DMCA
Last updated:
Plant Ink draws its own plates. Every illustration in the shop is an original design, and we expect the same respect for other people’s work that we ask for ours. This page explains how to tell us if you believe something on plantink.shop copies a work you hold the copyright in, what a complete notice contains, and what we do once it reaches us. It deals with copyright only. Concerns about a trademark, a brand name or another kind of right are covered by the Intellectual Property Policy.
At a glance
- Send copyright notices to support@plantink.shop with the subject “Copyright notice”, or by post to Plant Ink, 10835 Flying Nell Ct, Las Vegas, NV 89141, US.
- A complete notice has the six elements listed in section 3.
- We read every notice and reply by email. Our support reply time is within 24 hours on business days.
- Material that infringes is removed or disabled.
- Support is by email only; there is no phone line for notices.
1. What this page covers
The notice process below applies to any material that appears on plantink.shop: plate illustrations, product images, product descriptions, the text of our pages and anything a customer has contributed, such as a product review. It follows the notice-and-takedown approach of the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512, and we handle notices from rights holders in other countries in the same way.
Plant Ink is a single shop selling its own designs. There are no third-party sellers here and no marketplace listings, so a notice is always about something we published or something a customer added to one of our pages.
2. Before you send a notice
Copyright protects a particular piece of creative work: a specific drawing, photograph or passage of text. It does not protect a subject. Many artists have drawn a monstera leaf, a sweet pea tendril or a tomato truss, and two honest drawings of the same species will share the features of that species: the fenestrations of Monstera deliciosa, the heart-shaped leaves of Ceropegia woodii, the ray florets of Helianthus annuus. A plant’s common name and botanical name are not anyone’s property either.
The table below may help you decide which route fits your concern.
| Your concern | Is it a copyright matter? | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| A plate reproduces your own illustration or photograph, or a substantial part of it | Yes | Send a notice as described in section 3 |
| Text on our site was copied from your website or publication | Yes | Send a notice as described in section 3 |
| A plate shows the same plant species as your artwork, drawn differently | Generally not; a species is a subject, not a work | Write to us if you still have a concern and we will look at both pieces |
| Something on the site uses your trademark, brand name or logo | No, that is a trademark matter | Follow the Intellectual Property Policy |
| Someone else is copying a Plant Ink plate | It is our copyright | Tell us by email; we are grateful to hear of it |
| A customer review contains your photo or writing without permission | Yes | Send a notice and give the address of the product page |
If you are unsure whether what you have seen infringes your rights, it is sensible to take legal advice before sending a formal notice, because a notice is a sworn statement.
3. What a complete notice contains
To act on a notice we need all six of the following, in writing:
- A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner, or of a person authorised to act for the owner. A typed full name at the end of an email is an electronic signature.
- Identification of the copyrighted work you say has been infringed. A link to where the original is published, or an attached copy, is the clearest way.
- Identification of the material on our site that you say infringes, with the exact page address for each item. If it is a plate, give the plate number and product name as well, for example “Plate No. 13, Sunflower Illustration T-Shirt”.
- Your contact details: name, postal address, telephone number and email address, so that we can reach you about the notice.
- A statement that you believe in good faith that the use you describe is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent or the law.
- A statement that the information in the notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you are the copyright owner or are authorised to act on the owner’s behalf.
3.1 Where to send it
Email the notice to support@plantink.shop with the subject line “Copyright notice”. If you prefer paper, post it to Plant Ink, 10835 Flying Nell Ct, Las Vegas, NV 89141, US, marked “Copyright notice”. Email reaches us faster. We accept notices in the body of the email or as an attached document; please keep attachments to the work and the notice itself.
3.2 Things that slow a notice down
- No page address, or only “your monstera shirt”. We have more than one plate with related subjects and need to know exactly which one you mean.
- No way to see the original work. Without it we cannot compare the two.
- A missing good-faith statement or accuracy statement. The law requires both.
- A notice sent by someone who does not say how they are connected to the rights owner.
If a notice is missing an element, we will write back and ask for it instead of setting the notice aside.
4. What we do with a notice
A person at Plant Ink reads every notice. We reply by email, and our support reply time is within 24 hours on business days. We compare the work you identify with the material on our site. Where the notice is complete and the material infringes, we remove it or disable access to it and confirm to you by email that this has been done. Where we need more information to reach a view, we ask for it before deciding.
If the material is one of our own plates, removal means the product is taken out of the shop. If it was contributed by a customer, such as the text or image in a review, we remove it, tell that customer it was removed, and pass on a copy of the notice where the law allows, with your personal contact details withheld where the law permits.
An order already placed for a product that is later removed is a matter between us and the customer. We contact the customer directly about it.
5. Counter-notification
If you are a customer whose contribution was removed because of a copyright notice and you believe that was a mistake or a case of misidentification, you may send a counter-notification to the same address. It must include:
- your physical or electronic signature;
- identification of the material that was removed and the page where it appeared before removal;
- a statement under penalty of perjury that you believe in good faith the material was removed because of a mistake or misidentification;
- your name, postal address and telephone number;
- a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for the district where your address is located, or, if your address is outside the United States, of a district in which Plant Ink may be found, and that you will accept service of process from the person who sent the original notice.
We forward a valid counter-notification to the person who sent the original notice. The material may then be restored after the waiting period the DMCA sets, unless that person tells us they have started court proceedings about it.
6. False or misleading notices
Under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), a person who knowingly makes a material misrepresentation in a notice or a counter-notification may be liable for damages, including costs and legal fees. Please send a notice only for a work you own or are authorised to act for, and only where you have actually compared it with the material on our site.
7. Repeat infringement
We remove infringing contributions and may close the account of a customer who repeatedly submits material that infringes other people’s copyright. The same rule applies to text typed into the personalisation fields: customers must not submit wording they have no right to use, as set out in the Terms of Service.
8. What this page does not claim
For clarity: notices are received at our support address and at the business address above. We do not list a telephone number for notices, because support at Plant Ink is by email only. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and nothing here limits the rights or defences that either side has under copyright law.
9. If you see a Plant Ink plate somewhere else
Our plates are sold only at plantink.shop. If you come across one of our numbered plates on another shop, a marketplace listing or a print-on-demand storefront, it was not put there by us. We would be grateful for an email with the address of the page. You do not need to send a formal notice for that; a link is enough.
10. Common questions about notices
I drew the same plant. Is that enough for a notice?
Not by itself. A notice needs a specific work of yours and a specific page of ours, and a real resemblance between the two beyond what the plant itself looks like. Two drawings of a fiddle-leaf fig will both have large, violin-shaped leaves with strong veins, because Ficus lyrata does. What copyright looks at is the particular drawing: the arrangement, the line work, the composition on the page. If you believe those were taken from your piece, send both and we will compare them with care.
Can I send a notice on behalf of an artist I represent?
Yes. Say in the notice that you are authorised to act for the copyright owner and name the owner. The signature and the two statements in section 3 are then yours, made on the owner’s behalf.
Will my notice be made public?
We do not publish notices. A copy may be passed to a customer whose contribution was removed, with your personal contact details withheld where the law permits, and we keep the notice with our records of the matter.
What if the plate layout looks like a historical botanical print?
The herbarium-sheet layout, with a plate number, a common name and a botanical name beneath a specimen, is a long-standing convention of botanical publishing and is not owned by anyone. Our plates use that convention with our own illustrations and our own lettering. If you hold rights in a particular modern print that you believe one of our plates reproduces, the notice process above applies as usual.
How will I know what was decided?
We email the address the notice came from. The reply says either that the material has been removed or disabled, or what further information we need, or why we do not believe the material infringes.
11. Contact
For copyright matters, write to support@plantink.shop or to Plant Ink, 10835 Flying Nell Ct, Las Vegas, NV 89141, US. For everything else, visit Contact Us or the Help Center. Related reading: the Intellectual Property Policy, the Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy, which explains how we handle the contact details you include in a notice.