Selling The Summer I Turned Pretty Merchandise on Etsy: Trademark & Copyright Rules (2026)

The final season of The Summer I Turned Pretty has turned an already massive fandom into a merchandising frenzy. Search Etsy right now and you'll find thousands of "Team Conrad" tees, "Cousins Beach" tote bags, "Team Jeremiah" sweatshirts, and quote prints pulled straight from the show and Jenny Han's novels. If you sell print-on-demand or digital designs, the temptation is obvious: the audience is enormous, engaged, and ready to buy.

Here's the uncomfortable truth most of those sellers don't know. A large share of that merchandise is legally risky, and some of it is a straightforward path to a listing takedown or a shop suspension. This guide breaks down exactly what's protected, what's genuinely safe, and how to sell into this trend without becoming the next cautionary tale in a Facebook group.

Short version: The title The Summer I Turned Pretty, the character names, official logos, and artwork are protected. Generic beach-summer designs that don't reference the show are fine. The gray zone in between is where sellers get suspended.

Who owns what

Two separate rights holders sit behind this franchise, and both matter for Etsy sellers.

The books — The Summer I Turned Pretty, It's Not Summer Without You, and We'll Always Have Summer — were written by Jenny Han and are protected by copyright. That copyright covers the specific text, the characters as she created them (Belly, Conrad, Jeremiah, Susannah, the Fisher family), and the distinctive expression of the story.

The TV adaptation is produced for Prime Video (Amazon), which controls the audiovisual work, the on-screen character likenesses, the show's logo and title treatment, promotional photography, and the visual branding fans recognize. Amazon also runs an official licensed merchandise store for the series and has signed brand collaborations with the likes of Coach, Solid & Striped, and Catbird, plus the candy tie-ins that split fans into "Team Conrad" (Sour Patch Kids) and "Team Jeremiah" (Swedish Fish).

That last point is important. When a rights holder is actively licensing and selling official merchandise, they are far more motivated — and far better resourced — to police unlicensed sellers. This is not a dormant property nobody is watching.

What's actually protected

Let's be specific, because "it's just a t-shirt" is not a legal defense.

The title as a trademark. "The Summer I Turned Pretty" functions as a brand name for entertainment and merchandise. Putting that exact phrase on a product, in a listing title, or in your tags is the single riskiest thing you can do. It signals to Etsy's automated systems and to brand-protection bots that you're trading on the show's name.

Character names. Belly, Conrad, Jeremiah, Susannah, Steven, Taylor, and the Fisher and Conklin family names are protected as part of the copyrighted works. A shirt that says "Conrad Fisher" or reproduces a character-specific catchphrase is using protected expression.

Logos and title treatment. The stylized show logo, the font treatment, and any official key art are protected by both copyright and trademark. Recreating them — even "inspired by" versions — is copying.

Screenshots, promotional images, and cast photography. Any image lifted from the show or from Prime Video's marketing is a copyrighted photograph or still. Using it, tracing it, or running it through an AI tool to "redraw" it does not launder the copyright.

Quotes and dialogue. Memorable lines from the books or series are protected text. A quote print that reproduces show dialogue is a derivative use.

For a broader breakdown of how TV-property rights work, see our guide on selling TV show merchandise on Etsy.

The "Team Conrad / Team Jeremiah" trap

This is the design category selling the hardest right now, so it deserves its own section.

The phrases "Team Conrad" and "Team Jeremiah" feel like generic fan expression — the same way people say "Team Edward" or "Team Jacob." And in isolation, a common first name is not something anyone can monopolize across all products. But context is everything on Etsy, and here's why these designs are riskier than they look:

The moment you pair "Team Conrad" with anything else that ties it to the show — the surname "Fisher," Cousins Beach imagery, the show's font, the book series in your tags, or a listing description that mentions The Summer I Turned Pretty — you've converted a generic name into a reference to a specific copyrighted character. Etsy's IP systems and the rights holder's monitoring tools look at the whole listing, not just the four letters on the shirt.

The tag problem: Sellers routinely lose listings not because of the design itself, but because they stuffed "summer I turned pretty," "TSITP," "Belly," "Cousins Beach," and "Jeremiah Fisher" into the tags to catch search traffic. Those tags are a written admission that your generic design is meant to trade on the protected property.

If you want to understand why trending catchphrase merch gets flagged so consistently, our post on viral catchphrase merch trademark risks covers the pattern in detail.

"Cousins Beach" and location-name designs

"Cousins Beach" is the fictional summer town at the heart of the series. Because it's an invented place name closely associated with the franchise, treating it as a real, generic beach town is wishful thinking. A "Cousins Beach, est. summer" design in a beachy font is clearly evoking the show — that's the entire point of why it sells — and that association is exactly what makes it a derivative use of the copyrighted setting.

Compare that to a design that says "Beach Days" or references a real town like "Cape Cod" or "Outer Banks" (the geographic region, not the show). Real place names used descriptively are generally fine. Invented fictional locations from a copyrighted work are not.

What you can safely sell

Good news: there's real, legitimate demand you can serve without touching protected material. The key is selling the aesthetic and the feeling, not the property.

Safe territory includes original designs around genuinely generic themes — coastal summer aesthetics, "beach read" book-lover designs, general "summer girl" or "hot girl summer" typography, sunset and ocean art, and reading-themed products for the BookTok crowd. None of these require a single reference to the show to sell well.

You can also lean into the romantasy/contemporary romance reader identity more broadly. The fandom overlaps heavily with BookTok, and readers buy merch about being a reader, not just about one series. Our BookTok and bookish merchandise guide walks through how to build in that niche safely.

What makes a design safe comes down to three tests:

First, does it work without the reference? If your "Team Conrad" shirt only makes sense to someone who watches the show, it's derivative. If your "Team Golden Retriever Boyfriend" design stands on its own as a joke, it's original.

Second, are your tags clean? Your listing must not reference the show, its characters, its title, or common abbreviations like "TSITP." If you're relying on the property's name to get found, you're relying on infringement for your traffic.

Third, is the artwork yours? No traced logos, no AI redraws of cast members, no fonts that mimic the official title treatment.

The "but it's fan art" myth

Many sellers believe fan art is automatically protected free expression. It isn't. Fan art of a copyrighted character is a derivative work, and the right to make derivative works belongs to the copyright owner. Fair use is a narrow, fact-specific legal defense decided by courts — it is not a checkbox you get by adding "not affiliated with" to your listing. A disclaimer does not create a license, and Etsy's IP team will remove a reported listing regardless of your disclaimer.

We go deep on this in can you sell fan art on Etsy legally, and it's worth reading before you list anything referencing a specific show or character.

Etsy's August 2026 original-design rule makes this worse

There's a second layer of risk that has nothing to do with Amazon or Jenny Han: Etsy's own policy.

Under the changes taking effect in August 2026, items made with computerized tools from templated or purchased designs are no longer permitted unless the design is the seller's genuine original work. That rule was written primarily for print-on-demand and digital-download sellers who lean on clipart bundles and pre-made files. But it compounds the IP problem here: a "Team Jeremiah" PNG you bought from a bundle site fails two tests at once — it's likely derivative of a protected property and it's not your original design.

If you sell POD, read our breakdown of the August 2026 policy changes for POD and digital sellers so you understand both risks together.

What happens if you get reported

Rights holders that actively license merchandise — like Amazon here — typically use brand-protection services that scan marketplaces continuously. When they file an IP complaint through Etsy's reporting portal, Etsy removes the listing, and the strike lands on your account.

The consequences escalate fast. A single complaint removes the listing and puts a note on your record. Accumulate strikes and you move toward suspension, and in 2026 Etsy's repeat-infringer enforcement is notably less forgiving — two verified IP strikes within a rolling twelve-month window can put an account on a permanent-suspension path. If you want the specifics, see how many IP strikes before Etsy suspends your shop.

The financial sting is worse than losing one listing. A suspension can freeze funds, take down your entire catalog, and erase the search ranking you spent months building. Trading a few weeks of trend sales for that is a bad bet.

A practical checklist before you list

Before you publish any Summer I Turned Pretty-adjacent design, run it through this:

Is the title, a character name, or "Cousins Beach" anywhere on the product or in the listing? If yes, don't list it. Are you using the show's logo, font treatment, or any official/promotional image? If yes, don't list it. Do your tags or description mention the show, its characters, the books, or abbreviations like "TSITP"? If yes, clean them out. Would the design still make sense and sell to someone who has never seen the show? If no, it's derivative — redesign it. Is the artwork genuinely your own original creation, not a purchased or AI-generated derivative? If no, it fails Etsy's August 2026 rule too.

If a design passes all five, you're selling the summer-romance aesthetic — which is completely legitimate — rather than the property. That's the line between a shop that rides the trend and a shop that gets taken down by it.

Bottom line

The Summer I Turned Pretty is one of the most valuable, actively-licensed entertainment properties of 2026, and its rights holders are watching Etsy closely. The title, characters, logos, quotes, imagery, and "Cousins Beach" are all protected. Generic coastal-summer and book-lover designs are yours to sell freely. The "Team Conrad / Team Jeremiah" and fictional-location designs are the trap in the middle — they look generic but almost always tip into derivative use once you tag and brand them to catch the fandom.

Sell the vibe, not the show, keep your tags clean, and make sure every design is genuinely your own. That's how you cash in on the trend without betting your shop on it.

Not sure whether one of your listings crosses the line? ShieldMyShop scans your Etsy shop for trademark and copyright red flags before a rights holder does — and flags the exact tags and designs putting you at risk. Start a free trial and audit your shop in minutes.