Kicked to the Curb: Kickstarter’s Hidden Wasteheap of Killed Projects

09-23-2012 • http://www.wired.com, By Tim Maly

According to Vinted, the project (which is still cached on Google) was taken down over an intellectual property dispute: Spencer Nikosey, former mentor to Vinted Goods’ product designers and owner of design shop Killspencer, issued a cease-and-desist letter to the team, then invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in a notice to Kickstarter. Kickstarter responded by summarily yanking Vinted’s campaign.

It turns out Vinted Goods’ leather isn’t the only Kickstarter project to be silently removed from the crowdfunding site. At least five projects have been removed by Kickstarter since April, replaced with the same terse message. This despite Kickerstarter’s stated commitment to openness and transparency, and language in Kickstarter’s FAQ promising that it doesn’t remove projects at all. “Projects are not closed or taken down, they remain on site for reference and transparency,” the FAQ reads. “For the same reasons, projects cannot be deleted, even if they were canceled or unsuccessful.”

“Like any site, Kickstarter removes content due to intellectual property disputes, inappropriate content, and terms of use violations,” says Kickstarter’s Justin Kazmark, who otherwise declined to comment on the issue.