TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Nicol Harness created a Luke Combs-themed tumbler and says she sold 18 of them online. The sales landed her with a $250,000 federal court judgment, owed to Combs, as part of a massive counterfeit merchandise lawsuit.
Hours after our Better Call Behnken story, Combs took to social media to respond, apologized to Harness and said this suit was supposed target big companies using his image to make millions.
“Apparently, this woman Nicol has somehow gotten wrapped into that,” Combs said.
Combs vowed to make the judgment go away for Harness and is even giving her money to help with medical bills.
A simple Google search shows dozens of tumblers, similar to the one that sparked this lawsuit. You can find small-time sellers like Harness selling numerous potentially problematic products on sites available on the web.
So, Consumer Investigator Shannon Behnken sat down with David Ellis, a copyright and trademark attorney in Largo.
“You can understand the owners of these trademarks,” Ellis said. “They’re very valuable. They want to be compensated.”
Ellis says many boutique sellers could find themselves facing lawsuits of their own.
“I think most people don’t realize you can’t just copy things when they’re on the internet. You can’t copy people’s images, you can’t copy brand names,” he said.
“There are people who represent celebrities and brands. They will have bots going around the web looking for this sort of thing. And when they find it they often will sent out cease and desist letters or sometime, as in this case, just go right to court.”
So where is the line between creative art and theft?
Ellis says it’s really never ok to make these copyrighted-type of products, but unless you’re selling them you’re probably OK to make a few T-shirts or tumblers for yourself, he said.
“It doesn’t matter in the sense that if you’re not making money out of it, they’re not going to be be looking to get you,” he said. “They probably won’t even know.”