Yahoo Finance Taylor Swift and Etsy Are Sparring Over Adorable Trademarked Goods
Taylor Swift’s long list of scorned ex-lovers now includes at least two tech companies.
After first pulling all her music from the streaming service Spotifybecause she wasn’t “willing to contribute my life’s work to an experiment,” T. Swift has now waged a war against e-commerce shop/homemade felt cat accessory distributor Etsy, according to areport from BuzzFeed.
At least one Etsy store owner was sent a cease-and-desist letter from Swift’s lawyers claiming she was guilty of trademark infringement for selling a T-shirt emblazoned with one of the singer’s lyrics.
“We originally made the item for fun,” the seller, who wished to remain anonymous, told BuzzFeed reporter Patrick Smith. “We love Taylor, and we had friends that love Taylor. The cost of the item covered shipping and production costs, with very little left over.”
The “Blank Space” singer made headlines last week when she filed to trademark several song lyrics from her latest album, 1989, including “This sick beat” — a move that inspired at least one metal protest song.
Ironically enough, Fusion used the news item as an opportunity towrite a guide to Etsy-made Taylor Swift paraphernalia titled “Don’t worry, you can still buy plenty of non-trademarked Taylor Swift garbage on Etsy.” Though most of those products are still available to buy online, the majority of the T. Swift crafts included in a holiday viral BuzzFeed post are nowhere to be seen.
Still, it seems this move has left many of Swift’s mouth-frothing fans with feelings of betrayal.
.@taylorswift13 first goes after @Spotify and now @Etsy? I'm not a fan of commercialized Taylor. Yuck.
— Sally-Anne Kaminski (@socialskipper) February 6, 2015
