As I sit here in my Gryffindor sweatshirt, this post will highlight that I’m a little bit of a nerd. (I guess this was probably obvious because I have been writing about the boring aspects of running a business with you Silhouette or Cricut for over 4 years now!) In any case, let’s get on with this.
Can You Legally Make and Sell Harry Potter Related Products?
No, absolutely not. Everything Harry Potter is well protected with multiple trademarks that are owned by Warner Brothers Entertainment. In fact, it’s difficult to find something related to Harry Potter that isn’t trademarked. Everything from the names of the books and movies, to house names, and the term ‘Muggle’ are trademarked.
Warner Brothers Entertainment Cracking Down
I’m sure that most Cutting for Business readers already knew this. However, I wanted to offer a little caution in today’s post. Warner Brothers Entertainment has been actively seeking out crafters in the last few months on trademark infringements. A kind blog reader has allowed me to use her Etsy Notice of Infringement letter as a caution to others. All identifying information has been removed.
Trust me, you don’t want to receive one of these or put your craft business on the line. I highly advise you to remove any listings related to Harry Potter today.
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I recently received the exact same letter from Etsy regarding a cross stitch pattern (yes, it was Harry Potter related). I confess I was unaware of the legal ramifications and understand now why it was removed and certainly won’t be doing anything similar in the future! My shop is small, it’s honestly more of a hobby and creative outlet for me than a money making venture. What really puzzles me is the huge volume of Harry Potter related items that are still listed (at last count over 2000 cross stitch patterns alone and over 95,000 items in general). The day I received the letter I noticed the number of Harry Potter related patterns went down by about 200 in one afternoon. However, it appears that sellers are simply relisting those items because that number has crept back up again! If Warner Brothers is actively seeking out trademark violations it is being done in a very inconsistent and haphazard manner. There are shops that have a very large volume of sales with very blatant Harry Potter stuff that have been selling for years – as much as I understand and will comply it makes me wonder why certain items are targeted and not others.
Sometimes it definitely seems unfair to get listings removed when others stay.
The same thing has just happened to me over an Etsy listing. The email scared the life out of me to be honest! I thought there would be a law suit or something! I’ve also noticed loads of Harry Potter related products on Etsy, surely they haven’t all got authorisation?! My business is also just a hobby, I’m hardly making a killing out of my Harry Potter themed brooches!
I wish I would have read this article before I received the exact same email today. I haven’t made a single sale of any HP items, thankfully. My question is, as long as I don’t list anything else HP related, am I ok or will this go beyond an email notice?
It is likely that if you don’t relist the item, you won’t hear from them again. Unfortunately, I cannot guarantee that though.