I’ve never been someone who shopped around at different online craft companies. I found their prices to be prohibitive and if I bought something, it was because I saw someone else use it, then never really shopped further. I found Aliexpress and absolutely loved it. I loved the dies, the stamps and especially, the prices. I was oblivious to where a stamp or die design originated, and just bought things when I liked them.
This week I’ve learned that a lot of YouTube channels have been deleted for showing Aliexpress hauls. I’m not sure if my channel was spared because I am not monetized (YouTube doesn’t pay me for my channel), and don’t make money for referring customers to Aliexpress, but am glad that my channel is still here. I’ve taken most of my haul videos and made them private, so you can no longer see them. I can’t take the chance that my channel will be taken down as I’ve put two years of my life into it, and don’t think I’ve done anything intentionally wrong.
On the other hand, when you have a small YouTube channel, you are not given anyone in the YouTube company that you can converse with, so I have no way to contact them or ask them any questions about this issue. It’s just better to take my videos and make them private, rather than lose the channel over something I’m not clear about.
I’ve tried to contact another YouTuber who does Aliexpress haul videos to see if she has been contacted by anyone in the YouTube community, as she’s taken her hauls down as well…Maybe she’s doing what I am doing, trying to protect her channel, I’m not sure. I wish I had someone in authority to ask.
Obviously, I couldn’t address this directly on YouTube at risk of losing my channel, but wanted you to know the situation and thank those of you who have told me about other channels being deleted and giving me the heads up about my videos that were stolen. I feel really badly about this situation and don’t think I’ve done anything intentionally wrong, but will do whatever necessary to save my channel and rectify the situation.
If you want to discuss this further, you can either respond here or email me at saundralparker@yahoo.com.
CraftingForAlmostEveryone.com 
I’m so sad to learn you’ve been forced to remove your videos in order to keep them safe from being eliminated by Alphabet/Google’s YOU TUBE site. I watch them repeatedly because you do such thorough research & are such a pleasant person. I’m sorry I didn’t note VianneyCreates & NewCrafter Bev’s email addresses so I could contact them about this.
I’m totally addicted to the unbranded dies that, I understand, became available only about 2 years ago. I’d be embarrassed to divulge how many I’ve bought in the year I’ve been buying them. About the only stuff I’ve been watching for the last 6 months are the eBay/AE die haul & tutorial videos (& maybe some Tuesday Morning hauls). I DEPEND ON THEM TO KNOW WHAT’S AVAILABLE & TO SEE DIE SIZES & HOW THEY PERFORM. A few months ago I noticed a comment posted by Jennifer McGuire scolding crafters for buying dies that are stolen designs from the BigBoy companies. She is a very talented card maker who makes a good living featuring $30-$60 items SHE GETS FREE from the gouging domenstic companies & from residuals from the BigBoy sellers she leaves links for. VianneyCreates posted a video last month in which she read a dirty-trick scare-tactic email she received from Lawn Fawn’s attorney demanding she cease & desist from showing die designs “stolen” from their company. Most viewers wondered how she was supposed to determine what dies are SIMILAR to Lawn Fawn’s, especially since she was totally unaware of the Lawn Fawn company to begin with. While I despise AliExpress Management, I can’t resist their prices & huge selections. When I get ripped off by management morons it’s only for tiny sums. There has been discussion about whether these companies could win a lawsuit about their supposed copyright infringment claims & most think it would be thrown out of court. Alphabet/Google’s YOU TUBE should never have terminated accounts until this issue was adjudicated in court. I don’t know where we can complain to YouTube about this but here’s what I’m posting on the AE haul video accounts that haven’t yet been terminated:
“Has anybody else noticed that crafters who’ve been doing AliExpress die haul videos have been blackballed by the greedy big boy scumbags? I got a “This account has been terminated due to a counterfeit claim by a third party” message when I tried to log into two accounts I’m subscribed to. I think the chickensh*t company doing this is LAWN FAWN. It would be useless to recommend boycotting them because most crafters could never afford their stuff anyway. But we should leave scathing complaints on every video this company posts on YouTube. One of these terminated YouTubers read a threat she received from a company’s attorney about showing what they claimed were their stolen designs. So what’s next…..Pinterest boards? Facebook “unbranded dies” albums? cloud storage of your unbranded die inventory? EverNote unbranded dies Notebooks? eMail between crafters discussing unbranded dies? mobile phone conversations about unbranded dies???? They’re probably too cheap to go after the Chinese manufacturers/distributors/sellers so they pick on a defenseless older woman & an ACTIVE serviceman’s wife? PATHETIC! We need to be RADICALLY proactive & let the BIG BOYS know what we think of their scare tactics.”
And this to the LAWN FAWN channel videos:
SO YOU SCUMBAGS ARE HAVING YOU TUBE ACCOUNTS POSTING eBAY/ALI EXPRESS DIE VIDEOS TERMINATED, ARE YOU? ARE YOU HAVING TROUBLE SELLING YOUR RIDICULOUSLY OVERPRICED STUFF? I tried to log into 2 YT accounts I check for updates regularly & found a message stating “This account has been terminated due to a counterfeit claim by a third party.” Boycotting you would be useless because nobody could afford your stuff to begin with. LIKE WHO THE F*CK HAS $60+ to spend on your Stamp & Die Sets anyway? I always thought the LawnFawn stuff I saw on craft store websites supremely stupid until I saw what crafters buying +++SIMILAR+++ eBay/AliExpress dies (for a MAXIMUM OF $7 w/free & FASTER shipping) did with them. I bet you & CHA are too cheap to go after the Chinese manufacturers/distrubutors/sellers putting out stuff SIMILAR to yours. No doubt you probably realize you’d be thrown out of court if you initiated a lawsuit, so you go after an older woman & an ACTIVE serviceman’s wife? THAT’S SO PATHETIC IT’S ABSURD. So what’s next? You gonna go after Unbranded Die Pinterest boards? Facebook “unbranded die” albums? Cloud unbranded die inventory storage? EverNote unbranded dies Notebooks? eMail between crafters discussing unbranded dies? mobile phone conversations about unbranded dies???? Wake up & smell your future company closure.
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I know I responded to this on my other sites where you found me and hope you’ve had some success finding other crafters to talk to about this. Scrapdiva29 has reopened her channel to Scrapdivatwentynine…I hope you’ll check hers out
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I am happy some of the users got their channels back, Scrapdiva29 finally got hers back after about a month or so.. and sadly she removed most of her AE haul videos. some of the others that I subscribed to still hasn’t gotten theirs back yet. Has anyone else had any success on finding where they can talk about and post their hauls and wonderful example creations and inspiration? I belong to 2 unbranded die groups on facebook, but even there they prohibit alot of the stamp sets from being shown or posted, and its confusing at time on what we can post and what we cant. I believe another one of the culprit greedy big boys was Mama Elephant and Simon Says, because Amadores channel was terminated due to one of their products. It is really sad that us youtube users and crafters are being punished for something that should be between the companies complaining and the company they claim that are infringing upon them. We as consumers have gotten the butt end of the deal, as some have tons of videos for years on their channels. I have never bought a Lawn Fawn product or Simon Says because I cant afford their stamps and dies. Also the other thing that infuriates me is we should be able to buy from whom we choose and be able to share our findings and purchases to whom we choose.
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I took most of my Aliexpress hauls down, because I didn’t want to lose my channel for them. I believe my channel was spared because I’m not monetized. The ones that are monetized were targeted, I believe. I do know that sheshe started a facebook page for those that lost their channels, as well as started a second channel where she only posts her Aliexpress haul, which I think, was really smart. Here’s a link to it. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF1uf3P7jbgrSvm5OrhtL6Q
I do feel bad for the artist’s whose work in creating stamp and die sets, are punished by Aliexpress with a significant loss of income, but wish the US companies would realize that if China can produce and sell dies at the prices they do, why do American based companies sell the same dies for ten times as much? I think the stamp and die companies will be more aggressive over time, trying to shut down YT channels that promote Aliexpress, because this situation will only get worse because most people would rather pay $4 for a die set, rather than $30.
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Thanks for sharing the info. Something else I found out recently, is they are now targeting facebook groups, and they sit in the unbranded die groups on watching posts, to see who posts links to the products, and causing Aliexpress sellers to try and counter their actions by posting red box or generic images as product images to hide their products from these people.So its making it harder and harder to browse some sellers products. They are also making new stores, which fewer people purchase from new sellers that dont have a good rating. The more I think about it, the more outraged I get, most of the dies and stamps that Ali sells are not even the same sizes as the originals. I don’t know who has money to pay $70 for a stamp/die set, I certainly don’t, which is 10 times what they are worth. How are we supposed to know what is copies and what isn’t, and who has time to visit every name brand site scouring their products to know if something is a copy or not. I know alot of people are like me, why would we go to a site when when we know we cant afford the products, it makes no sense to target the customers who buy their products. Maybe one day these companies will realize they are shooting off their own feet, when their sales drop because people stop buying from them.
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Forgive me if I blinked and missed it but the thing I haven’t seen discussed is the design/development cost of a product. Our favourite stamp and die companies, whether big or small, have designers working for them drawing stamp designs etc. I hope we’d all agree that those designers deserve to be fairly paid for their work. The outfits producing ripoffs simply bypass the costs of creativity and imagination: they don’t employ artists and illustrators, they don’t have meetings to generate creative ideas or identify trends, they don’t support design teams as a way of promoting their products. They’re simply relying on the legitimate company to do all of those things and producing copies that they can consequently afford to sell much more cheaply, even before you factor in conditions of employment etc.
There’s no moral judgement intended here, life is full of hidden complexities and I’m sure I do things that folk with a different perspective would be horrified by. I’m just conscious that the artist often gets overlooked when their creativity results in a product (it’s always easier to see the “thing” than the process that produced it).
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I appreciate your input and hope that you realize that this post was made in 2017. Since then, I have not bought or shown any stamps or dies from Aliexpress. I still use generic products like micro-brushes and makeup brushes, but not stamps or dies. I also have notified US based craft companies when I’ve seen their stamps/dies on Aliexpress. When I wrote this post, as I said in the post, I had not shopped in US based craft stores, so never knew if a stamp/die was originated in the US….But since then, I recognize the role of the artist, and try very hard to ensure their work is not promoted from a Chinese based product.
With that being said, I hope you will understand my concern, that our US based craft companies are sending artist’s work to China to have their dies manufactured at pennies on the dollar. It’s a great way for them to get their dies made very inexpensively.. They then charge up to $40 for a die here, that can be produced in China to be sold for under $4. To me, our US based craft companies have to look at their practices and think about how gouging the consumer may be great in the short term, but ultimately their prices are what drive consumers to Chinese based companies.
I live in an area that has primarily been sustained by tool and die companies. If you aren’t familiar with them, they are the men and women that design every component of almost every mold made in the USA. That includes every car part, every bottle, lid, etc for products we use. In the 1980’s when they were making obscene amounts of money, Chinese businessmen approached the owners of some of our larger companies and asked them if they’d be willing to come to China to demonstrate how the industry works. Of course they jumped at the chance to do so, (because of the dollars involved) never thinking long term about the ramifications of doing so. Ultimately, the industry here has suffered immensely, and China now has an abundance of tool and die shops, willing to create molds for whatever product you can imagine.
I firmly believe in our system of capitalism, but I also believe there are limits, and with dies and even stamps, the craft industry is going to, at some point, face what our local tool and die industry has endured. You can’t send work to China and expect them not to replicate it. I understand there are companies whose work doesn’t go to China and I applaud them for that, but until all craft companies bring their work back to the US, this problem will remain. Lastly, I do feel badly for companies that produce their products here and still have their work copied. I hope at some point they will be able to come up with a way that others can’t easily steal the images they post. Unfortunately, it’s the way of the world. If you’ve ever bought a knock-off high-end purse, you understand the American consumer wants the product, but doesn’t want to pay a lot for it.
Ultimately, you and I are on the same page. We don’t want to see the artist’s work to be ripped off. Until the artists’ employers change their practices, I think it’s not a problem that will soon go away.
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P.S> I tried to send this thru my Chrome email but got an error message reading: Error
The address “saundralparker@yahoo.com.” in the “To” field was not recognized. Please make sure that all addresses are properly formed.
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That’s really odd, because that is my email address. saundralparker@yahoo.com
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I have repeatedly been asked to join the unbranded die group, and won’t for the same reason you mentioned in your note. I don’t want to be targeted and fear that I would be.
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They aren’t targeting people on facebook, they are just lurking, and going to the aliexpress links that people have posted and putting in complaints to aliexpress about said items being their designs. I belong to 4 different unbranded groups, one of then is my favorite, and there is so much beautiful inspiration there. You really should check it out, even for a short stay just to see what it’s like.
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I forgot to mention that I’d absolutely clueless when I’m on facebook. I can’t figure out how to move around in it, and I get frustrated really fast. When you have a YouTube channel, you have to be super careful about everything, as you never know. I could tell you more things that have happened to me, but am afraid to put it out there. Let’s just say, if you have a YouTube channel, you are a target. Sad but true.
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what is it called on facebook I would like to join
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in the search bar at the top, type in unbranded dies, and three or four groups will show up. You can pick the one you want from there.
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