IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT—N.D. Ohio: Claims against prominent UK fashion house will go forward, (Dec 2, 2025)

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

The company allegedly purloined a sculpture design in its apparel.

A leading UK fashion brand will have to face allegations that it purloined the work of a visual artist when it incorporated that artist’s sculptural designs into a line of apparel and then later collaborated to produce a set of fabrics and accessories with the same design, the federal court for Cleveland has held. The court, in a wide-ranging opinion rejecting a motion to dismiss brought by the UK company and its alleged collaborators, found that the UK entities had sufficient ties to the United States to be subject to the court’s jurisdiction and that the visual artist had adequately stated claims of direct and secondary copyright infringement, as well as violations of the DMCA (Sophia Parker Studios, Inc. v. Temperley, No. 1:24-cv-02086-PAB (N.D. Ohio Nov. 25, 2025)).

The case involves an extensive series of actors on both sides of the Atlantic. Sophia Parker is a visual artist who specializes in plant-based artworks, immersive botanical sculptures, and print designs. Temperley London is a UK fashion brand, that sells a wide range of luxury fashion items, such as embroidered dresses, kimonos, pantsuits, contemporary separates, and jackets. Alice Temperley, a noted fashion designer, is the founder and director of the company. Romo Fabrics is a UK-based company that produces fabrics, wallcoverings, trimmings, and accessories. It holds an Ohio-based entity, Romo Inc., that manufactures and distributes its product through eight showrooms in the United States.

The lawsuit centers upon a sculptural work that Parker created entitled “Memphis Chainsaw.” Parker hand-sculpted and painted the work and then posted photographs of it on her Instagram account. in late 2024, she filed a complaint, since amended, that accused Temperley and her UK company of using her design as part of a luxury fashion collection. The complaint also alleged that Temperley later collaborated with Romo to release a series of fabrics, cushions, and wallpaper products that also infringed upon her design. The lawsuit brings claims of copyright infringement, vicarious infringement, and violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA.

The Temperley and Romo defendants moved to dismiss the complaint, leading to this opinion.

Personal jurisdiction. The court first found that all of the UK defendants, other than Alice Temperley personally, were subject to jurisdiction in the United States. With respect to Temperley in her personal capacity, the court found, she made social media posts viewable worldwide and took a four-day promotion tour to the United States, but that was not enough to subject herself to jurisdiction. With respect the companies Temperley London and Romo Fabrics, however, the situation was different. Temperley London, the court found, maintained relationships with independent retailers in the US, participated in trade shows in the US, and sold products through to US customers to their website. In fact, the court noted, some 16% of the company’s customer were based in the United States. As to the UK arm of Romo Fabrics, the court found, it primarily targeted customers in the US, UK, and Europe, 21% of its social media followers were in North America, and it shipped parcels directly to US customers that ordered their products. That was enough, the court found, to subject it to jurisdiction.

Infringement. The court also found that Parker alleged a plausible claim of copyright infringement. The defendants rested their motion largely on the distinction between Parker’s sculpture and the photographs in which that sculpture was imbedded. Parker did not accuse the Temperley and Romo parties of copying her sculpture design directly; rather, she claimed, they copied it indirectly by poaching from the photos she posted on Instagram. But that did not make a difference, the court emphasized. First, the court noted, Parker’s copyright in the sculpture design extended to the depiction of that design within the photographs themselves—meaning that if the defendants infringed on Parker’s rights in the photograph of the design, they infringed on her rights in the design itself. Moreover, the court noted, if the claims in the complaint were true, the defendants would also have infringed upon a derivative work to which Parker held the rights. “If a third party copies a derivative work without authorization,” the court emphasized, “it infringes the original copyright owner’s copyright in the underlying work to the extent the unauthorized copy of the derivative work also copies the underlying work.” In sum, the court concluded, Parker could establish a claim for infringement of the sculpture through allegations that the defendants copied photographs of it.

The court also found that Parker had plausibly pleaded the other elements of infringement. Parker adequately pleaded that the defendants had access to her work, the court noted, because her Instagram account has nearly 100,000 followers, making her works “public and widely disseminated.” Moreover, the court found, Parker adequately pleaded that the accused works were substantially similar to hers, in that her complaint included “side-by-side photos of the artwork and the allegedly infringing” products that, according to Parker, showed that the accused products included “almost exact replicas” of the sculpture with only some minor color changes. That was enough, the court found, to allow the complaint to go forward.

Finally, the court found, in addition to plausibly alleging that the defendants infringed upon her rights in the sculpture by distributing their products, Parker also plausibly alleged that the defendants independently infringed upon her rights to her photographs by making substantially similar photographs of their own as part of their marketing materials. To be sure, the court noted, “some photographs are entitled to only thin protection because the range of creative choices available in selecting and arranging the photo’s elements is quite limited.” But here, the court noted, Parker’s allegations made the grade. Here, Parker’s complaint alleged the defendants created advertising works featuring the same sculpture as her own photographs, while the products at issue include “almost identical reproductions” of those photographs and the underlying work. If the defendants produced “almost identical reproductions” of the photographs, the court noted, “then, logically, it would have copied the protected elements of the photographs.” To be sure, the court emphasized, it was not finding that the defendants did in fact copy the photographs. “But viewing these allegations in the light most favorable to Plaintiff,” the court found, the allegations in the complaint were sufficient.

Secondary infringement. The court also found that Parker had adequately pleaded claims of contributory vicarious liability between the various sets of defendants. With respect to Romo, Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Romo UK, the court found, the complaint specifically alleged that the company “intentionally induced the direct infringement” of the sculpture and photographs by having the other defendants create the infringing designs that it could later market. Moreover, the court noted, even though Romo Inc. was “on the bottom rung” of the Romo corporate ladder, the complaint nonetheless adequately alleged that the company had the right and ability to supervise the UK companies in connection with the particular products at issue and that it enjoyed a direct financial benefit from those activities. Theories of contributory and vicarious liability were adequately pleaded against the two UK companies as well, the court found, particularly in light of the complaint’s allegation that there was “a close collaboration between the two brands at issue.” These claims, too, would go forward.

DMCA claims. The court also found that Parker adequately alleged a violation of the DMCA by removing her copyright management information, or CMI, and by falsely replacing it with information identifying the defendants as the copyright owners. To the extent that Parker claimed that the defendants removed her own CMI from her work, the court noted, it was true that Parker claimed removal of CMI only from a derivative of her work and not from the work itself. But while courts had come to different positions on whether removal of CMI from a derivative could itself constitute a violation of the DMCA, the court noted, the better view was that an infringing work “need not be an identical copy to violate the DMCA.”

As to the claim that the defendants falsely claimed ownership of Parker’s works, the court found, that claim also passed muster because it alleged that the defendants sold the products under the “Romo” brand name. To be sure, the court noted, it was true that the actual products being distributed were indeed made by Romo. But by marking the products the way they did, the court noted, the defendants allegedly “held out to the public that these designs were original creations authored by” Romo. That was enough, the court found, to state a DMCA violation.

Statutory damages and attorney fees. The court also declined to dismiss, at least at this stage, Parker’s demand for statutory damages and attorney fees against Romo Inc. Here, the question was whether infringing activity began before or after February 2023, when Parker registered the copyright in her designs. To be sure, the court noted, Parker’s complaint appeared to acknowledge that Temperley London started its allegedly infringing conduct in 2022—early enough to avoid liability for statutory damages and attorney fees. But viewing the allegations “in the light most favorable to Plaintiff,” the court found, the complaint alleged that Romo Inc. did not start its infringing conduct until March 2023. Based on this, the court found, it would deny Romo’s request to “dismiss categorically” Parker’s requests for statutory damages and fees.

The Case is No. 1:24-cv-02086-PAB.

Judge: Barker, P.

Attorneys: Alyssa M. Bruno (A. Bruno Law) for Sophia Parker Studios, Inc. Jeffer Ali (Husch Blackwell) for Alice Temperley.

Companies: Sophia Parker Studios, Inc.; Romeo, Inc.; The Romo Group Ltd.; Romo Ltd.; Romo [Holdings] Ltd.; TMLL Ltd.; Temperley Holdings, Ltd.

Cases: Copyright TechnologyInternet OhioNews