2017 Harley Davidson sues SunFrog

[Dottonedan]

Sunfrog online custom DTG and screen printed designs sued by Harley Davidson.

https://www.petoskeynews.com/gaylord/featured-ght/top-gallery/sunfrog-loses-19-2-million-to-harley-davidson-in-infringement-case/article_5a46bdb7-ebfc-5a9a-8c7a-3edde1a9bf6b.html

[Frog]

Brings back memories of Kinko's and the idea of copyrights being ignored when it was suddenly just so damn easy to push the copy and print button.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1991/4/3/court-rules-against-kinkos-pa-us/
We've also all seen it when potential clients bring us something that they found on the internet, so it must be okay.
I'll always remember being a little surprised, and somewhat disappointed when, years back, at a Long Beach show, I saw M&R pushing their new (ill-fated) i-dot DTG printer with a sales pitch pushing the "find it on the internet, and put it on a shirt" idea.

[Homer]

Good! I hope every shop printing stuff like this gets nailed.

[blue moon]

Good! I hope every shop printing stuff like this gets nailed.

x 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

[GraphicDisorder]

What where they doing, literally taking their shirt art and printing it or just the logo or?

[Frog]

What where they doing, literally taking their shirt art and printing it or just the logo or?

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]

What where they doing, literally taking their shirt art and printing it or just the logo or?

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]

What where they doing, literally taking their shirt art and printing it or just the logo or?

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

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!!!!!!

[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

[Homer]

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!!!!!!

these are the people that grind my gears the most...Big companies, eh someday i know they will get what's coming to them.  it's these little home based guys that will never get caught. those "shops" bug the piss out of me... I want to call them out anytime I see them post up a "new design we are launching"  .  they are breaking the law laughing at the guys like us that have to pay for licensing. Some are too ignorant to know what they are doing is wrong and others say "screw'em, they make enough money, I can make a few bucks selling merch"  ...I don't wish harm on anyone but I hope their print heads dry up and their shirts are all crooked....

[bimmridder]

I'm with Jay. I could never figure out why, but we've had some designs we copyright for sports leagues blatantly stolen (And then put on the teams website) More than a few cease and desist orders filed here. But I'm equally irritated by the people making ANY copyrighted design and not paying royalties. People cheating the system are likely getting more per piece than those of us that abide. 'd better stop now.......

[Dottonedan]

You know, as a printer, it's within your reach really, to become a vendor of a Disney or Universal Studios. Not so much a Harley Davidson printer. There are only a hand full and it's locked in by them. They want it that way.

But everyone wants to print for these large organizations. Where it's more beneficial for those types of businesses, is if you were able to come up with the art they need. They got printers out the wazoo, but they don't have enough designs. That's a whole other story, but bottom line is, it's not "that" expensive to become a vendor printing their stuff. Not that costly anyways.  If I remember right, you might not need to do much if your shop is already on the up and up. Some have needed to make about a $10k change with an annual fee etc. At one point, My own business Dot-Tone-Designs was under a contract with Disney as a vendor, but not for Tee shirts.

That's from my perspective as one who's know many printers with the license to do so. Having a vendors license must obviously be different than printing and "selling at retail or as a wholesale manufacturer. Fortune Fashion did this. They started out having the license to do Airport retail tees Creating their own art for Disney's Consumer Products division. They handled all outside retail business. Parks, of course, handled all retail sales within the parks.  Then Fortune got bigger, and took on about a 3rd of the Parks printing and grew even larger to Mega shop size. Until I came on board that is. Then, I brought almost 50% of that back in house.  At one point, they owned the Big Dog brand and a few others. After enjoying that for about 15 years, the owner sold to Hanes, worked for them for a year and who knows what palm tree he's under right now.