How to Get Your Logos Removed From LogoGarden.com

We received a tip from a few designers yesterday that Rackspace, the site host for LogoGarden.com, has a copyright form on their site to request removal of any copyrighted material from the LogoGarden site. I’m pleased to report that this has been an effective course of action and Rackspace has quickly responded to the matter.

We recommend that all designers affected use the following link to fill out their Copyright Notice:

http://www.rackspace.com/information/legal/copyrightnoticessl.php

We filled out the form yesterday detailing the full list of the (28) logos of ours we found on the LogoGarden site. I personally combed through the site first thing this morning and only (4) of the (28) remained.

I also received an email this AM from a Rackspace CSR saying they contacted LogoGarden and LogoGarden had notified them that the material in question was removed. Rackspace’s email ended with the following statement:

“Please review the site in question to make a determination of compliance. If there are any outstanding issues with this matter please let me know so that I can take the necessary action to resolve this matter. Please contact us within the next 14 days. If we do not hear from you by August 31, 2011 we will consider this matter resolved. Thank you.”

So, bottom line, this route seems to be the quickest and most effective way to get your stolen logos removed from the site. Rackspace has the ability to put some immediate pressure on them.

I urge all designers to contact Rackspace as soon as possible. It seems to be working.
I’m following up with Rackspace right now concerning our few remaining logos.

 

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19 Responses to How to Get Your Logos Removed From LogoGarden.com

  1. Brent – I did the same yesterday and most of my 20+ logos that were on LogoGarden.com have been removed. I encourage all designers to keep making noise about this issue. Thanks so much for all of your efforts.

    • Brent Pelloquin says:

      Thanks Jeff. Not a problem. Wanted to spread the word about this Rackspace solution since it seems to be the most immediately effective course of action. Would like to see some kind of larger scale legal action against sites like this. I’ve been very encouraged over the last few days seeing the design community come together to fight this. We need to bring as much attention to this blatant theft as possible. Also wanted to thank you for helping to get the word out. Keep fighting the good fight.

  2. designer@gmail.com' Designer says:

    What’s funny about all this is that most if not all designers that found their logos on this site don’t in fact own the copyright/trademark. Their clients do. What would save everyone time and headaches is just to contact your client and or their legal division and let them send a C&D and have them deal with all this. Unless however the logo in question is your logo for your business and or had some deal in place with your client that you would hold the copyright/trademark (which IMO would be crazy).

  3. Brent, thank you so much for this info. I’ll be jumping into this process this afternoon-as soon as I’m done combing through the site. Very much appreciated!

    • Brent Pelloquin says:

      Carlos, glad we could help spread the word. We got the tip yesterday from a few people and Rackspace seems to be doing a good job enforcing it. Just trying to get the word out as much as possible so everyone can take immediate action. Thanks.

  4. comments@davidairey.com' David Airey says:

    Good for you, Brent. I’ve updated my post with a link to this one.

  5. I’ve slowly been following this story via twitter and other social media sites. As a designer, I’m appalled by this LogoGarden site and the fact that they had the balls to go and steal all these logos. I’m thrilled that you’ve found success in going through their hosting company to get the ball rolling on the removal of your work. I’m curious — is there any legal action that can be taken against them due to the fact that they actually have taken all of these designs illegally in the first place? And, I’m not sure how long this website has been around, but what happens if someone has purchased and is using one of the stolen logos as their identity? Is there any legal actions that can be taken to obtain their sales records?

  6. dbess@celsiusmarketing.com' Derek says:

    Unfortunately, many of the logos are different in nature, even though they look the same, there are very small difference between each logo. The old agency I use to work at ran into the same issue when a company was stealing our TV spots. My boss (who is fucking rich by the way) ended taking them to court twice and lost both court cases. The reason for losing is that, even though they looked the same and appeared to be the same to the naked eye, there were small difference that made them unique. It really sucks people can get away with this stuff, but there is no more right & wrong.

    Also, you guys can continue to send those DMCA notices to the site, but it wont get you far. I did that to a company and they kept putting my artwork back on their site. I went as far to talk to a lawyer after the company said they weren’t doing anything wrong. Both lawyer I talked to told me to not waste my time and that by the time you go through the legal system, I would have spent more money then I would get out of the case.

    Just really sucks that morals are no more these days.

    • tomokeefe@gmail.com' Tom OKeefe says:

      @Derek–There is a certain percentage you have to change it to make it your own. Each client that has a logo on that site needs to have their own lawyer / legal team send a Cease and Desist. Having the designers of each of these logos do all the leg work is just a waste of time. (for the most part) unless you own the rights to these you don’t have much of a leg to stand on to take them to court. It’s annoying having to see your work on these bull shit sites but with the internet and all these logo showcase sites that everyone post their work on makes it easy for this to happen. IP law is different and very tricky for both sides to prove copyright infringement.

      -Tom

  7. nospam.weborders@gmail.com' Lisa D says:

    FYI. It appears that LogoGarden is only removing from the US site when being contacted by RackSpace. You need to make sure that they remove the work from their UK site as well. The Travel Lady still appears on the UK site, so I assume that other works do as well. http://logogarden.co.uk/
    … and Canada, too.
    http://www.logogarden.ca/

    • Brent Pelloquin says:

      Lisa, thanks for the heads up. Just gave their homepage a brief glance and one of our marks is on there. I wish someone would just pull the plug on these sites.

    • tomokeefe@gmail.com' Tom OKeefe says:

      @LIsa– Unless each client has a trademark / copyright within each country they do not have to take it down. Good luck fighting IP in another country.

  8. tomokeefe@gmail.com' Tom OKeefe says:

    It looks like the owner of the URL is not from the US. from… Funchal, Madeira

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  12. lindamarietaylor@yahoo.com' linda says:

    Does anyone know how to remove one’s logos from logosdatabase.com?
    There is no contact information on the contact page and we do not wish for them to post our private information.

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