JOIN USARPS (Artists Right Protection Society), a body founded to protect intellectual property rights of visual artists, designers and world- renowned brands, has called upon e-retailer Flipkart to take down sellers of pirated content on its website.
ARPS claimed that following an outcry to its petition on Change.org against sale of pirated products on Flipkart, the Bangalore-based e-retailer has taken down 24 sellers on its portal. However, it contended that it has a list of 15 more sellers still selling pirated content on Flipkart.
“Artists have been losing profits because of sales of pirated content online. We will raise voice against other online marketplaces as well,” ARPS said in a statement. The petition on Change.org addressed to Flipkart CEO Sachin Bansal states, “Due to e-commerce portals like Flipkart.com where anyone can sell stolen art, there has been an exponential rise in the past one year of cases in which official logos of brands and famous trademarks / original artwork of designers are being incorporated into various products without any consent whatsoever of commercializing it from its actual owners.”
It pointed out that sale of pirated/illegal products in the names of celebrities and organisations like Manchester United, Wayne Rooney, WWE, Sachin Tendulkar, Robin Van Persie, Star Wars, Sherlock Holmes, Calvin and Hobbes, Christiano Ronaldo, prestigious football clubs such as Barcelona, Real Madrid and the Indian Premier League are rampant on e-commerce sites.
“This kind of rampant piracy is creating an atmosphere of distrust for artists and designers in today’s digital world and needs to be stopped as soon as possible,” ARPS added.The artists’ body demanded that sellers caught selling copyright infringed designs incorporated into their products be removed from online marketplaces.