After reports of illegally offered designs, we asked Secrets of Embroidery (the design mall) what their policy is on their shops offering illegally digitized designs from their shop owners.

This was their answer:

"Here is a copy of our copyright policy:


All products sold at Secrets of Embroidery are owned and copyright protected by the individual designers/authors/artists etc. These items do not belong to the Secrets website .

It is the full responsibility of the embroidery digitizers to ensure their items use original artwork, or they comply with all the copyright and royalty rules for the artwork in use.

It is the full responsibility of any tutorial authors / clipart artists etc to ensure the information and items they sell as their original work, is indeed their original work.

Secrets of Embroidery retains the right, but not the obligation, to remove any item for sale if it determines the item may violate any intellectual property rights.

Copyright Claims

If you believe that any material on the Site infringes upon any copyright that you own or control, you may file a notification of such infringement with our Designated Agent as set forth below:

Michael Warmuth, DMCA Agent
PO BOX 2108
Anacortes, WA 98221
Fax: 425-286-6846
E-mail: michael@secretsof.com

Proper notification under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act DMCA must contain the following:

(i) A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

(ii) Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site.

(iii) Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material.

(iv) Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which the complaining party may be contacted.

(v) A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

We may give notice of a claim of copyright infringement by means of a general notice on the Site, electronic mail to a user's e-mail address, or by written communication sent by first-class mail to a user's address. We will terminate the account of anyone who we deem to be a repeat offender of our copyright policies.

Kind regards,



Margaret
Customer Services
Secrets of Embroidery

w:www.secretsof.com e:office@secretsof.com"

Because of this policy, we as moderators will respectfully request no further links to Secrets of Embroidery until compliance with copyright issues have been resolved.