Artist > Copyrights/Trade Marks info/questions

2017 Harley Davidson sues SunFrog

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Frog:

--- Quote from: GraphicDisorder on July 20, 2020, 10:31:59 AM ---What where they doing, literally taking their shirt art and printing it or just the logo or?

--- End quote ---

Fiirst off, remember that this was a few years ago, but of course, the industry-wide problem remains.

Like so many other internet-based businesses, like social media platforms, though it is them who facilitate the often serious transgressions, they argue that it is not their problem.
Here's a selection from the linked article which seems to boil down the specific issue.

SunFrog’s business model allows people to design their own T-shirts, hoodies and mugs. Those designs can then be included in the company’s “All Art Online Database,” which allows other customers to use those designs on their products.

After its founding in 2013, SunFrog’s business has taken off, becoming one of the largest printed T-shirt distributors in the world, offering millions of designs and supplying hundreds of jobs to Gaylord, according to previous Herald Times stories.

But court documents suggest that rapid expansion helped contribute to the subsequent legal issues it faced.

“SunFrog’s business model has been hugely successful,” Judge Joseph Stadtmueller stated the final court ruling, issued April 12. “It has grown from making a million dollars in its first year to making over $150 million in 2017. It has become the largest maker of printed T-shirts in the country and one of the most popular websites in the world.”

According to court documents, SunFrog’s website contained more than 100 infringing Harley-Davidson designs in May 2017, including the company’s “Bar & Shield Logo,” “Willie G. Skull Logo” and “Number 1 Logo.” Even after a preliminary injunction in Harley-Davidson’s favor, 93 of those designs were still available in June.

SunFrog’s executives did try to develop and implement policies and structures to try to combat the infringement, but those efforts apparently could not keep up with the rate at which the designs were being reproduced, according to court documents.

And, according to Stadtmueller’s ruling, those efforts did not absolve the company from its role in the counterfeiting. He said, even though the company did not create any of its own designs, SunFrog still had a physical hand in printing them, and profited off them. Further, the company continued to advertise the products on social media and often waited several days to take the products off its website, even after Harley-Davidson sent direct links to SunFrog showing the infringing products on its site.

The judge also said Harley-Davidson had no obligation to wait until SunFrog outgrew its “growing pains” before pursuing legal action.

“SunFrog seems to have developed a business that facilitated blatant infringement of others’ intellectual property rights on the misguided notion that it was immune to liability as a ‘service provider’ that offered a notice-and-takedown procedure,” Stadtmueller ruled.

blue moon:

--- Quote from: GraphicDisorder on July 20, 2020, 10:31:59 AM ---What where they doing, literally taking their shirt art and printing it or just the logo or?

--- End quote ---

ppl would design shirts with HD logo and put them up for sale. Then Sunfrog would print them saying they had nothing to do with it, somebody else designed it.

pierre

GraphicDisorder:

--- Quote from: blue moon on July 20, 2020, 11:48:34 AM ---
--- Quote from: GraphicDisorder on July 20, 2020, 10:31:59 AM ---What where they doing, literally taking their shirt art and printing it or just the logo or?

--- End quote ---

ppl would design shirts with HD logo and put them up for sale. Then Sunfrog would print them saying they had nothing to do with it, somebody else designed it.

pierre

--- End quote ---

That's what I assumed.

3Deep:
I see so many home base  printers cutting corners it ain't funny, and we used to get plenty here is my design straight off the web, had this one company trying to get us to print another companies logo as there own, they got mad and left BY!!!!!! ;D

Sbrem:
I've always told them, "That's copyrighted, so we can't print it without permission. To do so would be stealing, and as printers, we are legally presumed to know this." So far, so good...

Steve

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