In the US District Court of the Southern District of California, Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel is hearing the case of Steven M. Gardner, vs. CafePress Inc. (Case No. 3:13-cv-1108-GPC-JMA).CafePress.com's website allows users to upload images for printing on items like hats, T-shirts, other clothing, mugs, home decor, etc. Mr. Gardner has alleged CafePress facilitated the storage and sale of his photographs of Alaskan Wildlife, infringing on his copyright, in large part by stripping the metadata, containing his copyright information, from his images. He has claimed that before CafePress disabled access to his images in response to his lawsuit, more than $6,000 in merchandise printed with his images had been sold.
The crux of the case is the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), it's “safe harbor provisions,” and the automatic stripping of image metadata, including copyright information which some websites like CafePress perform.
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