Merch by Amazon

[jackpinion]

Okay... I wasn't really sure WHERE to start this thread but this section seemed most appropriate. I'm not here trying to tell you HOW to sell shirts on Merch although I do that myself... In fact? I have my hands in quite a few endeavors both whitehat and blackhat just to keep myself busy because I hate doing one thing over and over.

So here we go... What I'm hoping to do here is actually OPEN a DISCUSSION about this topic because what I believe to be a BLACKHAT MODEL is brilliant. In fact? Maybe with some of the best blackhat minds on the net right here on BBHF? Maybe we can reverse-engineer what I've uncovered.

I know I would SURE like to.

So I am on Tier 2000 with Merch i.e., I have approximately 1500 give or take designs up on Amazon.

Completely by accident, I decided to take a few of my best selling designs and perform a search for them on Google. To my surprise? I found literally dozens of COOKIE CUTTER websites selling my best selling designs.

At first, I thought these were Azon affiliate sites doing some kind of dropshipping deal i.e., they copy all the best selling designs off Merch -- get a sale -- buy the shirt off Azon -- have Azon ship it to the customer.

Only problem here is that half of the designs were selling for the same price as they are selling for on Amazon and the other half are actually selling for LESS! So in my humble opinion, this takes out the dropshipping option.

The more I searched? The more sites I found... They are all WordPress sites. They all use the FLATSOME theme with the Woocommerce plugin. The ONLY thing that differs with these sites are the logos, and the contact information but the sites are all set up exactly the same and I am sure I've only found SOME of them.

NOT ALL OF THEM.

Additionally? Each one of these sites ADVERTISES on Google Shopping! I assume doing this somehow VETS these sites for the consumer public because hey... EVERYONE TRUSTS the BIG G, right? LOLOLOL.

So after diving into these sites a little deeper? They are using the same png image to sell their designs as the one used to sell my designs on Azon. They are somehow pulling in these png images and also importing the description. I have no idea if they are making money but I have to assume THEY ARE since I've found so many of these sites up and running as well as being advertised on Google Shopping.

What I'm specifically trying to figure out however... Is how they are printing out the t-shirts and more specifically... What original artwork are they using? I'm betting that they've somehow managed to figure out HOW to download and or copy my ORIGINAL uploaded png file for the design because in my humble opinion? There's simply no way for them to clean up the image that displays my shirt on a colored t-shirt background ENOUGH to make their own original artwork.

Again... Just trying to open up a discussion here and hopefully get this figured out because it is ONE HELL OF A MODEL.

I should also mention that each site has its own DMCA section in case you see a design that shouldn't be up there... LOLOLOL. How about ALL of them? LOLOL.

So just for the heck of it? I sent ONE site an email about 3 of my designs they had up for sale and I asked them all kinds of questions just on the OFF-CHANCE they would respond. Not only did they NOT respond? But they took down all 3 of my designs within 24 hours!

So that tells me they really do want to fly under the radar... And? I did NOT use their DMCA submission process. I just sent them an IRATE email to their customer service.

Of course if this discussion does open up with all of us that are interested? I will happily share these site urls in this thread but I didn't want to do any of that until I find out if there's anyone else out there interested in digging deeper into this like I am.

So please feel free to chime in.

Thanks,
jack

[jackpinion]

Okay... I've been performing more research. There is in fact a way to download the ORIGINAL png file from within your own Merch account which makes me suspect there might be a blackhat workaround of actually logging into an account and download orginal png designs/artwork.

In addtion? I found this thread on Reddit so I am NOT the only one who's found this model:

Code:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonMerch/comments/d2g4eo/post_copyright_infringement_designs_here/

The thing about this thread of course is that they are saying that the people that run the sites are probably pulling the design from the images they are stealing from Amazon. I guess the only way to know for sure would be to ORDER a shirt from one of these sites and see how well the design looks.

jack

[jackpinion]

Okay... It just occurred to me to take the URL of my uploaded design that I got from within my logged in account and try opening that same URL in another browser that does NOT have me logged into my account.

It WORKS.

So that means anyone who can somehow figure out the URL of your design can simply load that design url into their browser thus, loading a copy of your originally uploaded png design WITHOUT being logged into your account.

I imagine a competent coder (which I am not) could figure out a workaround...

Which also means that if THIS IS TRUE? Anyone could steal original design artwork and have their own t-shirts printed... Not saying anyone is ACTUALLY doing this. I'm sure most of the theft occurring is using cleaned up copies of the design stolen off the mock up Amazon displays from the sales page.

jack

[equalizer]

When I just noticed your post I had to try and see what I could with the way I'm set up with merch. FYI, I never check to see if there are any copy cats using my shirts. Like most, I have the free Pretty Merch but I also recently installed a free German Chrome plugin called Productor.

Here is what I did.

1) I used merch informer to find and open a shirt with the keyword Summer (Summer of 69 - 50th Birthday Gift 1969 Vintage Retro T-Shirt)
2) I used the Productor extension to copy to clipboard/export product to excel... as a bonus, you can also click to see the indexed keywords for that product.
3) Hover your mouse over the product image that you are trying to duplicate right click and go down to Productor, hover and the slide-out will give you two options, one is to download the design image.
4) Open a creat tab on Merch and paste the clipboard or upload the excel file... now all the text is in the right spot. Upload the image that you saved and Bobs your uncle. I know there are Vietnamese scrapers out there that can do it automatically as I have seen them for sale on the FB groups they have.

[jackpinion]

WOW. Thanks so much for speaking up! This is AWESOME. LOL.

Repped!

jack

[equalizer]

Okay... It just occurred to me to take the URL of my uploaded design that I got from within my logged in account and try opening that same URL in another browser that does NOT have me logged into my account.

It WORKS.

Jack,
That could be because you are logged in merch in another tab on your computer.

~E~

[jackpinion]

(09-18-2019 11:06 AM)equalizer Wrote:  Okay... It just occurred to me to take the URL of my uploaded design that I got from within my logged in account and try opening that same URL in another browser that does NOT have me logged into my account.

It WORKS.

Jack,
That could be because you are logged in merch in another tab on your computer.

~E~

No... Notice I said that I used a completely different browser that was NOT logged into my Merch account and like I said? It worked.

So I just tried YOUR workaround and it worked fine but it only allows you to download a 2138 X 2000 image of the original design. Not the original 4500 X 5400 design artwork.

Although this tells me that there MUST be a REAL WORKAROUND OUT THERE SOMEWHERE! LOL.

Thanks again!

jack

[darkweb]

This is just the type of thread I wanted to find also. I've been working on one particular T-shirt idea for a while, and my biggest concern is just how fast I will be ripped off and how to try and stop that from happening. Also plan to do a themed website around the shirt, so there would be a couple of 'spoof tunes'/videos there for the taking as well.
Any ideas on how to subvert this from happening? Some tools to constantly scan the web to look for copy cats and try and put a crimp in their biz? I know such tools are out there because I setup a bogus Y*lp site for a client and they 'discovered' it within minutes of it going live. Of course, the domain name was a dead giveaway so it made it easy for a tool to find copyright violation with just the domain name, but...I know there must be some tools to try and monitor.
The reason I have serious concerns is this will be quite unique a shirt with a world famous individual and IF it take off at all, will probably be ripped off pretty quickly. Thanks all for the insights here already.

[jackpinion]

(10-01-2019 12:29 PM)darkweb Wrote:  This is just the type of thread I wanted to find also. I've been working on one particular T-shirt idea for a while, and my biggest concern is just how fast I will be ripped off and how to try and stop that from happening. Also plan to do a themed website around the shirt, so there would be a couple of 'spoof tunes'/videos there for the taking as well.
Any ideas on how to subvert this from happening? Some tools to constantly scan the web to look for copy cats and try and put a crimp in their biz? I know such tools are out there because I setup a bogus Y*lp site for a client and they 'discovered' it within minutes of it going live. Of course, the domain name was a dead giveaway so it made it easy for a tool to find copyright violation with just the domain name, but...I know there must be some tools to try and monitor.
The reason I have serious concerns is this will be quite unique a shirt with a world famous individual and IF it take off at all, will probably be ripped off pretty quickly. Thanks all for the insights here already.

Added some REP for you for joining the thread... Dude, I hear ya. I wish I knew what could be done. I keep reading through Merch posts on Reddit and apparently, members keep finding tons of these sites popping up. That tells me that they DEFINITELY have a workaround to download our original design artwork. I simply cannot imagine anyone with this many websites and running Google Shopping Ads taking the time to TRY and download a smaller version of our artwork and then make it work. Maybe that's exactly what they're doing but to me? That simply wouldn't JUSTIFY all these cookie cutter sites. This looks like a huge operation to me... And while it's probably not all being run by the same individual(s)? I do think a lot of these sites ARE because they are so SIMILAR to each other. WordPress. Mostly the same theme. Bogus U.S. mailing/contact address. And the fact that they are taking down designs upon request albeit no reply, that tells me they want to fly under the radar.

Additionally... This Productor extension no longer downloads the transparent 2138 X 2000 png image of our original artwork. Now it only allows you to download the image on the shirt mockup. Having said that? I've looked at the urls and you can still edit the download url to obtain the 2138 X 2000 png. I should also mention that these 2138 X 2000 png images are not truly 2138 X 2000 pixels in that the surrounding transparent background of your image is very large.

One could download this image, then cut out the actual design from IT and then use something like Illustrator or Vector Magic to recreate the original artwork but these are NOT going to be very good.

I can also see from the download url that Amazon is running a RESIZING SCRIPT and I even played with those numbers and got the size up to 4500 X 5400 but they are DEFINITELY NOT crisp and clean. They are definitely aliased.

I still think someone's found a workaround to download original artwork... I'd like to find the workaround if only to alert Amazon to prevent it somehow. I've already tried to alert them to it but they are telling me it can't be done.

I think they're wrong...

jack

[darkweb]

I hear ya Jack. (Thanks for the reps by the way) I'm a total noob to the Tshirts idea, and not in a position to get started just yet anyway. Too much learning and work to do. I've got a design 'half done', but then I began to learn about having to size the images and the other picture tech stuff involved, before even choosing a site to sell it through; so it's a 'hopeful' project in the near future. Amazon Merch 'seemed' like one of the better options mainly for name recognition and reach, but it appears the profit margin is a lot lower than many other potential platforms. I'll be looking at this more in the near future, but currently working on picking up other work for now.