Guide

Etsy deactivated your listing and you are the maker

An Etsy listing comes down two ways. The counter notice answers one of them. Somebody filed an intellectual property report against you, or Etsy's own systems flagged the listing. The email Etsy sent says which, and the route is different for each. Send the wrong one and the attempt is spent.

Written September 21, 2026

The threads behind this page are all from the original maker. One posted in August 2026 that Etsy had pulled their handmade best seller three times and that they believed Etsy was "mistaking us, the original creator, for a reseller because identical copies can be found elsewhere online". Another posted in September 2026 that Etsy's automated system kept flagging their listings "as unauthorised copies or pirated copies", because their own watermark sat inside the download file.⁹

The short version

Read the email before you do anything. A named complainant and contact details mean a person reported you. A cited Etsy policy and no complainant means Etsy's own systems pulled it.
Etsy says "the vast majority of listing flags came from Etsy's own systems". The counter notice reaches only the other channel, a report somebody filed.
A counter notice is a copyright instrument. Etsy says it "cannot accept counter notices for non-copyright claims", and a third of its intellectual property takedowns are trademark.
Etsy takes counter notices "for US-based copyright infringement reports only", and does not say on either page what makes a report US-based.
Etsy's own appeal accepts up to twelve files showing how you make the item, and says a video of the finished item is not enough.
You get one appeal per listing, and Etsy's window is 180 days from the removal unless it says otherwise. A denied appeal cannot be submitted again.
Etsy reversed 141,286 of the 455,925 appeals counted in its European report for 2024, a little under a third, at a median of 0.2 days.

Which removal are you holding

Start with the email, not with the listing. Etsy sends a different message for each branch and the difference is easy to see once you know to look for it.

A third party reported you

Names a complainant and carries a report reference. Ask the reporter to retract it. Copyright, US report: counter notice. Trademark: Etsy takes no counter notice.

Etsy's own systems flagged it

Cites an Etsy policy and names nobody. Appeal the listing, 180 days, one try. Shop closed: the Appeals Center. No counter notice reaches this.

A person reported you. The email names the reporting party. Etsy's help center states it plainly: "If any of your listings are removed due to an infringement claim, you'll receive an email with the contact information of the party who filed it."² If the claim is copyright, the same email carries a unique link to Etsy's counter notice form.¹
Etsy's own systems pulled it. The email cites an Etsy policy and names nobody. The removal appears on the Policy violations page in Shop Manager, and Etsy's own wording for this branch is hedged: "we may remove listings that we have reason to believe may violate our policies."³
Nothing pulled it. A listing runs for four months and then expires. Sold out, expired and switched off by you all look like a missing listing and none of them is an enforcement action. Shop Manager separates them: Listings has the status filters, Policy violations has the removals.³

The two branches are not the same size, and the counter notice sits on the smaller one. In 2025 Etsy removed roughly 846,000 listings in total. About 180,000 of those came down for potential counterfeit violations on flags generated by Etsy's own internal systems, and Etsy says outright that "the vast majority of listing flags came from Etsy's own systems". The other channel, a report somebody files, ran to around 111,000 alleged infringement reports processed that year, of which copyright was 64% of Etsy's intellectual property takedowns and trademark 33%.⁶ Reports and removed listings count different things, so read those as two views of the same year rather than one subtraction.

A counter notice reaches one slice of the smaller channel: a copyright report, filed by somebody else, that Etsy treats as United States based. Almost every guide answers that slice, because it is the part of this with a statute behind it. Most sellers are standing somewhere else.

On its own accuracy Etsy says one thing, that it "improved overall enforcement precision by 10% year over year", against a starting error rate we could not find published anywhere.⁶ The 2025 impact report carries no appeal or reversal figure at all. One other Etsy report does, and it is in the appeal section below.

A report filed against you

Etsy removes a listing on an intellectual property report without ruling on whether the report is right. Its policy says it "will remove material cited for alleged intellectual property infringement when provided with a report that complies with our policies", and that it "can't speak on behalf of intellectual property owners, nor is Etsy in a position to offer legal advice or make legal determinations".¹ That is the whole posture. Nobody at Etsy weighed your work against theirs.

Etsy's own first instruction is to go around it. Its help page says to "directly contact the party that provided the report to Etsy if you have questions about the infringement claim", and to consider speaking to an attorney.² That is not a brush-off. A withdrawal is the cleanest way out of this, and it is the only route that works on every claim type. Etsy accepts withdrawals "directly from the intellectual property owner or authorized representative who submitted the claim", and requires the withdrawal to state that it is formal and to identify the member and the material.¹ Two limits are worth knowing before you write that message. Etsy also says withdrawals "do not guarantee changes to a member's shop status", so a withdrawal undoes the report and not necessarily everything that followed it. And Etsy warns against relisting the same content while it is open: "Do not create additional listings for this content unless the issue is resolved with the other party."²

The counter notice, and the two gates on it

A counter notice is a copyright instrument. Section 512 sits in Title 17, chapter 5, the copyright chapter, and its notice element asks for "Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed".⁷ A trademark complaint never travels through it, so nothing restores on a clock. Etsy says the same in one line: "Counter notices can be filed against reports of copyright infringement only", and "Etsy cannot accept counter notices for non-copyright claims."² A third of Etsy's intellectual property takedowns are trademark claims, and for that third there is no counter notice at all. Which right covers which asset sorts your own catalog if you are not sure which one the report is about.

The second gate is the one nobody writes about. Etsy's policy states that "Etsy accepts counter notices for US-based copyright infringement reports only", and neither that policy nor its counter notice specification says what makes a report US-based.¹ A seller posted in September 2026 that their counter notice was rejected "because the seller is outside the us" when both parties were in the United Kingdom.⁹ Your own location is not the gate. Etsy's own specification of what a counter notice must contain expects sellers outside the United States and gives them their own jurisdiction sentence, consenting to "any judicial district in which Etsy is located". 17 U.S.C. 512(g)(3)(D) writes the same substitute clause into the statute.¹⁷ If a rejection cites your address, that is worth writing back about, because the published rule is about the report.

The route is the unique link inside Etsy's takedown email. If that link will not work, Etsy takes the counter notice by email to legal@etsy.com or by post to its designated agent, the legal department at 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, New York.¹ Five things go in it: your signature, which Etsy says can be a typed name; the listing address each removed item sat at before it came down; a statement under penalty of perjury that you believe in good faith the material was removed "as a result of mistake or misidentification"; your name, address, telephone number and email; and the consent to jurisdiction.¹ The notice and counter notice with each statutory element marked is the long version of that list.

Then the clock. Etsy publishes 10 business days after it processes the counter notice, unless the copyright owner tells Etsy it has filed a court action or "a qualifying action with the Copyright Claims Board".¹ The statute gives a range rather than a date, "not less than 10, nor more than 14, business days following receipt of the counter notice".⁷ The Copyright Claims Board carve-out is worth reading twice, because a claim there costs $40 to open and is a far cheaper way for a complainant to freeze your listing than a federal suit. What a claim at the Board costs and what happens to it walks through the stages.

Three costs come with sending one. Your name, address and telephone number go to the person who reported you, because Etsy "will provide a copy of the counter notice to the original complaining party".¹ You consent to a federal court. And the misrepresentation rule runs both ways: 17 U.S.C. 512(f) covers a knowingly false claim that material "was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification" as well as a knowingly false takedown.⁷ Etsy repeats it in its own words and adds that abusive counter notices "may result in account termination".¹

One more thing to expect. Etsy's two pages do not promise the same outcome, and neither promises the listing itself returns. The policy says the material "may be replaced or access to it may be restored". The help page says that after the waiting period "you may relist the removed material".¹² Plan on rebuilding the listing, its views and its favorites.

If Etsy's own system pulled it

A removal by Etsy's own systems carries no counter notice and no clock. Etsy names four policy families that trigger a removal by Etsy: its Creativity Standards, the Prohibited Items policy, the Sanctions policy and the Intellectual Property policy.³ For a maker whose original work came down, two of those do the damage.

Unauthorized or counterfeit goods. The whole substantive policy is four sentences long. Etsy prohibits "unauthorized replicas or copies of items, and patterns or designs enabling their creation", and defines the category as "items that imitate an authentic good, particularly by using a brand's name, logo, or protected design without the brand owner's consent".⁴ A seller whose own design is being copied elsewhere can trip this from the wrong side, which is what the August 2026 poster believed had happened to them.
Creativity Standards. This is the policy Etsy used to call its Handmade Policy. It allows four kinds of listing: made by a seller, designed by a seller, handpicked by a seller, sourced by a seller. The line that catches makers is the photo rule: items "made by a seller" must "use original photo or video content of the final product".⁴

Etsy also reserves a free hand. The Prohibited Items policy says that where Etsy "has reason to believe" your content breaks its terms it may deactivate the content or suspend the account "and any accounts Etsy determines is related to your account", and it keeps a carve-out from telling you at all: Etsy notifies you "unless you've repeatedly violated our Terms or we have legal or regulatory reasons preventing us from notifying you".⁴ That carve-out is the source of the worst version of this, and a seller posted one in September 2026: a permanent suspension for "potentially fraudulent activity" where Etsy said it had detected "activity indicators" it could not disclose.⁹

What the appeal asks for, and what closes it

The route is Shop Manager, then Policy violations, then View and appeal. It is not a counter notice, it carries none of the statutory machinery, and Etsy gates it four ways.⁵

Not every shop has it. Etsy says the ability to appeal listing removals "is being rolled out gradually", and that where it is missing the Appeal status reads "Not available". Three policy families are listed as appealable, Creativity Standards, Prohibited Items and Intellectual Property, with a qualifier on all of them: "Appeal availability for these policies is rolling out over the course of the year, and some may not be available immediately." Etsy expects "all listed policies to be available for appeals by the end of 2026".⁵
180 days, per listing. Appeals go in "for each listing individually", and the window is Etsy's own "Unless otherwise stated, you have 180 days from the time the listing was removed".⁵ Twelve removed listings means twelve appeals.
One attempt. Etsy says that once an appeal is denied, "you can't submit another appeal for the same removed listing".⁵ Send the evidence you have, not the evidence you can gather quickly.
Twelve files. An appeal against a Creativity Standards, counterfeit or unauthorized reproduction removal takes "up to 12 photos, videos, or supporting documents that show how you create your item". Files must be over 120KB, video runs three minutes or less at up to 500MB a file, and timelapse is allowed.⁵

10 business days

What Etsy publishes for a listing to go back after it processes a counter notice. The statute gives a range instead, not less than 10 nor more than 14 business days, and both stop if the complainant files a court action or a Copyright Claims Board claim first.

3 days to 10-12 business days

Etsy's stated review time on an appeal against a listing it removed. The bar is drawn at the twelve-day ceiling.

180 days

The window to appeal a listing Etsy removed, counted from the removal, and you get one attempt per listing.

6 months

The window to appeal a permanent suspension through the Appeals Center, counted from the day of the suspension. Etsy says a decision can take up to two weeks.

Etsy's intellectual property policy and its help center pages on counter notices, listing appeals and suspended accounts, read September 21, 2026, with 17 U.S.C. 512(g)(2)(C) for the statutory range. Two rows are business days and two are calendar days, and the six-month window is drawn as 180 days, so the bar lengths are near comparisons rather than exact ones. Each row carries its own unit and its own wording, and those are the figures to quote. Etsy publishes no window at all for how long it takes to tell you a listing came down.

Whether it is worth sending has one published answer, and it is not in the report most people read. Etsy's transparency report for the European Union, covering February 17 to December 31, 2024, counts 455,925 appeals against removed content or suspended accounts. Etsy upheld 314,639 of its own decisions and reversed 141,286, a little under a third, at a median of 0.2 days.¹¹ Two caveats travel with that number. It is European Union scope, and it counts appeals against moderation of every kind rather than intellectual property alone, so it is not the rate on your own appeal. It is the only figure Etsy publishes that says an appeal reverses decisions at all.

455,925

Appeals against removed content or suspended accounts, submitted between February 17 and December 31, 2024.

141,286

Decisions Etsy reversed, against 314,639 it upheld. That is 31% reversed and 69% upheld, worked out from Etsy's own two counts.

0.2 days

Etsy's median time to resolve an appeal in the same period, which it also prints as 4.6 hours.

Etsy's DSA transparency report for 2024, read September 21, 2026. Two caveats the number does not survive without. It covers the European Union region only, because the report exists to satisfy an EU regulation. And it counts appeals against moderation of every kind, not intellectual property removals alone, so it is not the rate on your own appeal. It is the only figure Etsy publishes that says an appeal reverses decisions at all.

Etsy says most reviews finish "within 3 days, but it can take up to 10-12 business days", and that an approved appeal restores the listing to sale.⁵ It also warns what a pile of violations does on its own: "If your shop has multiple policy violations, we may have to remove any Star Seller badges you have, or suspend your account."⁵

Proving you made it

Etsy publishes exactly what it wants to see, in a table most sellers never find, and it is organized by how the item came into being rather than by what document you happen to own.⁵ Read your own route off it before you open the appeal, because the twelve files are the appeal.

Etsy's four creation routes and the proof it names for each, quoted from its help center page on appealing a listing it removed.⁵ One appeal takes up to twelve photos, videos or documents, each file over 120KB, video three minutes or shorter and under 500MB, and timelapse is allowed.
How the item came to be	What Etsy names as proof
Made by you	"Images or videos of raw materials, tools, or the workspace used to create your item." "Videos of you physically creating the item from start to finish."
Designed by you and produced by a partner	"Documents showcasing your creation process, or communication with partner (e.g., email screenshots)", plus video of you sketching or digitizing the design and of the partner producing it.
Handpicked or curated by you	"Images or videos of your stock and packaging, or how you found/cultivated an item from nature."
Sourced by you	"Documents or videos showing how and where you source your supplies from."

The rejection line is the one to remember. Etsy states that "Videos showing a finished item made or designed by you is not sufficient proof."⁵ A beautiful photograph of the thing you made is what got flagged in the first place. Process is the evidence: the raw material, the bench, the half-finished piece, the file open in the editor, the message thread with the workshop that printed it.

One thing Etsy does not ask for, which is worth having anyway when a report rather than a flag took the listing: the dated original. A camera file with its capture date, a layered design file, your first public posting of the work. That is what identifies an unregistered work when you are dealing with the person who reported you rather than with Etsy. Registration is the separate question, and it decides the money side rather than the takedown side, so it is worth starting while this is open. Registering a catalog of product photographs covers the group applications that keep it affordable.

If your own work is being sold elsewhere, say so in the appeal and show where. The September 2026 seller whose downloads were being flagged wrote that what worked was emailing support, asserting ownership of the outside site the files appeared on, and asking for a review of the enforcement decision underneath the flag.⁹ One case is not a rate, but it is the right shape: the flag fired because the work exists in two places, so the thing to answer is which of the two is yours.

When the shop closes

A single removal does not close a shop. Etsy says that when a listing is removed "your shop may remain open and able to accept orders", as long as the account has not been suspended for something else.³ Accumulation is what closes it, and no Etsy page we read puts a number on it. Its intellectual property policy terminates selling privileges for members "subject to repeat or multiple notices of intellectual property infringement in appropriate circumstances and at Etsy's discretion", and its suspension page says an account "may be suspended if you repeatedly violate Etsy policies after warnings from Etsy".¹⁸ About 28,000 shops were closed in 2025 for repeat infringement or counterfeiting, up 3.8% on 2024.⁶

Check the subject line, because it decides the route. Etsy says a permanent suspension email "will say 'permanently suspended' in the subject line and body".⁸ A permanent suspension goes to the Appeals Center, signed in to the suspended account, within six months of the suspension. Etsy asks for the actions you have already taken and how your practices will change, and takes documents. It says a decision can take up to two weeks, that "submitting an appeal doesn't guarantee reinstatement", and that once a specialist decides the account stays closed "there will be no further consideration of reinstatement. This decision is final."⁸

While a temporary suspension runs you keep the things that let you finish what you started and lose the things that make money. Etsy says you can sign in on the web, use Messages and cases, complete existing orders, issue refunds and pay your bill. You cannot sign in on the app, buy anything, take new orders, create listings, buy shipping labels, cancel orders or run Etsy Ads, the shop is not viewable, the Star Seller badge may go, and funds in the Etsy Payments account may be reserved.⁸ Do not open a second shop while you wait. Etsy extends its action to "any accounts we believe are associated with or operated by the affected member", and says that where it believes somebody has opened a new shop after a termination it reserves "the right to refuse all services to that member".¹

When the reporter is the copier

A copier who reports the original turns up in the seller threads, described the same way each time. One posted in August 2026 that somebody had "stolen my files and product images", listed them on another marketplace, "and filed fake false claims on my Etsy products and shop".⁹ Etsy's machinery has almost nothing for this.

What Etsy offers is a reservation rather than a route. It says it "may reject reports of infringement or counter notices that contain information we believe is false, fraudulent, incomplete, or otherwise submitted in bad faith", and reserves "the right to take action against abusers of this policy".¹ We found no seller-facing form to invoke that, and no published standard or timeline for it. Etsy's own instruction for a report you believe is wrong is still to contact the person who filed it.²

The statute is the other half, and it is a lawsuit rather than a button. Under 17 U.S.C. 512(f) anybody who "knowingly materially misrepresents" that material is infringing "shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, incurred by the alleged infringer".⁷ Read the standard before you rely on it. It is a knowing misrepresentation, not a wrong one, and the damage has to follow from the platform acting on it. No agency hears it, no marketplace enforces it for you, and somebody has to file in federal court.

The practical move is usually the one nobody frames as a move: report their listings. A person who copied your work and then reported you is still selling a copy, and your claim on your own photographs needs no registration to file. What each dead end after a report means covers what to do when that report gets an unhelpful answer, and the counter notice route above covers what to do when theirs lands on you first.

If you sell from the EU

Sellers in the European Union get a second route, and it is free to open. Under the European Union's Platform to Business regulation, Etsy runs an internal complaint-handling system that covers "the restriction, suspension, or termination of their Etsy account" for sellers in the EU.¹⁰ Etsy's stated first step there is simply to reply to the email it sent, with one exception it names itself: an intellectual property notice tells the seller to contact the complaining party instead.¹⁰

Past that there is mediation. Etsy has appointed the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution as its independent mediator and says it "will cover the costs of mediation upfront", then that "following the mediation, the mediator will recommend an appropriate apportionment of costs between Etsy and the business user". Etsy fronts it, the mediator decides who carries it. Etsy also commits to the outcome an error deserves: "If we determine that an action was taken by Etsy as a result of an error, the action will be reversed as soon as possible."¹⁰

The United Kingdom is outside this. Etsy's page says the regulation "relates to sellers in the EU" and points everybody else at ordinary support.¹⁰ A British seller gets the appeal and nothing else.

What we do not solve

Five parts of an Etsy removal have no answer.

A trademark report has no counter notice. Etsy takes none, and the statute that would supply one is copyright law. A withdrawal from the reporter is the route, and the reporter decides.
Nobody knows the strike count. No Etsy page we read puts a number on the removals that close a shop, only discretion.
Nobody knows the reversal rate on an intellectual property appeal. The one published appeal figure covers the European Union and every kind of moderation at once, so it is a floor under the question rather than an answer to it.
A denied appeal is the end of that listing. One attempt, and Etsy says a final suspension decision gets "no further consideration".
Knockoff cannot appeal for you. We work for the rights owner filing a report, not for a seller answering one. Nothing on this page is legal advice.

Where Knockoff fits

Knockoff is what we build, so read this knowing that. The August 2026 seller's own theory is the useful one: they believed Etsy had read the original as the reseller "because identical copies can be found elsewhere online". Whether or not that is what happened to them, the copies are the part of this you can act on, and nobody else is going to. Knockoff connects a Shopify store with the domain alone and watches that catalog's product photos across marketplaces including Etsy, Amazon, Temu, eBay, Walmart, AliExpress and the open web.

A match counts only when your photograph turns up in the seller's own listing gallery. On the managed plan Knockoff files the copyright report as your authorized agent on the platforms that accept agent filings. See what a prepared case holds, or check your own catalog for stolen photos.

The limits matter on this page more than most. Knockoff works for the rights owner sending a report. It does not answer a report filed against you, it does not write your appeal, and it does not talk to Etsy on your behalf about your own shop. It connects to Shopify stores today, one store per company, so an Etsy-only seller is not a customer of ours. Nobody in this category controls what a marketplace decides, and we guarantee nothing about the outcome of a report. One plan, fully managed, $799 a month, priced in the open, monthly, with no contract.

Questions

Why does my listing say deactivated by Etsy? +

Because Etsy removed it under one of its own policies rather than on somebody else's report. Etsy's help center names four policy families that trigger a removal by Etsy: Creativity Standards, the Prohibited Items policy, the Sanctions policy and the Intellectual Property policy. The removal shows up on the Policy violations page in Shop Manager and in an email. There is no counter notice on this branch. The route is the appeal on that same page, and Etsy says it is "being rolled out gradually", so some shops see the Appeal status as "Not available".

What happens if my Etsy listing is deactivated on someone else's IP claim? +

Somebody filed an intellectual property report and Etsy acted on it without ruling on it. Etsy's policy says it "will remove material cited for alleged intellectual property infringement when provided with a report that complies with our policies" and that it "can't speak on behalf of intellectual property owners". You get an email carrying the reporter's contact details. Two things can undo it: the reporter formally withdraws the report, or, for a United States copyright report only, you send a counter notice. Etsy does not accept a counter notice against a trademark claim.

How do I reactivate a deactivated listing on Etsy? +

Three states look the same from outside and only one of them is yours to fix. A listing that expired after four months, sold out, or that you switched off yourself is yours to renew from Shop Manager. A listing Etsy removed under its own policy needs an appeal from the Policy violations page, and you get one attempt per listing within 180 days of the removal. A listing removed on somebody else's report is not reactivated by you at all: it comes back through a withdrawal by the reporter, or through the counter notice route, and Etsy's help page says that after the waiting period "you may relist the removed material" rather than promising the original listing returns.

Do you still have to pay for deactivated listings on Etsy? +

Etsy's Creativity Standards say that when it removes a listing, "Sellers remain obligated to pay any fees incurred in listing such items". Etsy does publish one exception, on a different policy: for a Mature Content removal, "the listing fee(s) are refunded to your Payment account". A shop suspension costs more than a fee either way, because Etsy says funds in the Etsy Payments account may be reserved while it is in force.

How can I appeal the suspension of my Etsy account? +

Check the subject line first, because it decides the route. Etsy says a permanent suspension email "will say 'permanently suspended' in the subject line and body". A permanent suspension goes through the Appeals Center, signed in to the suspended account, and you have six months from the day of the suspension. Etsy asks for the actions you have taken and how your practices will change, and takes documents. It says a decision can take up to two weeks, that "submitting an appeal doesn't guarantee reinstatement", and that a specialist's decision to keep the account closed is final.

Can I open a new Etsy shop after being suspended? +

Not after a termination. Etsy's intellectual property policy says it terminates selling privileges for repeat notices "in appropriate circumstances and at Etsy's discretion", extends the action to "any accounts we believe are associated with or operated by the affected member", and reserves "the right to refuse all services" to a member it believes has opened a new shop after a termination. The appeal is the route Etsy publishes, and a temporary suspension is a different thing: some of those lift once the cause behind them is settled.

The person who reported me is the one selling copies of my work. What can I do? +

Two things, and Etsy runs neither of them. Under 17 U.S.C. 512(f) anybody who "knowingly materially misrepresents" that material is infringing is liable for the damages, costs and attorney's fees the accused seller incurs. That is a lawsuit, not a form, and the standard is a knowing misrepresentation rather than a mistake. Separately, you can file your own report against their listings, since a person who copied your work and then reported you is still selling a copy. Etsy says it may reject reports "submitted in bad faith" and "take action against abusers of this policy", but it publishes no route for a seller to ask it to.

I am not in the United States. Can I still file a counter notice? +

Etsy's published gate is about the report, not about you: "Etsy accepts counter notices for US-based copyright infringement reports only." Its own counter notice form expects sellers outside the United States and gives them different jurisdiction wording, consenting to "any judicial district in which Etsy is located". The statute does the same at 17 U.S.C. 512(g)(3)(D). Etsy does not define anywhere public what makes a report US-based, which is the gap a seller falls into when both parties are in the same country outside the United States.

If the copies of your work are the part you want dealt with rather than the removal, where a report about a copied product goes on SHEIN and Temu and the three routes for reporting a Shopify store cover the two platforms most of them turn up on.

Cite this page

Knockoff. "Etsy deactivated your listing and you are the maker." Published September 21, 2026. https://knockoff.co/guides/etsy-deactivated-my-listing

Sources and dates

Every source below was read September 21, 2026 unless the entry says otherwise, each carries its own document date, and quotations are verbatim.

1. Etsy's intellectual property policy and its counter notice specification. The Intellectual Property Policy, last updated June 15, 2023, for the removal posture, the reasonable attempt to notify, the copy of the report, the United States gate on counter notices, the 10 business day restoration line and its Copyright Claims Board carve-out, the copy passed to the complaining party, the repeat-infringement termination and associated accounts, the bad-faith reservation and the withdrawal rules; and the DMCA notice requirements page, last updated June 16, 2023, for the unique link in the takedown email, the five counter notice elements, the jurisdiction sentence for sellers outside the United States, the misrepresentation warning and the designated agent address. ↩
2. Etsy's help center on a report filed against you. What to do if you receive a notice of intellectual property infringement for the email with the reporter's contact details, the instruction to contact the reporting party and the warning against relisting; and how to file a DMCA counter notice for the copyright-only rule, the relisting wording and the legal-exposure warning. ↩
3. Etsy's help center on removals and inactive listings. Why was my listing removed by Etsy for the four policy families, the Policy violations page and the "reason to believe" wording; and why is my listing inactive for the five causes, the four-month expiry and the line that a removal leaves the shop open. Etsy does not define a distinct state called "deactivated by Etsy" on either page; the removal is surfaced under Policy violations and the listing itself sits inactive. ↩
4. The policies Etsy cites when its own systems act. The unauthorized or counterfeit goods policy and the prohibited items policy, both last updated August 11, 2026, for the definitions, the deactivation and suspension wording, the related-accounts clause and the notification carve-out; and Etsy's Creativity Standards, last updated June 10, 2025, for the four permitted categories, the original-photo rule and the fees line. The Creativity Standards are what Etsy used to publish as its Handmade Policy, and the old address still resolves to them. ↩
5. Etsy's appeal for a listing it removed. How do I submit an appeal for a listing removed by Etsy for the gradual rollout and the "Not available" status, the three appealable policies and the end-of-2026 target, the per-listing rule and the 180 day window, the single attempt, the twelve-file limit and its size rules, the four-row table of acceptable proof by creation route, the line that a finished-item video is not sufficient, the 3 day to 10-12 business day review and the multiple-violations warning. ↩
6. Etsy's transparency reports. The 2025 transparency report, covering January to December 2025, downloaded and text-extracted September 21, 2026: the "vast majority of listing flags came from Etsy's own systems" line, around 111,000 reports processed and the 30% rise, approximately 846,000 total listing removals, approximately 180,000 counterfeit removals on internal flags, approximately 28,000 shops closed and the 3.8% rise, the 64% and 33% takedown split, the enforcement-precision line, and the absence of any appeal, reversal or reinstatement figure in that report. Etsy's 2024 report prints a 15% rejection rate against the 2025 report's 18%, which the 2025 report calls a decrease; the direction is not reported here for that reason. The 2025 edition is the current one, confirmed against Etsy's impact reporting index. ↩
7. The statute. 17 U.S.C. 512, cross-read against the Government Publishing Office text of the 2024 edition, which match word for word on every subsection quoted: 512(g)(2)(C) for the 10 to 14 business day range and the court-action condition, 512(g)(3) for the counter notification elements with (D) for the jurisdiction sentence and its wording for a subscriber outside the United States, 512(f) for misrepresentation in both directions, and 512(c)(3)(A)(ii) with the chapter heading for why the mechanism is copyright only. The reading of "knowingly" in the case law is not covered here. ↩
8. Etsy on suspension. How to reinstate your suspended account for the subject-line signal, the repeat-violation cause and the list of what does and does not work while a suspension runs; and how to file an appeal for a permanently suspended account for the Appeals Center, the six month window, the questions it asks, the two week decision and the finality line. ↩
9. Seller accounts. Five public threads, read September 21, 2026, each quoted with the date of the post itself: r/EtsySellers, September 17, 2026 on listings flagged as unauthorised or pirated copies and what got them back; r/EtsyDigitalSeller, September 12, 2026 on a permanent suspension for undisclosed activity indicators; r/EtsySellers, August 20, 2026 on three removals of a handmade best seller and the original being taken for a reseller; r/EtsySellers, August 15, 2026 on stolen files and false claims; and r/EtsySellers, September 12, 2026 for the counter notice rejected on a location reading. These are individual accounts of individual cases, not platform policy and not rates. ↩
10. Etsy on the European route. European Union Platform to Business regulation on Etsy for the internal complaint-handling system and its scope, the instruction to reply to the email and the intellectual property exception, the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution appointment and the costs line, the reversal commitment, and the sentence putting sellers outside the European Union back on ordinary support. ↩
11. Etsy's European transparency report. Etsy's DSA 2024 transparency report, covering February 17 to December 31, 2024 and, in its own words, "the European Union region", downloaded and text-extracted September 21, 2026. Its metric table reads Total Appeals 455,925, Decisions Upheld 314,639, Decisions Reversed 141,286, Median Resolution Time 0.2 days (4.6 hrs). The 31% and the 69% are worked out from Etsy's own two counts. The appeals it counts are against "removed content or suspended accounts" of every kind, not intellectual property removals alone. ↩

Knockoff sells brand protection software and is not a neutral party. Knockoff is not a law firm and this page is general information, not legal advice. Policies and forms change without notice, so read the source before you rely on a line here.

Find out who's copying your products

Connect your store and see your first scan today.

Get started