TPT Seller - Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some questions that have come up in the SEOTpreneur community.

This is NOT legal advice. Definitely consult an intellectual property lawyer about your options.

I think someone has pretty much copied my resource, and they’re selling it on TPT. What can I do?

Great question.

First of all, I’m not a lawyer. Nothing here should be considered legal advice. It’s entertainment based on my lived experiences and understanding. Please consult an intellectual property lawyer for advice.

Again. This is NOT legal advice. Definitely consult an intellectual property lawyer about your options.

TPT, like other user-generated content platforms, has an intellectual property infringement policy that has to follow the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and other laws.

As a service provider hosting content produced by our community, TpT isn’t in a position to make legal judgment calls or resource comparisons, so we often have to rely on formal Notices to take action.
SOURCE: TPT Copyright Policy

That’s why you can find teaching resources that look suspiciously like copyright infringement on TPT.

Basically, TPT doesn’t pro-actively take down copyright violations.
Only the copyright owner can ask TPT to take down a resource (through a formal copyright complaints process.)

Here are some options you can do if someone is selling your stuff on TPT

This is NOT legal advice. Definitely consult an intellectual property lawyer about your options.

Here are some things you might do:

Contact the other TPT store directly and ask them to take it down.
Do nothing.
Consult with an intellectual property attorney about your options and then file a formal notice to TPT here that you are the copyright owner.

Filing a formal copyright complaint on TPT is serious stuff

This is NOT legal advice. Definitely consult an intellectual property lawyer about your options.

Here’s some information from the TPT Copyright Policy.

If your notice has all of the required information and TPT processes your request, they will

Reach out to the other TPT store…
Forward them your copyright claim notice
Take down the material from the TPT platform.

Copyright Notices — We’ll review your Notice of Copyright Infringement to make sure it contains all of the required information. The more specific your explanation is about which parts of a resource you believe are infringing, the easier it will be for us to process your request and ensure that the infringing content is removed. When we do take action on a notice, we reach out to the member who posted the content, forward them your notice, and remove the material from our site.
SOURCE: TPT Copyright Policy

Note – it’s not over yet. The other TPT store might do nothing, and then in five days, the resource gets taken down permanently and refund are issued.

Or, the other TPT seller might file a counter-claim saying you made a mistake and they’re willing to accept a service of process (i.e. law suit) – see below.

What can I do if another TPT store says I’m infringing on their Copyright?

This is NOT legal advice. Definitely consult an intellectual property lawyer about your options.

If TPT forwards you a copyright infringement notice, this is serious stuff.

It means TPT has taken down the resource in question temporarily.

You have five business days to file a counter-notice, or

TPT will provide refunds to buyers who purchased the resource.
TPT will deduct those refunds from your current earnings (or future earnings.)
TPT will take the resource down permanently.

We [TPT] immediately 1) remove your resource from the TPT Marketplace so that it can no longer be purchased and 2) reach out to you to provide you with information about the removal. Five business days later, if you have not filed a counter-notice, we will provide refunds to those Buyers who purchased your resource within a year of this removal. We do this because Buyers lose access to resources that are removed. Your earnings from those refunded purchases will be deducted from your current or future earnings.
SOURCE: TPT Seller Questions – What happens when my resource is removed from TPT for Intellectual Property Infringement under the DMCA process

Here are some options you can do if TPT forwards you a Copyright Infringement legal notice

This is NOT legal advice. Definitely consult an intellectual property lawyer about your options.

Here are some options:

You can do nothing. In this case, TPT will refund purchases to previous buyers and deduct the refund from your current and future TPT earnings.
You can file a Copyright Counter-Notice to TPT.

TPT does not make any legal decisions about whether a resource is copyright infringement or not. They simply follow a process (and ultimately let the courts decide if something is copyright infringement, if it gets to that stage.)

If you have made the determination that your resource is NOT copyright violation, then you can file a legal counter-notice to TPT.

Copyright Counter-Notice Process — If you’ve received a Notice of Copyright Infringement from us about one or more of your resources and you wish to dispute the claim that your work is violating the copyright of the notifier, you can submit a Counter-Notice to our Designated Agent. A reply to the email we sent you works just fine. Your Counter-Notice needs to contain…
SOURCE: TPT Copyright Policy

Basically, you’re telling TPT that under penalty of perjury,

you have good faith that a mistake has been made and your resource should not have been removed.
you agree to accept legal action from the person who filed the copyright notice.

Your Counter-Notice needs to contain … Statement by you stating that: a) you consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal Court for the judicial district in which your address is located or, if your address is outside of the USA, for the judicial district in which TeachersPayTeachers is located, and b) that you will accept service of process from the person who provided notification of the alleged infringement;
SOURCE: TPT Copyright Policy

This means that if you file a counter-notice, the other person can sue you for copyright infringement, and this can become a costly legal battle.

Note: If your address is outside of the US, it looks like the legal case will take place in New York which is the judicial district where TPT is located.

What can I do if I file a TPT copyright infringement notice and the other TPT store says I made a mistake and files a Copyright Counter-Notice?

This is NOT legal advice. Definitely consult an intellectual property lawyer about your options.

So, you filed a copyright complaint to TPT.

TPT took down the resource (temporarily) and forwarded the complaint to the store in question.

The other store responded within five days to TPT with a copyright counter-notice saying that their resource is NOT copyright infringement.

TPT does not make any legal decisions. They’re simply the content platform.

TPT will forward the counter-notice to you, and you have TEN DAYS to make a decision. (Consult an Intellectual Property Lawyer.)

Do nothing. After ten days are up, TPT will put back the resource that they temporarily took down (as if nothing happened.)
Take further action to legally protect your copyright and let TPT know that you’ve started a legal case. TPT will respect the legal action, and the resource in question will remain blocked.

Here’s what the TPT copyright policy says about whether the resource in question is taken down or restored at the end of this process:

If your notice [the Copyright Counter-Notice] includes all of the [required] information, we’ll [TPT] forward it to the folks who sent the original notice. Then they’ll have 10 days to let us know if they’ve initiated further action to legally protect their work. If so, we have to respect that and your material will remain blocked from the site. If we don’t receive anything from them, we’ll put your resource back up at the end of that 10 day period.
SOURCE: TPT Copyright Policy

Watch Episode 18 at 10:18 to see an example of a cost-benefit risk analysis I made using the CASEL Wheel (which is intellectual property owned by CASEL.)

SOURCE: TPT Copyright Policy

A seller has basically taken my resource, modified it for a younger / older grade, and they’re selling it on TPT. Can they do that? Is that copyright infringement?

This is NOT legal advice. Definitely consult an intellectual property lawyer about your options.

This is where it gets tricky.

Consider this: You find another TPT store that is basically selling a modified version of your resource. Is this copyright violation?

You think it’s copyright infringement.
The other TPT seller thinks it’s fair use.

To be honest, it doesn’t matter what you think, or what the other seller thinks.

It also doesn’t matter what your lawyer thinks, or what the other seller’s lawyer thinks.

What matters is, if the case goes to court, what a judge thinks. Only a judge can determine if this is copyright infringement or fair use.

So, the question is whether your modified resource would be considered by American courts as a “derivative piece.”

Why is this an American legal issue? I live outside of the US.

This is NOT legal advice. Definitely consult an intellectual property lawyer about your options.

Because as TPT sellers, we agree to the TPT Terms of Service in order to use their platform.

The Terms of Service means we agree to their Copyright and Trademark Policy

By using our Services as a Visitor, Member, or in any other manner, you agree to follow these Terms, including the terms of our Privacy Policy, Copyright & Trademark Policy…
SOURCE: TPT Terms of Service

TPT has a Copyright Policy that states what jurisdiction the copyright case will be determined in.

It looks like if the person with the infringing resource in question decides to file a Copyright Counter-Notice, then they consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal Court in their address, or in the judicial district of TPT if they are outside of the US.

Either way, the copyright case will be seen in a federal court under American copyright law (which can be different from other countries.)

Your Counter-Notice needs to contain … Statement by you stating that: a) you consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal Court for the judicial district in which your address is located or, if your address is outside of the USA, for the judicial district in which TeachersPayTeachers is located, and b) that you will accept service of process from the person who provided notification of the alleged infringement;
SOURCE: TPT Copyright Policy

If I modify another seller’s resource to sell on TPT, is that copyright infringement?

This is NOT legal advice. Definitely consult an intellectual property lawyer about your options.

Maybe. Maybe not.

It looks like American copyright law protects the rights of an author against the creation of derivative pieces.

Here’s what the TPT Copyright Policy points out as a general definition. And, they also point out that in no way should it be interpreted as legal advice.

Copyright refers to the rights of a creator or author of a unique piece of work to protect against copying, display, reproduction, creation of derivative pieces, and so on.
SOURCE: TPT Copyright Policy

Let’s see what else we can find on the internet:

Here’s what the US Copyright Office says.

A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications, which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”.
SOURCE: US Copyright Office Definitions

And US Copyright Law says that if you create something and you’re the copyright owner, you also control the rights to create derivative works

… the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
SOURCE: US Copyright Code s.106(2)

What I personally find interesting is that US law says that you can’t copyright an idea.

(I don’t know what that means, exactly. I’d have to pay a US Intellectual Property Lawyer to find out.)

In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.
SOURCE: US Copyright Code s. 102 (b)

Bottom line?

This is NOT legal advice. Definitely consult an intellectual property lawyer about your options.

Here are some things to consider:

Consult an intellectual property lawyer.
Do a cost / benefit analysis to decide if it’s worth creating a modified resource that might one day get a copyright infringement notice from another TPT store.
Do a cost / benefit analysis to decide if it’s worth filing a copyright notice against another TPT seller and potentially take them to court because they modified your resource and posted it on their store.

Here’s an example of a cost / benefit analysis I made about copyright.

Have a question?

Ask in the comment section on any video on our SEOTpreneur YouTube channel. See you in the next comment!