Can You Sell Rick and Morty Merch on Etsy? The Merchandising Right Nobody Explains

Season 9 of Rick and Morty is airing right now on Adult Swim — it premiered on 24 May 2026 and runs through late July — and on 19 May 2026 Dan Harmon confirmed a feature film is in active development. Every time the show is back on air, the same thing happens on Etsy: a wave of new listings for portal-gun keychains, "Wubba Lubba Dub Dub" mugs, Pickle Rick stickers, and "get schwifty" shirts. And a few weeks later, a wave of takedowns.

If you're about to list something Rick and Morty-themed, this is the post to read first. Not because the answer is a flat "no" — it's more specific than that — but because almost every seller who gets removed was relying on a defense that sounds airtight and isn't. That defense is: "It's my own artwork. People are buying it because they like how it looks, not because they think Adult Swim made it. That's not trademark infringement."

It feels like it should be true. There's a 45-year-old line of court cases about exactly this argument. And the modern rule is the opposite of what most sellers assume.

The two things Adult Swim actually owns

Before the interesting part, the boring-but-critical part. Rick and Morty is protected on two separate legal tracks, and you can trip either one.

Copyright covers the character designs and the show's expression. Rick's exact look — the unibrow, the drool, the lab coat, the specific line weight and proportions — is a copyrighted work owned by Adult Swim / Warner Bros. This matters even if you draw it yourself. Copyright protects the character, not just a particular frame. Courts protect visually distinctive cartoon characters as characters in their own right, applying the test from DC Comics v. Towle, 802 F.3d 1012 (9th Cir. 2015): a character gets copyright protection when it has consistent, identifiable traits and is "especially distinctive." Rick and Morty clear that bar easily. Drawing your own version of Rick is making a derivative work of a protected character — the same analysis we walk through in the Simpsons yellow-portrait post.

Trademark covers the things that identify the source of merchandise: the words RICK AND MORTY, catchphrases the studio has commercialized like WUBBA LUBBA DUB DUB, and distinctive product designs like the portal gun. Trademarks never expire as long as they're used, and — this is the part sellers miss — the rights holder's monitoring software matches on your tags and description, not just your title. A listing titled "interdimensional cartoon sticker" that's tagged rick and morty, wubba lubba dub dub, and pickle rick is flagged by the exact keyword you added to get found in search.

So far, standard stuff. Here's where it gets counterintuitive.

"People just like the design" — the aesthetic functionality trap

Say your listing has no Rick and Morty text anywhere. It's a clean, original illustration you drew. You never claim it's official. Your defense: nobody buying this is confused about who made it — they just want cool art. Isn't the design just a decorative, "functional" feature of the product at that point?

This is called the aesthetic functionality argument, and there's real case law behind it. In International Order of Job's Daughters v. Lindeburg & Co., 633 F.2d 912 (9th Cir. 1980), a jeweler sold rings and pins bearing a fraternal organization's emblem without a license. The Ninth Circuit sided with the jeweler: it held the emblem was "a functional aesthetic component of the product, not a trademark," because buyers wanted the emblem for what it looked like and to show allegiance, not because they thought the organization manufactured the jewelry. No source confusion, no infringement.

If that were still the rule, a lot of Etsy fan artists would be fine. But the same court gutted that reasoning 26 years later.

In Au-Tomotive Gold, Inc. v. Volkswagen of America, Inc., 457 F.3d 1062 (9th Cir. 2006), a company sold keychains and license-plate covers bearing exact replicas of the Volkswagen and Audi logos. Its defense was word-for-word the one Etsy sellers use: the logos are "the actual benefit that the consumer wishes to purchase" — people buy them because they like the mark — so the mark is aesthetically functional and unprotected. The Ninth Circuit emphatically rejected it. The court's reasoning is the sentence every fan-art seller should tattoo somewhere:

The demand for the product flows from the trademark's source-identifying power and the goodwill behind it — not from any independent, non-trademark function. That kind of "desirability" is exactly what trademark law protects, not what it excuses.

Translation: the reason your Rick and Morty design sells is that it's Rick and Morty. The appeal comes from Adult Swim's reputation and the fanbase they built over nine seasons. You can't turn around and say "the appeal is just aesthetic" — the appeal is the brand. Aesthetic functionality only saves genuinely generic decoration (a chevron stripe, a color that keeps a product cool), not a famous mark that people seek out by name.

The "merchandising right" — why confusion isn't even required

There's an older, blunter case that goes further. In Boston Professional Hockey Ass'n v. Dallas Cap & Emblem Mfg., Inc., 510 F.2d 1004 (5th Cir. 1975), a company made and sold embroidered patches of NHL team logos after failing to get a license. It argued nobody was confused — everyone knew these were unlicensed patches, not official team gear. The Fifth Circuit held it was infringement anyway. When the trademark itself is the product being sold — when the mark is the very thing the customer wants — reproducing it without authorization violates the team's right to control its own symbol. Courts have since called this the merchandising right.

Put the two cases together and the trap is clear. Sellers think the magic words are "no one is confused." But under Boston Hockey, selling the mark as the product can infringe without classic confusion, and under Au-Tomotive Gold, "people just like how it looks" makes your case worse, not better, because it admits the demand comes from the brand.

So is there any legal way to depict it?

Yes — and this is where honesty matters, because the line is real and worth understanding.

Genuinely expressive, artistic use of a trademark can be protected by the First Amendment. In University of Alabama Board of Trustees v. New Life Art, Inc., 683 F.3d 1266 (11th Cir. 2012), an artist painted famous Alabama football scenes — including the team's trademarked crimson-and-white uniforms — for decades without a license. The university sued. The artist won on his paintings, prints, and calendars: the court held that an artistically expressive use doesn't violate trademark law unless the mark has no artistic relevance to the work, or explicitly misleads about source. The First Amendment interest in the artwork outweighed the trademark interest.

But read the rest of that holding. The court sent the case back on the mugs and other everyday products. A painting hanging on a wall is expression. The identical image slapped on a coffee mug or a t-shirt is merchandise — and merchandise is where trademark law bites hardest. That distinction is the whole ballgame for Etsy: you are almost never selling a signed limited-edition painting. You're selling mugs, shirts, stickers, and keychains. That's the Boston Hockey side of the line, not the New Life Art side.

The parody angle has the same problem. A true parody that comments on the show can have a fair-use defense, but "I drew Rick holding a beer that says my town's name" is decoration, not commentary — we go deeper on where parody actually holds up in the parody products guide. And "it's fan art, fan art is legal" is the single most expensive myth on the platform; the fan art rules post breaks down why "transformative" almost never means what sellers hope it means.

What actually gets your listing pulled

Here's the practical sequence, because the legal theory and the enforcement reality aren't the same thing.

• You will rarely get sued. Warner Bros. doesn't file a lawsuit over a $14 sticker. They file an Etsy IP report, the listing is removed, and strikes accrue on your shop. Enough strikes and the shop closes — no courtroom required, no confusion analysis, no chance to argue New Life Art to a judge. The Rick and Morty trademark guide notes Warner Bros. regularly removes Rick and Morty merchandise from Etsy.
• The catchphrase in your tags is the tripwire. Commercialized catchphrases like "Wubba Lubba Dub Dub" are exactly what rights-holder monitoring scrapes. The viral catchphrase merch post covers why a phrase you didn't invent can still be someone's registered mark — and why putting it in a tag to catch searches is what makes you findable to enforcement, too.
• "Inspired by" in the description doesn't help. A disclaimer doesn't cure infringement; if anything it's an admission you knew the source. Same for "not affiliated with Adult Swim."
• Animation is a design system, not a single frame. Like South Park's construction-paper look or the Simpsons palette, Rick and Morty's art style plus its named characters is a protected package. Drawing "a new interdimensional scientist and his grandson" in that exact style still reads as the show. (See the South Park guide for the same construction-paper-style analysis.)

The genuinely safe path

You can absolutely run a profitable sci-fi / mad-scientist / multiverse shop without touching Adult Swim's IP. The rule of thumb: sell the genre, not the property.

• Build original characters. An interdimensional inventor, a portal, a talking gadget — none of those concepts are owned by anyone. What's owned is Rick's specific design and the show's names. Design your own scientist who is not Rick, in a style that is not the show's, and you're selling in a wide-open, un-owned space. The guide's own suggested safe alternatives are "mad scientist cartoon inspired" and "interdimensional sci-fi art."
• Keep the marks out of your metadata. No character names, catchphrases, or show title in your title, tags, or description. If your product only sells when you tag it rick and morty, that's your signal that you're selling their brand, not your art.
• Scan before you list — the full listing, not just the title. The difference between a shop that survives and one that collects strikes is usually a tag nobody thought about. Before you publish, check the title, every tag, and the full description against known trademarks and character names — that full-scan step is exactly what the Boston Hockey / Au-Tomotive Gold line of cases makes non-negotiable, because the mark anywhere in your listing is the mark being "used in commerce."

The short version: "people just like how it looks" isn't your defense — it's the plaintiff's argument. The demand for Rick and Morty art exists because it's Rick and Morty, and that's precisely the value trademark law hands to Adult Swim, not to you. Sell the genre, keep their names out of your metadata, and scan the whole listing before it goes live.