Fast growing personalised print marketplace Redbubble is retracting its earlier considerations to leave Australia in fear of new copyright laws.

The company has around 220 staff, with around 120 being based in Melbourne. Redbubble enables artists to post designs on its website and consumers then to apply those designs to any number of products – t-shirts, caps, mugs, cushions among them – which are then printed by Redbubble partner companies.

The company was founded by three friends in Melbourne 12 years ago and is now a global phenomenon, with some 259 million people visiting its site last year resulting in sales of $182.8m.

[Related: Redbubble revenue up 30%]

Founder and former CEO Martin Hosking had voiced concern the company would face litigation risks, in the wake of a bill moving through the Australian Senate. The government passed the Copyright Amendment (Service Providers) Bill 2017 last month, but Barry Newstead, COO for Redbubble and Hosking’s replacement come August, says it is impossible for the company to police all 17 million designs on the company’s platform.

Newstead says although the framework is not ideal, he is committed to the company’s operations in Australia.

The new bill says service providers are protected from copyrighted content being posted by users, as long as they work swiftly to remove the content. The laws have created a new definition for service providers, potentially leaving online platforms such as Redbubble unprotected.

Redbubble has already had two copyright lawsuits in the past year, with Hell’s Angels and Pokemon. The case with Hell’s Angels is still waiting on a decision from the Federal Court.

This week, Redbubble reported it had seen a revenue increase of 29.7 per cent in FY18, to $182.8m, up from $141m the year before.

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