WOW. Huge story for a related industry about Intellectual Property Rights in our back yard. Interesting that Spreadshirt wasn’t cited as well. It’s going to be a scary few months to see how this turns out. We always have problems with registered trademarks.
Mark actually came to me yesterday after he saw someone order a bunch of shirts with “Save the TaTas” in text and the breast cancer ribbon (not protected). We had to let the customer know that we would be unable to fulfill the order. It wasn’t the same logo; it was just text but we knew it was protected.
Cafepress, Zazzle and Spreadshirt have so many custom t-shirt designs being uploaded and sold through their marketplace that it would be very hard to regulate. I’m all for the Boston Marathon (wife ran in a couple) and they make a ton of money on their merchandise. But zazzle and cafepress probably sold 3 t-shirts with anything related to the boston marathon. Is a $1mm lawsuit really necessary or just a scare tactic?
https://bit.ly/9WcDF3
