A 13-year-old Game of Thrones fan has claimed that HBO threatened her with lawsuit for using the tagline Winter is Coming on her online artwork.
As part of an amateur art competition, Felicity Wilcox posted one of her artworks on the website Redbubble with the popular Game of Thrones tagline, which seems to have landed her in trouble. According to reports, Felicity is autistic and her parents are enraged that HBO is targeting a teenager.
"Why are they picking on a 13-year-old girl?" Felicity's father Jonathan told the UK Daily Mail. "Flic was really scared when the email mentioned the complaint and the possibility of a lawsuit … My initial reaction was shock, like, 'What the hell is going on?' It is just so heavy-handed for something so menial."
However, HBO said in a statement to Entertainment Weekly that there is no truth to these claims.
"We love when fans are creative in their support of our programs," the network said. "These works live online in many incarnations and in the past we have celebrated them by drawing attention to them. Many for-profit websites that sell products, such as Redbubble, take steps to avoid infringements as part of their standard operating procedure. To suggest a particular individual was targeted, or that HBO threatened legal action against her, is simply untrue."
Entertainment Weekly pointed out that the complaint received by Felicity was issued by Redbubble, and not HBO as it has been led to believe. Also, HBO had earlier warned websites such as Redbubble to avoid selling products with their copyrighted materials.
