Heathen Illustration

On 17 September 2020 at 00:13, I received an email from Redbubble Marketplace Integrity Team, informing me that David A Lancaster complained that this artwork violated their rights. Lancaster has the trademark of the word Heathen, and because I used that word in my title and tags, it was enough for him to feel threatened I guess.

This takedown notice is unfair, in my opinion. The word heathen is a word that people use all the time to describe people who don’t subscribe to widely-held religions, or a person regarded as lacking culture or moral principles. I used the word in reference to the latter meaning, as my artwork is meant to subtley convey that this witch is dangerous and unscrupulous. To trademark the word needlessy restricts people’s creativity, especially if the word isn’t even being used within the artwork.

Several other people have had unfair takedown notices against them from Lancaster, on Redbubble and Amazon Marketplace. I would love to be able to fight this, but I’m simply too scared to issue a counter-notice, on the chance that he does try to take me to San Francisco court. Even if legally there’s not really an infringement here, I can’t afford a lawyer to show them that. Plus, this artwork had never even received a sale, so it being taken off my store is not a huge loss.

But I encourage every other artist who deals with occult and religious themes to exercise caution when using this word in or around their products.

There is a petition on iPetition with over 5,300 signatures and 1700 comments as of 21 September 2020, to have his trademark revoked. That’s a long way from the 100,000 signature goal, so if you can sign, please do so.