So, you think selling a T-shirt with a cartoon cat on it is just a bit of harmless fun? Tell that to Alda Curtis, a 63-year-old counselling student from Sydney, who’s just been slapped with a US$100,000 bill by the folks behind Grumpy Cat – yes, the internet’s favourite frowny feline. All for selling a single T-shirt on Redbubble that, apparently, looked a little too grumpy for their liking.
Curtis set up her Redbubble store as a hobby while studying, and in six years, managed to rake in a grand total of about US$200. The offending T-shirt? A frowning purple and yellow cat, which had been gathering digital dust for years before someone finally bought it – just before Grumpy Cat Ltd launched a lawsuit against her and 200 other online sellers in the US.
The result? A default judgment out of Ohio, ordering Curtis to pay US$100,000 for trademark infringement. She only found out about the case two weeks after the judgment dropped. She also later discovered US$592.75 missing from her PayPal account. After chasing PayPal for answers, she was told to take it up with Grumpy Cat’s lawyers.
If you’re thinking this sounds a bit much for a T-shirt that netted her just over a dollar, you’re not alone. Curtis told Guardian Australia, “I’ve seen a picture of that cat, but I didn’t even cross my mind that was in any copyright infringement or anything like that. So it was totally just a fluke, and they’re taking advantage of that. If everyone in the world is going to be not allowed to call [a design] Happy Cat, Grumpy Cat, feathered cat, or whatever it might be … where does it end?”
For those who missed the Grumpy Cat craze: Tardar Sauce (her real name) became an internet sensation in 2012 thanks to her permanent scowl, caused by an underbite and feline dwarfism. She racked up millions of followers, starred in a Christmas movie and was voiced by Aubrey Plaza, and inspired a mountain of memes and merchandise. She died in 2019, but her legacy — and her lawyers — live on.
Grumpy Cat Ltd has made a habit of chasing down anyone selling anything remotely grumpy and cat-shaped, filing more than 50 lawsuits in the US since 2019 alone.
In Curtis’s case, the company argued that her T-shirt’s name — “Grumpy Cat Pattern Graphic T-shirt” — was enough to confuse customers and infringe their trademark. They even offered to settle for US$1,000, but Curtis is now fighting to have the judgment overturned, saying she never received notice of the lawsuit until it was too late.
And if you’re wondering whether Curtis will actually have to cough up the full US$100,000 — well, as some Redditors have pointed out, unless she plans on popping over to the US, the judgment may not be enforceable here. But as she’s learned the hard way, PayPal and other US-based platforms can still take a bite out of your account if there’s a court order against you.
Grumpy Cat may be gone, but her lawyers are still very much on the prowl.
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