Canadian e-commerce giant Shopify and Hong Kong-founded, Singapore-based competitor Shopline settled their copyright lawsuit this week.
The news: Shopify sued Shopline two years ago, accusing the subsidiary of global tech firm Joyy of copying its e-commerce software âwholesaleâ to build a competing platform. The Ottawa company claimed Shopline infringed upon its copyright by producing and selling âa thinly-disguised knockoffâ of its Dawn storefront template called Seed. As first reported by Reuters on Wednesday, the two firms struck a confidential deal on June 30 to resolve that litigation that entails Shopline paying Shopify an undisclosed sum. Shopify has also asked the New York court overseeing the case to bar Shopline from distributing Seed going forward.
From the source: In an X post yesterday that reshared the Reuters story, Shopify COO Jessica Hertz wrote, âFAFOââan acronym for âfuck around and find out,â or, more politely, âfool around and find out.â FAFO is typically used as both a warning and an expression of schadenfreude. âShopline copied our Dawn theme, rebranded it, and sold it against us,â Shopify general counsel Jean Niehaus told BetaKit over email. âWe took them to court and they were ordered to stop and to pay us. Open source is built on trust, and we’ll defend that every time someone treats it as a free pass to steal.â BetaKit has reached out to Shopline for comment on the settlement.
Following the thread: As Shopify has grown, it has increasingly found itself at the opposite end of such copyright lawsuits. The firm has become a frequent target of patent trolls, which it has taken an aggressive approach to fighting since 2023. That strategy proved particularly fruitful in 2024 when Shopify successfully overturned a $40-million USD verdict against it in favour of Express Mobile.
Final thought: While Shopify appears to have won its fight against Shopline, the company still has plenty of other legal battles on its plate, including a 2025 antitrust lawsuit brought by US-based buy-now, pay-later (BNPL) provider Sezzle that claims Shopify unfairly privileged its own BNPL features. In May, Shopify lost its bid to have that action tossed after a judge ruled that some of Sezzleâs claims related to antitrust injury were plausible.
Disclosure: BetaKit majority owner Good Future is the family office of two former Shopify leaders, Arati Sharma and Satish Kanwar.
Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Photo by appshunter.io.