My watch face was flagged today, with the reason: “Infringing on the copyrights or trademarks of these brands: Relic.”
Yes, the word “Relic” was in the description, but come on, that word itself is not copyrightable.
What surprises me even more is that I still see watch faces with clear branding from companies like Lacoste or Nike, which seems like a much more obvious copyright issue.
I understand that you want to protect your partners and sponsors, and I respect that. But I honestly expected more straightforward and fair rules from a platform like this.
Totally agree but you can contest. I have only seen others do so so not sure the process but stooopid auto Marvin nonsense.
Apparently Navigator is CR. It is a job description, not a trademark.
I totally agree with you. It really feels over-sensitive when common words like Relic or Navigator are flagged, they’re just regular words, not brand references in this context.
I’ve already submitted a protest and also asked why faces with clear branding like Lacoste or Nike are apparently allowed. That seems way more like real copyright infringement to me.
Let’s hope they’ll respond fairly and maybe refine the system a bit. Thanks again for your support!
Part of the reason that some things get flagged but others like Nike don’t is because of the copyrighted companies themselves. If a company called Swartz Inc. filed documents with Facer telling them that their company name is a registered trademark and to not allow anyone using Swartz, Facer would be bound to honor that by zapping that face. Others who don’t complain like Nike gets their trademark posted all over Facer. I assume they figure it’s free advertising for their products.
That actually makes sense, if a company specifically asks Facer to protect their brand, I understand Facer has to act on that. Fair enough.
But at the same time, I still think it’s a bit unfair when words that aren’t even trademarks in context get flagged. You can’t really copyright a word like Relic, especially if it’s not referring to a brand but just part of a description.
So while I get the policy side of it, I do hope Facer takes a closer look at the actual use of the word before zapping a design.
Those words that trigger Facer are because of the search parameters Facer’s computers are using. I assume they can’t tell the difference between Relic and relic. That might also be done on purpose so scammers couldn’t just use the non-capitalized or an all-caps version of the word and fly under the radar. I’ve had deliberate misspellings get flagged because they were a little too close. Rolex will get you flagged but I got flagged with Fauxlex once.
Good point, I hadn’t thought about the system not distinguishing between Relic and relic, or flagging things like Fauxlex. It does make sense from an anti-scam perspective.
Still, I feel like context should matter. If a word is clearly not being used to imitate or refer to a brand, it would be nice if there was a human review or a message before removing a face.
I get that automation helps, but sometimes it feels like creative work gets unfairly punished while real brand copies slip through.
Yes, it is frustrating. I have had a number of faces taken down. Some even a year later when I updated them. I must say, most of them were given back to me.
Nowadays, I try not to use any specific terms in the name, nor in the description. My watch faces become hard to find without names… @mrantisocialguy: how do you find your own watch faces?, they all named “MAG xxxx”
btw. you could have used “R E L I C” and gotten away with it. Some creators do that…
Interesting that they even take down faces long after the upload…then they must update the filter data periodical. Glad to hear you got most of them back though.
And “R E L I C”. I might try that next time, It’s a bit strange that we have to resort to workarounds like that just to avoid getting flagged using normal words.
This may explain things
Marvin: The first ten million years were the worst. And the second ten million… they were the worst too. The third ten million I didn’t enjoy at all. After that, I went into a bit of a decline.
I have webpages online that has the link the MAG xxxx name and a brief description. Mostly I just scan through Facer Creator and look for the one I want. My issue is I can’t remember names, and it’s not because of my age. I was terrible at remembering people’s names as a teenager. I was a auto dealership mechanic for 20 years. My uniform shirts had my name and the dealership name on patches. I used to tell people I had to wear the shirt so I could remember who I am and where I work.
I had a couple Faces taken down in my early days here, learned my lesson, moved on…
Currently retired from creating on Facer, but after years they still took down loads of my Faces just recentish, total lunacy. I didn’t contest, just thought what the hell, I never use any of them anyway.
One Tip: always Duplicate before Publishing, then you’ve always got a back up if something “goes wrong”
Just out of curiosity, was it right at publishing attempt or some days after? Because we already complained a lot about it here.
And also suggested them, that the filter could be applied in the publication page, blending the publish button until you not only check the checkbox with accepting terms of use, but also until you remove anything infringing already in that moment. It would prevent such false alarms and later clarifying traffic between staff and accused users.
Soon to be added: Circle, hand, face, time, minute, second, hour?
The problem is an algorithm based generation of brand protected terms that is not checked until contention because that costs money, fed into an algorithm based BanHammer that is not checked until contention because that costs money
