I have seen a huge increase of my artwork on amazon this year from POD sellers. total of 398 different products ranging from wallpaper, skateboard art, carpets all the way to toilet seat covers.

I do not like doing this, but I have been reaching out to some of the sellers for clarity (will write a separate post on that later).

One as been vocal and willing to divulge information (after reporting it to amazon via infringement claim).He admitted using illustrations and photography from Adobe Stock and showed me proof of purchase. The license was just a standard one, so I politely explained the difference between standard and extended and he immediately apologized for his mistake.  he was really sincere and truly sorry for this mistake and agreed to take down or purchase the extended license of those images.

I was happy with the outcome (he took them all down), but was concerned about all the other contributors from Adobe and this forum. so, I asked him about the rest of his products (over 10,000) and he agree that he will review all of them this week and will buy the necessary extended license where necessary.

so please have a look at his store on amazon.com, amazon.ca, etc... (I noticed listing differs from different domains) and search his store with your most popular image title from adobe (he copy/paste the same title for his product listing on amazon):

https://www.amazon.com/s?me=AU350TTTVDFHT&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER

if you noticed some of your photos or illustrations in his store, please keep an eye out for extended sales.  Hopefully, that would mean he is keeping his word on cleaning up his store and that would make me happy that I converted him into an honest seller.

Cheers and stay safe everyone

I am having the same problem with another website that sells wallpaper. This company bought three photo's with a standard license and are selling the three photo's as wallpaper. I discovered it by change. Sometimes you have these websites where your photo is on but you clearly see the watermark of Adobe and then it's an API client of Adobe, I assume. But this website is clearly not.
I informed Adobe about it but they say it's apparently allowed (allthough the license rules clearly state it's not). Even after a second inquiry mail from my side, to ask if they are really sure, they repeated it's allowed and then on my third mail I did not get any response anymore. Either the Adobe employee did not look into the case properly, they don't care or it's allowed these days to buy a standard license and go commercially with the photo.

I also contacted the seller and they say that they didn't want to buy an extended license because that was to costly if it would not sell. So they bought the standard license instead. If they would make a sale then they would buy the extended license. But how can you ever check if they had a sale or not? And they also say that Adobe said it was all fine.

If that is really true then I don't think contributors to Adobe will ever have to expect royalties for an extended license anymore.

Hey SVH, sorry to hear that you are also struggling with this type of infringement.  it's possible that some of them are legit by using some type of API through adobe, but they usually keep the watermark on those image.

I just heard back from Adobe in regards to this amazon seller and they confirmed that Standard license does not allowed to resale derivative products, only the Enhanced and the Extended licenses do. In the case of printed products - I'm assuming the only option is extended licenses.

With a Standard license, you may not:
Create merchandise, templates, or other products for resale or distribution where the primary value of the product is associated with the asset itself. For example, you can't use the asset to create a poster, t-shirt, or coffee mug that someone would buy specifically because of the asset printed on it.

With an Extended license, you may:
Create merchandise or products for resale or distribution where the main value of the product is associated with the asset itself, such as a coffee mug or t-shirt.

I will be sending all this info to Adobe shortly via legal department and hopefully they can pursue and protect all the other contributor's artwork still available in that store.

Hi MotionJunky,

thanks for your reply. I know what Adobe says on it's website but understanding from my replies in the mail I have got from them  the reality is apparently different. Will let you know if their view changes.

Good thing sending your info to Adobe. I hope they will do something with it but I am not quite sure anymore. Although you think they would. It's costing them money as well.