If you run an apparel brand, you have probably found your own designs on a print-on-demand site at least once. Most small brands file a takedown, watch a new copy appear the following week, and eventually give up. A ruling in Ohio this month suggests that giving up may be leaving money on the table.
On 14 October 2026, Judge Douglas R. Cole of the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio refused to grant Amazon summary judgment on direct and vicarious copyright infringement claims brought by Weekend Warrior Clothing, a T-shirt company run by two brothers, over designs sold through Amazon’s Merch on Demand. The contributory infringement claim was dismissed, but the case is headed for trial.
Why Amazon could be treated as the seller
The court focused on what Amazon itself does on Merch on Demand. It generates the product images, sets the price, names itself as the seller, prints the shirt, ships it and collects the money, paying the uploader a “royalty.” Judge Cole compared that to a copy shop that keeps your copy, displays it in the window with a “buy these here” sign and sells it to passers-by. That shop, he wrote, “is no longer passively providing a machine.”
For brand owners, the point is simple: the more a platform controls the sale, the harder it is for it to claim it is just hosting someone else’s listing.
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The notices mattered most
Weekend Warrior’s co-founder Tim Whelan filed infringement notices. Amazon’s automated system flagged him as fraudulent and sent his later emails to the trash. The court called Amazon’s response “dismal” and said a jury could find willful blindness, which keeps enhanced statutory damages in play. The same failure meant Amazon could not win its DMCA safe harbour defence at this stage.
George Laiolo of Watstein Terepka LLP, one of Weekend Warrior’s lead attorneys, put it this way:
“This problem plagues the entire print-on-demand industry. Companies like Amazon know their shops are filled with knockoffs, but they also know those knockoffs make a lot of money. So they make it extremely difficult for independent brands to police their IP, hoping that they’ll give up and just accept mass counterfeiting as a cost of doing business. The Whelans refused to give up. They look forward to proving their case in what will be the first copyright jury trial Amazon has ever faced.”
What brand owners should do now
- Register before you need to. Weekend Warrior could not claim statutory damages for 22 designs that were not registered in time. In the US, statutory damages and attorney’s fees are only available if a work is registered before the infringement starts, or within three months of first publication.
- Keep a record of every notice. Save the date, the listing URL, a screenshot and the platform’s response or silence. In this case, the paper trail of ignored notices did the heavy lifting.
- Keep your design files. Amazon is challenging whether some designs are original or derivative of reference images. Keep sketches, source files and dated drafts.
- Look at who sells, not just who uploads. If the platform sets the price and ships the product, it may be a target in its own right.
For the full litigation breakdown, read our sister publication’s report on Weekend Warrior v Amazon on Legal Desire.
This article is general information and not legal advice. The case has not been decided on the merits.
Featured image: George Laiolo, partner at Watstein Terepka LLP. Photo courtesy of Watstein Terepka LLP.
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