Is a shopkeeper liable for affiliate designs in his/her shop? In other words, if an affiliate is found to have violated a copyright/trademark or something, would the shopkeeper who made the sale be liable somehow? If so, how would a shopkeeper avoid this, short of doing extensive IP research on every affiliate design they use?

Thanks in advance!

I think you have the question backwards.

The shopkeeper is the one that creates the design and sells it in their own shop.

The affiliate is the one that puts the already created design in their affiliate shop/site.

So, it's the affiliate that should be concerned about the "infringement by proxy", right?

I've been contacted directly by attorneys twice for designs I was showing as an affiliate. In one case it was at Teesed.com and I explained those products come from a product feed by CafePress and to contact them. I also forwarded the email to CUP as a courtesy and they sent back a nice response. In the other case, it was a design that I had manually put up. I sent them the same email about contacting CafePress, but I decided on my own to just remove the design.

My assumption is that if they want, they can sue you as well as CP and/or the shopkeeper, but in most cases if you send them to the source, they are fine with that.

D'oh! I thought I had the terms right! Not sure why I have such a hard time with "affiliate."

You're exactly right- I was concerned about the liability of the person who sells the design, not the one who designed it (or copied/stole, as the case may be).

Thanks for sharing your experience. I know anyone can sue anyone, but it's good to know that at least in some cases they will likely go after the infringer rather than the salesperson.

I appreciate your input!

Teesed - this is a great question... glad it was asked and I appreciate your answer.
I've wondered about this myself since a lot of my affiliating involves pulling a feed that I don't have any control over what products will turn up with it other than the search term I originally used. I would think there are a lot of affiliates who would have potential problems if they are using a feed from CP to pull their products from, and some SKer or other has infringing designs that come up through that feed. In fact, my 4thclick sites pull entire shops even though I may have been after just dog designs, etc.
Is there any way short of hand picking each and every design that one affiliates, to keep from having potential liability?