Etsy cracks down on Denver artists selling Casa Bonita merchandise

Denver cartoonist Karl Christian Krumpholz on Monday said he had received a cease-and-desist email from Etsy prompted by his attempts to sell an illustration of Casa Bonita on the online marketplace.

“Casa Bonita LLC reported that my illustration listing ‘infringed on their trademark,’ ” Krumpholz told The Denver Post after Westword first reported the story. “Because of that Etsy shut down the listing … it’s currently in my ‘inactive listings folder’ on Etsy.”

The email, which was also sent to a least one other Denver artist who depicted the public, pink-hued edifice of the Lakewood Mexican restaurant, cited infringement of intellectual property. Etsy has frozen funds in Krumpholz’s payment account on the website “until the reporting party withdraws the report(s) of intellectual property infringement.”

“Etsy received a report of trademark infring...