“It used to be you’d go out and find infringement in one chain store in a local mall, so you’d contact their national buyer and that’d be it,” Imhoff says. That’s turned rights enforcement into “an unending game of whack-a-mole” for rights holders, agents, and consumer product companies, he says. Imhoff says internet searches for items such as “Texas Chainsaw Massacre T-shirt” often display designs that infringe on Exurbia’s copyrights and trademarks. But it’s grown so fast it’s gotten out of hand.” As recently as 2010, he says, “print-on-demand had such a small market share, it wasn’t much of a problem. “The industry has grown so exponentially that, in turn, infringement has exploded,” says Imhoff, the licensing agent. And the DMCA doesn’t apply to trademarks, which cover names, word marks, and other proprietary symbols, such as the Nike swoosh. Some experts say that places them in a legal gray zone. Moreover, print-on-demand companies often transform-or help transform-digital files into physical products such as T-shirts and coffee mugs. That means rights holders typically must request platforms remove each item they believe infringes on their intellectual property. A 1998 law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) shields online platforms from liability for copyright infringement for merely hosting user-uploaded digital content. The explosive growth of print-on-demand technology is quietly challenging the decades-old laws that govern the use of intellectual property on the internet. They say print-on-demand shops have siphoned off tens, possibly hundreds, of millions of dollars a year in unauthorized sales, making it next to impossible to exercise control over how their property is used or who profits from it. Here’s the rub: The owners of copyrights and trademarks say that by allowing anyone to upload any design, print-on-demand companies make it too easy to infringe on their intellectual property rights. The technology gives anyone with an idea and an internet connection the ability to monetize their creativity and start a global merchandising line with no overhead, no inventory, and no risk. They allow users to upload and market designs when a customer places an order-say, for a T-shirt-the company arranges the printing, often done in-house, and the item is shipped to the customer. Companies like TeeChip are known as print-on-demand shops.
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