This year's Prime Day will be held in July. Although the specific time has not been determined, it will not affect the sellers' preparations. The more careful this time is, the more careful you must be. If you accidentally step on the minefield, the bamboo basket will be empty in minutes!

In particular, pay attention to the minefield of infringement. Amazon has always taken a heavy hit on this, ranging from removing listings from the shelves, and removing sales rights in severe cases. Recently, some sellers were directly banned due to copyright infringement, and the money and goods in the account could not be recovered, resulting in heavy losses.

Copyright infringement becomes a "stumbling block" in the peak season

Intellectual property infringement mainly includes trademarks, patents and copyrights, of which copyright infringement is the most troublesome for sellers.

Copying others’ listings, plagiarizing content descriptions, stealing pictures, overly imitating others’ original pictures, and unauthorized use of copyrighted patterns/images are all copyright infringements.

And it is also easy to be used by unscrupulous peers. It is difficult to self-certify the copyright of some content, such as listing, 5-point description, etc. Generally, sellers will not do copyright registration.

What should I do if I am accused of copyright infringement?

Generally, after being complained of copyright infringement, Amazon will provide two ways to deal with it: admit the infringement or submit a DMCA.

If there is a real infringement, you can acknowledge the infringement and tick Submit an appeal. The infringing content should also be deleted, otherwise it may be complained again, and repeated violations will cause the account to be at risk.

If you are maliciously complained, you can choose DMCA counterclaim. What is DMCA?

According to DMCA (US Digital Millennium Copyright Act), if the respondent does not infringe, or has the legal right to use the work, he can submit a DMCA Counter-Notice, that is, a DMCA counterclaim letter.

When Amazon receives the counterclaim letter, it will forward it to the complainant. The complainant will either withdraw the complaint or sue, and determine whether the infringement is infringed by the judgment of the court. If the complainant does not take any action, Amazon will unblock the listing after 10 working days.

It is understood that due to the increase in copyright infringement complaints last year, Amazon has upgraded the processing process, and sellers do not need to write a DMCA counterclaim letter, just check and fill in the relevant information.

It is much more convenient and quick to submit DMCA in this way, but many sellers report that Amazon has not restored the link for a long time. What should I do in this situation? Jite’s suggestion is to submit a reminder letter, or find a professional lawyer for assistance, and let the lawyer simultaneously mail a copy to Amazon while submitting it in the background, which can solve the problem faster and more effectively. (You can get a reminder letter template at the end of the article)

Note: DMCA cannot be abused

Once identified by Amazon as misuse, it may be banned. Therefore, it is best for sellers not to take chances, thinking that the other party will not go to court to sue, and choose to submit DMCA regardless of the actual situation.

The premise of submitting a DMCA must be: there is no copyright infringement of others, but it is spoofed by competitors or misjudged by Amazon. If the above conditions are met, and multiple appeals fail or no response is received, then you can consider submitting a DMCA.

write at the end

Prime Day is just around the corner, and the infringement problem has to be prevented! In addition to copyright infringement, trademark infringement and patent infringement should not be underestimated. Once a complaint is filed, the consequences are equally disastrous.

In order to help you better avoid and deal with infringement complaints, Jite has carefully prepared a complete collection of complaint templates & intellectual property query tutorials :

I. Infringement Complaint Template

①Reminder letter template

②Original image accused of infringement complaint template

③Complaint template for product image infringement ban

④Patent infringement appeal template for malicious complaints

⑤Trademark Infringement Complaint Template

2. Other appeal templates

①Account Association Appeal Template

② Complaint about selling fake goods appeal template

③Abusing the variant appeal template

④ODR Exceeding Appeal Template

⑤ATOZ Excessive Complaint Template

3. Query Tutorial

①The United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan trademark search tutorial

②Global Appearance Patent Search Tutorial

③U.S. Copyright Inquiry Tutorial

In addition, recently, many sellers have prompted brand abuse when they conduct brand registration or authorization. In this regard, Jite has also organized the [Brand Abuse Appeal Guidance] , which can help you effectively solve the abuse problem.