Sydney woman who sold a cartoon cat T-shirt told to pay US$100,000 in Grumpy Cat copyright case

Curtis is not the only seller caught up in the Grumpy Cat trademark case, with others claiming on Reddit their designs looked nothing like ‘Grumpy Cat’. Photograph: Mediapunch/REX/Shutterstock

Alda Curtis, a 63-year-old counselling student from Sydney, set up a Redbubble store as a hobby, including selling a T-shirt featuring an unhappy cat cartoon.

After years of running the store, a single sale of that T-shirt resulted in a US$100,000 default judgment against her for infringing on the trademark of Grumpy Cat late last year. Then Curtis noticed nearly US$600 had been taken from her PayPal account.