The merchandise website CafePress is denying a request from pro-Hillary Clinton super-PAC Ready for Hillary to stop selling shirts, mugs and bumper stickers mocking the group.
On Wednesday, the company told Minnesota activist Dan McCall that it would continue to sell products featuring “I’m Ready for Oligarchy” in the super-PAC’s style, despite the complaint that its copyright was being infringed.
{mosads}Activities of political criticism and parody, CafePress senior corporate counsel Marian Cochran said in an email, “are given the highest level of First Amendment protection.
“Further, speech conveyed through the use of messages on T-shirts and related items such as the bumper sticker about which Ready for Hillary has complained has long been held to be protected speech under the First Amendment,” she added, noting that “applicable law falls firmly in favor” of the activist.
The action comes two days after the consumer interest group Public Citizen threatened to sue Ready for Hillary over its requests that CafePress and another site, Zazzle, take down McCall’s products.
Zazzle has yes to respond to the call to continue selling McCall’s products.
Along with its determination to continue selling the products on Wednesday, CafePress also released the June 1 letter from Ready for Hillary lawyer James Lamb demanding the merchandise be removed. In the note, Lamb actually targeted another bumper sticker design, which read “I’m Ready for Hillary to Explain Benghazi.”
McCall runs a website that sells a number of libertarian-leaning t-shirts, bumper stickers and other merchandise. He was previously in a legal fight with the National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security over similar products.