The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club has ordered Melbourne-based online shop Redbubble to pay $78,000 after it illegally sold merchandise with the bikie club’s trademark.
Redbubble is an online store where customers may upload photographs to be printed on a variety of goods, such as stickers, mugs, T-shirts, and masks, and then have those items listed for sale.
This verdict, which follows a $5,000 fine for selling products in 2019 that were stamped with the Hells Angels emblem, is the second against the shop in the last three years.
Following the discovery of further products posted for sale with the Hells Angels emblem last year, legal action against Redbubble was once more initiated.
The business employs keyword screening to keep an eye on uploads that could breach the copyright of groups that have attempted to safeguard content, such the Hells Angels.
Following the court ruling in 2019, Redbubble informed the Federal Court that it had edited 114 artworks out of the two million that had been published to its website over the previous five years. These artworks were connected to the Hells Angels.
However, it was revealed that the Hells Angels’ trademark officer in Australia was able to purchase items displaying the logo despite the previous court ruling.
Eleven different listings were identified on its site during the course of the case.
The court found the processes which Redbubble had in place to prevent copyright infringement to be flawed.
Several listings that had been suspended for manual review by an outsourced team in Jamaica, for example, were allowed to return to the site in error.
The company has since stopped outsourcing to the Jamaican moderation team.
Justice Andrew Greenwood stated while the detection system had improved, it had not worked effectively.
‘Clearly enough, they do not operate so as to bring about the result that infringements are always promptly detected and removed from the website.’
‘Further, the proactive moderation processes as outsourced … failed in large measure to protect the applicant,’ he added.
Only Hells Angel Motorcycle Club members looking to check if the things were still available for purchase purchased items with the logos.
Damages were given by Justice Greenwood for trademark violation.
Redbubble was sentenced to pay extra expenses and damages totaling $78,250.
The choice was made when Pokemon ordered the online retailer to pay $1 in damages for selling t-shirts in 2017 that included creative renderings of its most well-known creature, Pikachu.
After spotting Pikachu and other characters on Redbubble, the Pokemon Company International sued the online store for copyright infringement, seeking more than $40,000 in damages.
The Japanese corporation won its case at the Federal Court, but Justice Tony Pagone only granted minimal damages of $1.
This is so that the designs wouldn’t have generated royalties and be accessible for purchase inside the confines of the official Pokemon universe, according to the court.
‘Many of the items sold through the Redbubble website involved a ‘mash up’ of images, such as the combination of Pikachu and Homer Simpson,’ Justice Pagone said in his judgment.