What is Redbubble? Redbubble Review

The company operates primarily on the internet and allows its members to sell their artwork as decoration for a variety of products. Products include prints, T-shirts, hoodies, cushions, duvet covers, leggings, stickers, skirts and scarves. The company offers free membership to artists who maintain the copyright of their work, set their own prices and decide which products can feature their images.

history

The company was founded in 2006 by Martin Hosking, Peter Styles and Paul Vanzella after raising $2 million in investor capital.

On 16 June 2011, Hosking left his position at Aconex to focus on his work as CEO of Redbubble.

In March 2014, 51,900 artists had successfully sold their work on Redbubble, earning over AUD$15 million. At the time, an estimated 8 million unique viewers visited the site each month.

In 2015, Redbubble raised $15.5 million in funding from various investors including Melbourne-based Acorn Capital and London-based investor Piton Capital.

Redbubble has been running an Artist Residency Program in its Melbourne office since February 2015. The aim of the program is to give selected artists the opportunity to produce artwork in the Redbubble Artist Studio whilst collaborating with other artists.

The company was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in May 2016.

In January 2017, Hosking reported 450,000 active artists and 10 million monthly site visits. Over the past decade, nearly 7 million people have purchased products from the site, generating $70 million in revenue for artists.

In June 2018, it was announced that Hosking would step down as CEO. COO Barry Newstead, who had been with the company since 2013, would take over as CEO in August 2018.

In October 2018, Redbubble acquired US-based TeePublic for A$57.7 million.

dispute

Offensive material

In June 2011, The Register and The Age reported that artists on Redbubble were offering T-shirt images taken from the satirical online comic Hipster Hitler. Some Redbubble users considered the comic and its products to be anti-Semitic, forcing PayPal to investigate whether it violated their policies. In May 2011, Arnold Bloch Leibler, a law firm with links to Australia's Jewish community, severed its business relationship with Redbubble for "promoting Nazism". Redbubble CEO Martin Hosking and the head of B'nai B'rith's anti-defamation commission both acknowledged that Hipster Hitler was a parody, but noted that it had been misinterpreted - partly due to the limited context of the merchandise and the story, which some hate groups allegedly praised Hipster Hitler - and discussed how best to deal with such work. Three weeks later, on 5 June 2011, The Age reported that Hosking, who had initially defended the work as free speech, had removed the entire Hitler merchandise line and said the guidelines would be changed to "prohibit parodies of genocide and the Holocaust, as well as other material that could cause serious offence". Such a statement does not appear literally or semantically clear in Redbubble's community guidelines. At the same time, he said, due to the nature of the controversy. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre praised Hosking's decision to pull the Hitler line because it was responsive to both the artist and the Jewish community. On 12 and 15 June 2011, digital media company Ninemsn published an article on news website Stuff.co.nz reporting that artists on Redbubble were selling baby clothes printed with pictures of Hitler, Osama bin Laden and serial killers Ivan Milat, Ted Bundy and Charles Manson.

According to a September 9, 2011 article in the Herald Sun, more than 100 items of children's clothing were still for sale, some with "four-letter swear words" and drug images. In 2012, the Los Angeles Times reported that, in response to outrage over the death of Trayvon Martin, artists on Redbubble offered a hoodie with a "Neighborhood Watch" logo that darkly warned, "We immediately murder anyone who is suspicious."

Trademark Infringement

In 2019, the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club sued Redbubble in the Federal Court of Australia for infringement of its trademark. Another lawsuit was launched in 2021 after evidence was provided that Redbubble continued to violate the trademark.

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