licence?!

[jenthelemur]

Hi, I have a question about stickers / tshirts designs and licences..
I see alot of the sticker companies on ebay at shows etc have images like "tinkerbell" for example - for this sort of sticker would/should you be paying a licence?
Any information greatly appreciated :smile:

[bms]

If you are going to sell trademarked images then yes you will need a licence or pay royalties otherwise you can find all your stock being confiscated and disposed off plus laywers jumping all over you for damages. Can be very expensive.

[jenthelemur]

Ok.. What about general slogans? Do people make these copyrighted so they can't be used? Is there a newbie guide to all this? Thanks :)

[bms]

Depends what you mean by general slogans. Something like "Happy Birthday" isn't copyrighted but "I'm lovin it" is.

[jenthelemur]

How would i find out if things are copyrighted?
For example -- when i've been roaming the web researching bits n bobs i've come across a website with car stickers they have this
"All original designs, copyright (c) 2008 VDUBSHOP / Blue B Graphics."

but then they have generic stickers ie.. hibiscus and daisies ..
but also slogans like "sex, dubs n rock n roll" "home is where you park it" etc

You go to another "vw" sticker site and you'll see exactly the same slogan but maybe different graphics?!
so is it the graphics they've copyrighted or the slogan??

[bms]

If someone takes a photo of an object they they own the copyright to that photo, but someone else can take another photo and not infringe the copyright. This is a bit of a minefield, but the essence is 'don't take anything from anyone elses website, photos etc without their permission'. To find out if a phrase is copyrighted/ trademarked then you would need to contact the relevant authorities (best to Google for this).

[DREAMGLASS]

Copyright is an immensely difficult area to give definitive answers on. Obviously direct 'lifts' of other folks artwork is a major no no, creation of similar items is a little more relaxed so long as you don't create an item that can be mistaken for something too similar. i.e. a green 'Bort' Simpson tee. Creating your own designs from scratch is by far the safest route to take.

Attempting to make a claim for copyright on slogans would be virtually impossible to prove in court, providing it was contructed of regular words, rather than custom 'slang words'. Personally I wouldn't go for slogan tees as every 'start up' tee business devoid of ideas will just trawl the net and instantly lift all your ideas. Just try proving conclusively to a civil court judge that you can definitively prove one hundred percent that the phrase never existed in the English language until you strung a few words together and put them on a tee.

One thing on eBay that amuses me at the moment, is a seller trying to claim copyright on 'evolution tees' and all their variants. Those have been around since the '70's and are sold by dozens of traders on there............ lol

[mrs maggot]

VW is the a company i would not mess with, they are very very hot on what they allow people to get away with even the VW clubs have problems with merchandise

[jenthelemur]

oh i'm glad i'm not a lawyer i've spent 2hours reading about copyright laws and problems people have had. I think i'll be insulted if noone runs off with my designs now :)
Thanks for the advice

[jenthelemur]

how do people get away with things like this?
http://www.sumosam.co.uk/spam-in-a-tshirt-7013-0.html
does this guys bit of waffle cover him legally

[DREAMGLASS]

how do people get away with things like this?
http://www.sumosam.co.uk/spam-in-a-tshirt-7013-0.html
does this guys bit of waffle cover him legally
Isn't SPAM just unsolicited email? Not quite sure why that design would present a problem, UNLESS it was featuring a tin of something hated by many adults of a certain age?

[JSR]

how do people get away with things like this?
http://www.sumosam.co.uk/spam-in-a-tshirt-7013-0.html
does this guys bit of waffle cover him legally

I would suggest that that guy is on very shaky ground. According to http://www.spam.com/about/internet.aspx, what he's got on that t-shirt is trademarked and, by offering it for sale, he's infringing that trademark. It would be amusing to see what happens if Hormel Foods LLC was sent a link to that webpage. Unlike with copyright, a trademark owner must protect their trademark or risk losing it so Hormel *will* go after that t-shirt seller if someone tells them.

As stated on the Hormel Foods website, use of the word "spam" in lower-case and when referring to UCE (unsolicited commercial mail) is not infringement - but use of the word in uppercase and/or their product image *is* infringement.

In those terms, that T-Shirt is infringing Hormel Foods' trademark if the seller doesn't have a license to print.

On the subject of the disclaimer on the t-shirt seller's website, that is not good enough. You can't copy someone else's work, acknowledge that you don't have permission to do so, and then sell it regardless. It's not for the infringer to determine how the work can be used - only the holder of intellectual property rights has the right to decide that.

All the t-shirt seller has to do is to make it say "Spam", or "spam", and they'd be in the clear.

[DREAMGLASS]

I guess the real issue should be, why would someone actually want to buy a tee with just the word SPAM on it in the first place? There is no humour, no statement, no protest and no point in it. If it doesn't amuse, entertain, or educate, then what's it all about?

[Ian M]

how do people get away with things like this?
http://www.sumosam.co.uk/spam-in-a-tshirt-7013-0.html
does this guys bit of waffle cover him legally

I think there are a few items on there a lawyer would love to see. It really doesn't matter what kind of disclaimer you write as this wouldn't stand up in court at all. I did notice though that some of his logo use were for companies that have long gone & a dead celeb isn't going to sue many people are they.

Sometimes if you approach a company in the right way it is quite amazing what you can get from them so long as you are always honest & up front with them. In the last few months I have dealt with a major car producer in Japan asking to use an old name of theirs & they have bent over backwards with help etc. They said they are happy that someone is keeping alive their old cars from years ago & they are very proud of their heritage as they want to show people they haven't just been around since the mid 1980's.

Ian

[DREAMGLASS]

I think the disclaimers that many sellers have on their sites give them some sort of minimal protection against 'passing off'. In that context, no customer can claim they thought they were buying an 'authorised item' when the site clearly says they are not. What the disclaimers cannot do however, is give protection against copyright theft, or use of someone else's registered trademark.

The professional bootleggers out there, go for high volume, fast buck copies of the likes of Disney, football clubs, current pop stars and film characters. They bang them out quickly at Sunday markets, car boot sales, railway stations and anywhere there is a crowd. The customers are happy to buy fake goods at a fraction of the price. Part of the problem with that whole trade though, is that the license holders themselves fuel the problem by charging ridiculously high prices for those goods in the first place. £50 plus for an 'official' tee is excessive by anyone's standards.

Whilst I'm not going to delve into the 'guilty by degree' debate, I do sometimes look at it from the consumers viewpoint. Where no 'licensed' alternative exists, the consumer is often given wider choice by traders who have different interpretations of 'the line'.

[JSR]

Where no 'licensed' alternative exists, the consumer is often given wider choice by traders who have different interpretations of 'the line'.
I understand that from the consumer's perspective, but I also understand the perspective of the copyright/trademark holder.

For example, if you've built up a respected brand or a highly-regarded reputation, you might decide not to licence your design/reputation for printing onto (for example) ashtrays because you are vehemently opposed to smoking. It's not for some quick buck merchant to decide to print up ashtrays just because there aren't any.

Perhaps you want to protect your brand/reputation by specifically denying your product from being printed on cheap shoddy t-shirts because you're vehemently opposed to third world sweatshops. That doesn't mean some trader at a flea-market should be allowed to print your product on cheap t-shirts from a sweatshop.

I don't intend to be argumentative here, I'm just saying that there may well be reasons why there isn't the "wider choice" that the consumer might want. Only the holder of the copyright/trademark has the right to decide how wide "the line" of products is. The infringer has no rights whatsoever, and that's as it should be.

[DREAMGLASS]

I am just trying to highlight why the trade itself exists, rather than rationalise the actions of others.

There are those who set out to deliberately copy official merchandise (professional bootleggers), those who have their own definition of where 'the line' is (wanderers), those who are generally legitimate (toe dippers) and those that are blatantly unaware of things like copyright and trademarks (rank amateurs).

You can go onto virtually any print related sites and find questions like "How do I take images off Google and put them on a tee"? With the exception of the professional bootleggers, I truly believe there is a whole swathe of producers that are blissfully unware they are even breaking any laws. I have my own idea for a tee shirt for those unaware folks "Instant idiot - just add heat press".

[JSR]

I have my own idea for a tee shirt for those unaware folks "Instant idiot - just add heat press".

Great one! Lol. :biggrin::biggrin:

[John G]

Sorry "Dreamglass" I've already printed that shirt so its trademarked - any associated fees should be send immediately. :smile: