l reported a similar issue in the same thread:
If no Amazon employee here is able to address the issue, escalate on public social media and be sure to tag accounts associated with official Amazon Seller Help. Good luck.
Seller_LyYw7fQRKc5G7
If you are unable to get assistance on this, use Amazon Arbitration as noted in section 18 in the seller's terms of service.
Seller_zc50DVO3FE5fz
I can answer one of your questions regarding similar ASIN's - both of the ASIN's you mentioned have only a Chinese seller with a 30 character random business name. Once again another example of how Chinese sellers somehow magically have account immunity. Someone, someday is going to figure out why and get a massive payday.
Seller_1rABOZWHm00vi
Just curious, when did you receive the initial notice? I'm in a similar situation where I received a bogus IP complaint a few weeks and haven't been able to get it retracted yet, so I'm just waiting to see if I'm going to end up deactivated over it.
For appealing the suspension, maybe skip the parts about how the complaint isn't valid since Amazon couldn't care less and just focus on steps you're taking to prevent future incidents, even if it's just performative BS. Sadly there is no use appealing to Amazon with facts or reason, they only care about checking the right boxes on their end.
Seller_LVZcgxAgZ2xBv
Thousands of sellers from China have been shut down over the years, for instance during the crackdown on product inserts asking for 5 star reviews in exchange for gift cards a few years back. Here's one article from 2021:
However, since May this year, Amazon’s “Amazon store closure” has come particularly violent, affecting more than 50,000 Chinese businesses. Nearly 340 sites of Shenzhen’s super-large seller Youkeshu were blocked and 130 million RMB in funds were frozen. This has become the most severe case of Amazon’s crackdown on domestic sellers. Amazon’s close account to Chinese sellers is also time to take action. According to Amazon, the vast majority of the reasons for the ban are the following violations of Amazon’s operations that have been reviewed by the platform: “Improper use of the comment function”“Soliciting false reviews from consumers”“Manipulate comments via gift cards”And other violations.
Chinese sellers don't get "magical immunity."
Seller_TyNPnzv9SaYa3
In IP claims you are guilty until proven innocent.
Stevie_Amazon
Greetings @Seller_nckDad176srBz,
Thank you for utilizing the Seller Forums.
I understand you have questions regarding your account and intellectual property as you have received a number of infringement violations. I would like to get some clarification on this scenario.
If you could please provide the notification you received when your account was initially suspended, the community and I may better support you here. If you have any case IDs you may provide, I would appreciate those as well. Take care to remove any personal information prior to posting this information as well.
I look forward to your reply,
Stevie.
Seller_f0D7MTegYIxiF
Our account is currently in "At Risk" status due to 11 listings that the automated system flagged for Suspected Intellectual Property Violations on our own brand name for which we have Brand Registry. We've been trying to get them resolved for nearly a month to no avail even after providing our registered trademark documentation from the US Patent and Trademark Office. At one point, Amazon support approved removing the violations and reinstating the product but when it wasn't done in the promised 24 hours, we re-contacted support just to have everything reset to square one. Perhaps worst of all, we're in the SAS Core program at nearly $2k a month for this level of support.
Aside from these IP issues, we routinely get incorrectly flagged for things like pesticide products on auto parts, FCC Radio Frequency Emission Compliance when the product is not an emitter, price violations due to parts recyclers piggybacking off our brand registry listings...the list goes on. It's nearly a full-time job dealing with these violations. Needless to say, Amazon has serious problems with this system that need addressed.
Seller_XJk5RkDQR39p0
Are you using AI to come up with those phrases/ maybe that is the problem. AI is nothing but an indexing system for popular searches. and those two brands and everything attached to them is indexed as well. Now you have Amazon AI connected to their God, the internet, make a few assumption as to where this is going.
Seller_byRHgx6lgMjDy
I feel you, I'm currently fighting with Amazon for policy violations for using the word "Camper." It's very hard to sell Camper parts, accessories, and t-shirts reflecting camper life if we can't use the word "Camper."
Amazon is wildin these days.
