DMCA
Last updated:
Graphic T-shirts live and die by artwork, so Pearltee takes copyright seriously, both our own and everyone else’s. This page explains how to tell us if you believe something on https://pearltee.com uses your copyrighted work without permission, what information a notice needs, how we respond, and what someone can do if they believe material was removed by mistake. Questions about trademarks, brand names or other kinds of intellectual property are covered on our Intellectual Property Policy page.
The short version
- Send copyright notices to [email protected] with the subject line “Copyright notice”.
- Include the six items listed in section 3 so we can act without delay.
- We acknowledge notices within 1 business day and review complete notices within 5 business days.
- If a notice is valid, we remove or disable the material and tell you when it is done.
- Counter-notices are possible if material was removed by mistake (section 6).
1. What this page covers
Pearltee is a single store selling its own range of graphic T-shirts. We are not a marketplace and we do not host third-party sellers, so most of the material on the site is ours: the T-shirt designs, product photos and digital previews, product descriptions, category texts, help pages and any articles we publish. A small amount of content can come from customers, such as product reviews or photos submitted with a review.
This page applies to all of that material. It follows the notice-and-takedown process set out in the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512, and we apply the same process to notices from rights holders in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and anywhere else. Whatever law applies to you, a clear and complete notice is the fastest way to a resolution.
2. Before you send a notice
Copyright protects original creative works such as illustrations, photographs, written text and graphic designs. It does not protect general ideas, common phrases, short slogans, simple shapes or styles. A T-shirt with a cat in sunglasses does not infringe every other cat-in-sunglasses design; a T-shirt that reproduces your specific illustration does.
It also helps to consider whether a use might be licensed or permitted by law, for example under fair use or fair dealing. If you are unsure whether your rights are affected, you may want to get independent legal advice before sending a formal notice. You are always welcome to email us informally first: if something looks too close to your work, tell us, and we will look at it with you.
3. What a copyright notice must include
To be complete and actionable, your written notice needs:
- Your signature. A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or of a person authorised to act on their behalf. Typing your full legal name at the end of the email is accepted as an electronic signature.
- The work you own. Identification of the copyrighted work you believe has been infringed, such as a link to your original artwork, a portfolio page, a registration number or a copy of the work.
- The material on our site. The exact URL of each product page or other page where the material appears, and a short description of which part is infringing, for example “the front graphic on this shirt”.
- Your contact details. Your name, postal address, telephone number and email address.
- A good-faith statement. A statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use of the material is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent or the law.
- An accuracy statement. A statement that the information in the notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you are the copyright owner or authorised to act on the owner’s behalf.
Send the notice by email to [email protected] with the subject line “Copyright notice”. You can also post it to Pearltee, 1863 Barclay St, Maplewood, MN 55109, United States, although email is much faster. Please send one notice per rights holder; a single notice can list several URLs.
4. What happens after you notify us
| Step | What we do | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| Acknowledgement | Confirm we received your notice and tell you if anything is missing | Within 1 business day |
| Review | Compare your work with the material on our site and check the notice is complete | Within 5 business days of a complete notice |
| Action | Remove the product or content, or disable access to it, when the notice is valid | As soon as the review concludes |
| Confirmation | Email you to confirm what was removed | Same day as the action |
| Follow-up | Check stock, listings and images so the material does not reappear | Ongoing |
If your notice is incomplete, we will tell you exactly what is missing rather than ignore it. If, after review, we do not believe the material infringes, we will explain why and remain open to further information.
5. Material submitted by customers
If the material you report was submitted by a customer, for example a photo attached to a review, we remove it once the notice is validated and let the person who submitted it know. Where the law allows, we share the substance of your notice with them so they understand why, but we withhold your personal contact details unless you have agreed otherwise or the law requires us to share them as part of a counter-notice process.
6. Counter-notices
If content you submitted to Pearltee was removed and you believe that happened because of a mistake or a misidentification, you can send a counter-notice to [email protected]. It must include:
- your physical or electronic signature;
- identification of the material that was removed and the URL where it appeared before removal;
- a statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good-faith belief the material was removed as a result of mistake or misidentification;
- your name, postal address and telephone number;
- a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the appropriate court for your address, or, if you are outside the United States, any judicial district in which Pearltee may be found, and that you will accept service of process from the person who sent the original notice.
We forward valid counter-notices to the person who sent the original notice. If they do not tell us within 10 to 14 business days that they have filed a court action, we may restore the material.
7. What a clear notice looks like
The notices we can act on fastest are short and specific. A good one starts with who you are and which work you own, for example “I am the illustrator of the ‘Lighthouse at Dusk’ drawing published on my portfolio in 2023”, with a link to the original. It then lists each Pearltee URL and says which element is copied, such as “the front graphic reproduces my drawing with the colours changed”. It ends with the two statements and your signature from section 3. Screenshots placing your work and the Pearltee product side by side are not required, but they help a lot.
What slows things down: notices that link only to our homepage, describe a “style” rather than a specific work, or come from someone who does not say how they are connected to the rights holder. If we have to ask for those details, the 5-business-day review starts when we receive them.
8. Customers who already bought a removed design
If we remove a design after a valid notice, we stop selling it immediately and cancel any open orders for it that have not shipped, refunding those customers in full within 7 calendar days. Customers who already received the shirt keep it; we do not ask buyers to return items they purchased in good faith, and their normal 60-day return rights remain available if they prefer a refund.
9. Fan art, parody and common themes
We do not sell official merchandise for bands, films, sports teams or other brands, and we avoid designs built on someone else’s characters or logos. Some designs play with widely shared themes, such as retro sunsets, campfire scenes or jokes about coffee, which no one owns. If you believe a design crosses the line from a shared theme into copying your specific work, please tell us; we review those reports with the same care as any other notice.
10. How we handle the information in a notice
We use the personal details in a notice or counter-notice only to process it, to communicate with the people involved and to keep a record as the law requires. We may share a copy of a notice with the person whose content was removed, with your contact details withheld where the law allows. Our Privacy Policy explains how we store and protect personal information.
11. If Pearltee’s own designs are involved
Because most material on our site is our own, a notice may concern a design we created or commissioned. In that case we review our design records, check the timeline and compare the works carefully. If a design turns out to be too close to someone else’s work, we remove it from sale, and we will not restock it. We would much rather correct a mistake quickly than defend a design that should not exist.
12. Misleading notices
Under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), a person who knowingly makes a material misrepresentation in a notice or a counter-notice can be liable for damages, including costs and legal fees. Please only send a notice if you genuinely believe your copyright is being infringed, and please do not use this process to remove content you simply dislike or to target a competitor.
13. Repeat infringement
We remove content from, and may close the accounts of, customers who repeatedly submit material that infringes other people’s copyrights. Internally, we keep a record of every validated notice so that designs, images or text that were removed do not find their way back onto the site.
14. Our own work being copied
If you spot Pearltee designs, photos or descriptions being used elsewhere without permission, for example our product images on another store or a marketplace listing copying one of our shirts, we would be grateful if you let us know at [email protected]. Include the link and, if you can, a screenshot. We follow up on every report.
15. Contact
For copyright matters, email [email protected] with the subject “Copyright notice”. For everything else, visit Contact Us. See also our Terms of Service and Intellectual Property Policy.