I received the heart breaking news, Last Friday.
After being suspended on Merch By Amazon, I received the letter back, After waiting an entire month.
I am permanently banned, My account; Terminated.
All my designs gone.
They even took the little amount of money in royalties I earned away.
I own the rights to this shirt and design!
GONE
I spent a month with my hopes up. Thinking that only a couple designs had issues. That I would be reinstated after the month was up.
I was wrong...
If you guys have or get a Merch account, Be extremely careful. Amazon is very ban happy.
I mean I understand from their point of view, They don't want to violate anyone's intellectual property.
But with me and many others, We aren't deliberately breaking the rules, Their standards are too high, It's hard to meet them.
At that point, they need to work with us.
I wasn't even really given a reason for why I was banned. I can only assume.
What is Trademark
I didn't know what Trademark was before I started, I understood copyright, But not the trademark. It seems a bit silly That someone can Trademark a word or phrase. And even if I make a shirt unrelated to that, If I happen to use that word Or phrases, I can get in trouble!
It's ridiculous.
One example is: Music Is life
I wanted to make a shirt that said: "Music is life."
It's got cute little musical notes...
Guess what?
I can't.
Someone trademarked the phrase "Music Is life"
Down the road, Will we be able to use anything?
I had a mental breakdown
This program meant everything to me. I was so excited I would get butterflies in my stomach everytime I logged into my account.
I am baffled that this happened. Sometimes it seems like life just always works against you.
But then it hit me, Something I am constantly "Preaching." Something that I am a little Too Focused on.
Diversify Your Income!
All the people using Merch right now, Are making a killing in sales. And yeah, I'm jealous. But guess what!? They are at full mercy of Amazon. 
They don't own their Merch account, Amazon does.
Amazon can shut them down whenever they want.
Plus According to the TOS of Amazon, They can't even use their prime account to order shirts for their other customers who aren't on Amazon.
Basically "Dropshipping."
Obviously you need the Amazon Audience.
No, I'm not saying you should use those other POD sites, Like Cafepress, that pay you like crap, If you are even lucky enough to get sales.
What if you could start your own T-shirt business entirely from scratch? And Leverage the Amazon market, along with all of the audiences of the other popular E-commerce sites.
I figured out how to do just that... I'll go into detail later...
Thank you @elyaque for the awesome Badges!
This is why centralisation of power is a problem. Amazon can do anything they like.
Agreed! It's really scary as they gradually take over all the markets. I feel like what they are doing with Merch though Is starting to scare a lot of people away.
All of these sounds to me like Google banning people's (talking about publishers in the first place) accounts left and right, while they were simultaneously and constantly changing the rules. You would find yourself banned overnight without explanation and without a possibility to complain or even less clarify the issue.
I know many were abusing the system in all sorts of ways, but I still think it's not how should they operate.
But, on the other hand, I strongly believe, all those companies that hold (this way or another) such kind of monopolistic power, sooner or later would fall through. I think it's just a matter of time when people would finally organize themselves and stood up against all these monopolists, avoiding them in a huge loop and turning to more human alternatives.
Google also thought it's untouchable until he started losing several lawsuits almost in a row.
Today, not widely known, but some rumors are circling that currently is craving for advertisers upon huge drop down (although we are still seeing their ads all around).
So, it seems some things are changing, maybe not in big steps, but they do.
If we stay persistent or even forced (as you did) to find some alternatives or new ways and opportunities, the changes we are looking for would come even sooner!
I agree so much!
I'm never going to stop looking for opportunities. People definitely need to organize so we aren't censored.
I have a question regarding the shirt design you posted.
When you say you own the rights to the design and the shirt, did you create the design from scratch yourself? Or was it assembled using elements from elsewhere?
The reason I ask is because I did a google image search of your shirt design and found this, which appears to be a negative of the image of the wolf in your shirt design:
The image can be found on the following page:
https://www.discogs.com/Bala-10-Farkasok-Visszan%C3%A9zni-Neh%C3%A9z/release/8968560
Please understand, I'm certainly not trying to toss any accusations or opinions around, because I understand that with a certain percentage of alteration to a creative work, some things can be acceptable in the eyes of the law, so I'm just trying to help you see perhaps why Amazon ruled on this the way they did.
For example, do you think it's possible that whomever created the original wolf saw your shirt design and pursued it with Amazon?
Wow thank you!
I actually purchased the design from a site called Merch Ready designs.
This was a shirt I bought recently. And I never uploaded it to Amazon.
Thank you for letting me know. I'm going to be sure to verify that the wolf on the shirt, Is some sort of royalty free clip art or something.
Trademarks are definitely tricky because it can be any symbol, design, phrase, or even a specific sound distinguishes one organization/business, its products and/or services from another.
Amazon is a perfect example. They cannot trademark the word amazon because it is a common word. What they CAN trademark is the font and colors, logos and all things associated to their SERVICE which happens to be called Amazon.
Coca-Cola - as another example. They cannot trademark the word "cola" but if you tried to use their specific red and font combination, there is definitely an argument for trademark infringement.
Sorry to hear about your lifetime ban. Hopefully you can submit another appeal in a month or so?
Oh good! Thank you for this!! This makes me feel better. I was worried that if I used the word "Apple" to describe a big yellow apple T-shirt design, I would get in trouble . LOl.
They won't let me appeal again. I'm hoping they'll change the way they do it in the future. I know a lot of good people are getting kicked off. I'm going to keep my eye on the program though. I even reapplied. Just in case. haha.
Thank you for your comment! It really helps. As much as online research I've been doing I feel like I still am some what confused to a certain degree. So Trademark searches have been my best friend haha.
such a great tip! diversify, diversify, diversify! [not financial advice]
Hahh thank you!! Diversify is good for everything it seems :)
Sorry to hear Amazon's ban "stuck" on your account... sadly, they (and Etsy and eBay) are sticklers when it comes to even the slightest chance there's a copyright infringement. They don't really investigate individually... if it looks like someone else's design or even part of someone else's design, you get shut down. I've seen this happen to a couple of friends on both Amazon and Etsy. Also saw it happen to someone who was selling (clearly marked) "faux" brand name items on eBay.
Gosh :( That is stupid! They need to hire people to investigate each case. I wish that there weren't so many scammers out there. I feel like all of those people deliberately trying to cheat the system, are the reason so many platforms have had to become so uptight.
If you are deleting thousands accounts everyday because of copyright infringement and there is 1 person who is not doing that on purpose. It can be hard to find that individual.
One door closed, another door will open. :)
Agreed! I'm starting to feel like this bad thing was actually good, Because this new door has more potential. And I don't think I would have found it without getting banned first LOL.
Have you tried etsy?
Working on building up one now :)
Sux
I know ;(
Sale your shirts on Steemit for Steem Dollars. You own your account so no one can ban you. You can get flagged for bad deals and your rep will go down. So that's an insensitive to do good.
This is why I don't hire designers to create designs for me. Took me a while to understand photoshop but I'm glad I did. I work on all of my designs. I had my account suspended as well so I understand how you feel. I'm currently partnered though with someone else. 50% royalties for me, at least its something.