Redbubble is a global

online marketplace An online marketplace (or online e-commerce marketplace) is a type of e-commerce website where product or service information is provided by multiple third parties. Online marketplaces are the primary type of multichannel ecommerce and can be a way ...

for

print-on-demand Print on demand (POD) is a printing technology and business process in which book copies (or other documents, packaging or materials) are not printed until the company receives an order, allowing prints of single or small quantities. While oth ...

products based on user-submitted artwork. The company was founded in 2006 in

Melbourne, Australia Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metropol ...

,Redbubble profile
''BusinessWeek'' (September 15, 2011). Retrieved April 14, 2012. and also maintains offices in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

and

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. The company operates primarily on the Internet and allows its members to sell their artwork as decoration on 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 copyrights to their work, regulate their own prices, and decide which products may display their images.Ryan, Paul (October 1, 2007)
Building Online Marketplaces
''Anthill Magazine'', retrieved April 4, 2012.

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 job as CEO of Redbubble. In March 2014, it was reported that 51,900 artists have successfully sold their creations on Redbubble generating more than A$15 million in earnings. At the time it was estimated that eight million unique viewers visited the site every month. In 2015, Redbubble raised A$15.5 million in funding from various investors including Melbourne-based Acorn Capital and London based investor Piton Capital. Since February 2015, Redbubble has been running an artist residency program at their Melbourne office. The purpose of the program is to enable selected artists with the opportunity to produce artwork at Redbubble artist studio while 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 site visits per month. In the last ten years, almost 7 million people have bought products from the site, generating $70 million earned by artists. In June 2018, it was announced that Hosking would be stepping down as CEO. COO Barry Newstead, who has been with the company since 2013, would take over as CEO in August 2018. In October 2018, Redbubble acquired US-based

TeePublic TeePublic is a platform for custom apparel and designs owned by Redbubble. The company was founded by Adam Schwartz and Josh Abramson, who had previously co-founded Vimeo and CollegeHumor. History In 2011, Abramson bought back BustedTees, an onl ...

for A$57.7 million.

Controversy

Offensive materials

In June 2011, ''

The Register ''The Register'' is a British technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee, John Lettice and Ross Alderson. The online newspaper's masthead sublogo is "''Biting the hand that feeds IT''." Their primary focus is information tec ...

'' and ''

The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...

'' reported that artists on Redbubble were offering T-shirts images taken from the satirical online comic strip ''Hipster Hitler''. Some Redbubble users perceived the comic and its products as

antisemitic Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

, pressuring

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...

to investigate whether it violated their policy. In May 2011 Arnold Bloch Leibler, a law firm with connections to the Australian Jewish community, severed their business relationship with Redbubble for "promoting

Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

". Both Redbubble's CEO, Martin Hosking, and the head of

B'nai B'rith B'nai B'rith International (, from he, בְּנֵי בְּרִית, translit=b'né brit, lit=Children of the Covenant) is a Jewish service organization. B'nai B'rith states that it is committed to the security and continuity of the Jewish peopl ...

's Anti Defamation Commission recognized ''Hipster Hitler'' as parody but noted that it was being misunderstood – this was due in part to the limited context of the merchandise and stories that some hate groups had 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 originally defended the work as

free speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been ...

, removed the entire ''Hipster Hitler'' merchandise line and said the guidelines would be changed to "prohibit parodies of genocide and the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

, as well as other material likely to cause deep offence". Such a statement does not appear literally or clearly semantically in Redbubble's community guidelines. At the same time he said it was hard to take a nuanced approach to removing ''Hipster Hitler'' merchandise due to the nature of the controversy. Hosking's decision to pull ''Hipster Hitler'''s line was applauded by the

Simon Wiesenthal Center The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) is a Jewish human rights organization established in 1977 by Rabbi Marvin Hier. The center is known for Holocaust research and remembrance, hunting Nazi war criminals, combating anti-Semitism, tolerance educat ...

as being responsive to both artists and the Jewish community. On 12 and 15 June 2011 articles by digital media company

Ninemsn Nine.com.au (formerly Ninemsn) is an Australian news and current events website, owned by ASX-listed company, Nine Entertainment Co. It was originally established as a 50:50 joint venture between Microsoft and PBL Media (now Nine Entertainment ...

and news web site

Stuff.co.nz Stuff is a New Zealand news media website owned by newspaper conglomerate Stuff (company), Stuff Ltd (formerly called Fairfax). It is the most popular news website in New Zealand, with a monthly unique audience of more than 2 million. Stuff w ...

reported that artists on Redbubble were selling baby clothes featuring pictures of Hitler,

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until Killing of Osama bin Laden, his death in 2011. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism ...

and serial killers

Ivan Milat Ivan Robert Marko Milat (27 December 1944 – 27 October 2019) was an Australian serial killer who was convicted in the backpacker murders in 1996. Commonly known as the Backpacker Murderer, Milat captured, assaulted, robbed and murdered two me ...

Ted Bundy Theodore Robert Bundy ( born Cowell; November 24, 1946 – January 24, 1989) was an American serial killer who kidnapped, raped and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s and possibly earlier. After more than a decade ...

and

Charles Manson Charles Milles Manson (; November 12, 1934November 19, 2017) was an American criminal and musician who led the Manson Family, a cult based in California, in the late 1960s. Some of the members committed a series of nine murders at four loca ...

. According to a 9 September 2011 article in the ''

Herald Sun The ''Herald Sun'' is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia, published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Corp Australia, itself a subsidiary of the Murdoch owned News Corp. The ''Herald S ...

'' more than 100 children's items remained on sale, some with " four-letter swear words" and drug images. In 2012 the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' reported that due to outrage over the death of

Trayvon Martin Trayvon Benjamin Martin (February 5, 1995 – February 26, 2012) was a 17-year-old African-American from Miami Gardens, Florida, who was fatally shot in Sanford, Florida, by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old Hispanic American. Martin had accompa ...

, artists on Redbubble were offering a hoodie with a version of a "Neighborhood Watch" sign, which warns, darkly, "We immediately murder all suspicious persons".

Trademark infringement

In 2019, the

Hells Angels Motorcycle Club The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC) is a worldwide outlaw motorcycle club whose members typically ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles. In the United States and Canada, the Hells Angels are incorporated as the Hells Angels Motorcycle Corporatio ...

sued Redbubble in the

Federal Court of Australia The Federal Court of Australia is an Australian superior court of record which has jurisdiction to deal with most civil disputes governed by federal law (with the exception of family law matters), along with some summary (less serious) and indic ...

for infringing on its trademark. Another lawsuit was launched in 2021 after evidence was provided that Redbubble had continued to breach the trademark.

Awards

Since 2008, Redbubble has been nominated and won a series of awards including: *May 2015, two Hermes Awards (platinum for Redbubble Blog, gold for Redbubble Website) *December 2013, Pixel Awards, nominee – Art *November 2013, SmartCompany, Web Awards 2013 – Best company website (over 20 employees) *December 2012, Deloitte Technology, Fast 500, Asia Pacific 2012 winner *November 2012, Deloitte Technology, Fast 50, 2012 winner *October 2012, BRW, BRW FAST 100 *September 2010, Web Marketing Association, Outstanding Achievement in Web Development *August 2010, Smart Company Award, Best Website Under 20 Employees *March 2010, AIMIA, Finalist Cultural or Lifestyle, Social Media *February 2010, Next Web, Runner-up, Most Likely to Change the World *November 2009, Deloitte Technology Fast 50, Rising Star Runner-up *September 2009, Web Marketing Association, Outstanding Achievement in Web Development *July 2009,

Telstra Business Awards The Telstra Business Awards is an Australian awards programme started in 1992. The Telstra Business Awards is an independent Awards programme designed to recognise and promote excellence, best practice and innovation in the business community. ...

, finalist MYOB Small Business *June 2009, Interactive Media Association, finalist Top 10 Sites of 2008 *May 2009, The Webby Awards, nominee – Community *August 2008, Interactive Media Association, two Best-in-Class awards *June 2008, BRW, 3rd-ranked Australian 2.0 Website

References

External links

* {{Self-publishing, state=expanded Australian artist groups and collectives Companies based in Melbourne Retail companies established in 2006 Internet properties established in 2006 Retail companies of Australia Self-publishing online stores Australian companies established in 2006 Companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange