Australian-born marketplace Redbubble has secured an appeal decision in a case between it and the Hells Angels Motorcycle Corporation, concerning user-generated designs that can infringe on another person’s registered trademark.
Redbubble sells print-on-demand products based on user-submitted artwork, including fashion items and accessories.
The Federal Court of Australia has reduced the damages for trade mark infringement awarded to Hells Angels by the trial court from $78,000 to nominal damages of $100, setting aside the trial court’s award of additional damages.
The Court has also said that there should be no declarations of infringement and that it will also narrow the scope of the injunction to a form substantially similar to that proposed by Redbubble during the appeal hearing.
According to court documents, Redbubble maintains content moderation procedures to detect occurrences of possible copyright but claims these systems are neither perfect nor instantaneous.
The cause of the litigation is that various third parties have uploaded designs to the Redbubble website which contain images including the words ‘Hells Angels’ and/or a skull wearing a winged helmet.
A spokesperson for Articore Group, parent company to Redbubble, called the new verdict a win.
“Not only for Redbubble — but for all online companies in Australia that implement reasonable preventative measures to deal with situations where users might upload potentially infringing content without the platform’s specific knowledge.
“We continue to invest significantly in our processes to protect the interests of artists and rights holders, and this ruling reflects our efforts.
“The decision helps us to ensure that our marketplaces can remain open platforms where hundreds of thousands of independent artists can sell their original creations.”