copyright infringement?

[K-Man]

David: Never said you had given any legal advice.

I only posted the caution as a general statement.

Edited June 6, 2008 by K-Man

[cem]

Russ,

That is not much of a grey area to me....he made an object and put a Harley emblem on it....yeah Harley made the emblem but putting it on something he made IMPLIED that it was an official Harley product. DONT DO IT. Good way to get in trouble.

If a customer asks for a Harley emblem on something, he better be from Harley Davidson. If he isn't from HD....politely decline the job or try to encourage him to be creative or let you be creative.... I do it all the time.

Unfortunately, there are many bikers out there who don't have a creative bone in their bodies. Beeze here on LW is an outstanding exception...as are many others...Shirley... etc. Mostly bikers want something they saw on Joe Schmo's bike. Show them some of your creative work....you can lead them where you want them to go.

Dave

I meant grey area in a purely observational state ie your not likely to catch the attention of the emblem maker for one or two things on items that they themselves don't make and are for a purely hobby craft sense (misread and realised afterwards that they were being sold). Don't know if I'm coming across right it's been a long day, I'm a graphic designer and I continually have to deal with clients who just don't know (which today meant telling a client no I can't just grab photos off competitors webpages and put them on yours).

Davids point is right in that if comes across as being an official product you will likely get a cease and desist order very quickly, so in the end the simplest thing for selling stuff is if you didn't design it don't use it, unless you want to go through the added step of paying licence fees.

Edited June 6, 2008 by cem

[David]

I meant grey area in a purely observational state ie your not likely to catch the attention of the emblem maker for one or two things on items that they themselves don't make and are for a purely hobby craft sense (misread and realised afterwards that they were being sold). Don't know if I'm coming across right it's been a long day, I'm a graphic designer and I continually have to deal with clients who just don't know (which today meant telling a client no I can't just grab photos off competitors webpages and put them on yours).

Davids point is right in that if comes across as being an official product you will likely get a cease and desist order very quickly, so in the end the simplest thing for selling stuff is if you didn't design it don't use it, unless you want to go through the added step of paying licence fees.

CEM

You are coming through loud and clear, you are on the front lines of this discussion and you comments are right on the money and very pertinent Thanks

David Theobald

[russinchico]

Thank you all for your excellent advise, and opinions on the matter. If and or when the time comes, I hope I am creative enough that I don't even have to think about the issue. But in the mean time, Its PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, and challenge myself with anything and everything.

Thanks again folks

Russ

[Windy]

Well not being a lawyer and not liking lawyers, I can tell you that anyone who gives you advice that is not a lawyer is being a little egotistical. Then again a person who asks for legal advice from a bunch of leather workers gets nothing but opinions which one should read then laugh and call a stinking lawyer. Now as for my opinion which you can stop reading or continue on , I was

taking a pottery class in which a man constantly made plates with the University of Cincinnati logo and name on them along with quite a few Kentucky Wildcat plates. Well imagine that this

very topic came up. He called the University of Cincinnati ( well he said he did ) and they supposable told him he could not use their name or logo for any reason , not even if he was

donating the plates to a charity auction, not even if he was giving them to his friends, not even if he was giving them to U.C. alumni , they told him he could not even make them for himself. Now this is all hearsay since I was not privy to the call , nor do I know this man well enough to

judge him a fibber or a truth teller. I just wanted to type something here so I did type my most humble opinion , which once again is call a lawyer when you need legal advice and call a leather worker when you need leather work. Call me if you want a humble opinion on anything concerning common sense, cents or is it cense or since.

WINDY

[FrankZaharek]

Russ,

That is not much of a grey area to me....he made an object and put a Harley emblem on it....yeah Harley made the emblem but putting it on something he made IMPLIED that it was an official Harley product. DONT DO IT. Good way to get in trouble.

If a customer asks for a Harley emblem on something, he better be from Harley Davidson. If he isn't from HD....politely decline the job or try to encourage him to be creative or let you be creative.... I do it all the time.

Unfortunately, there are many bikers out there who don't have a creative bone in their bodies. Beeze here on LW is an outstanding exception...as are many others...Shirley... etc. Mostly bikers want something they saw on Joe Schmo's bike. Show them some of your creative work....you can lead them where you want them to go.

Dave

David, I posed this question to our corporate lawyers and this was how they explained it.Your first statement is not correct as it takes away the customer's "Fair Use" rights. When the customer purchased the emblem (patch) he/she has the right of fair use such as having it sewn or adhered to any item they choose as long as it is for their personal use. Other wise the only use they could make of it would be to take it home and put it away and not even display it. Now what they can't do is have someone copy the emblem in any fashion onto an item as this is not protected under "Fair Use" laws and is a violation of pertinent law.

Sorry it took me till now to reply to this but we've been busy getting our new businesses up and running. You'd be surprised at all the legal paper work and inventory and training we've had to go through.

[JohnBarton]

Being in China I deal with this all the time.

Basically it's like this, an item made by someone for their own personal use can contain a representation of a logo. One cannot sell or give away that item however without infringing on the trademark owner's property.

One cannot use an item that contains a logo that they do not own or license in commerce or for any commericial purpose.

Thus one cannot make "Harley" gear legally for sale.

An example, you see a great tooled Harley bag in the Harley shop. You can't run next door and have Joe Leatherworker make you one with the Harley Logo on it legally. However YOU can make one and use it legally.

As for the stickers and patches - if you aquire them from a legal source then you can attach them to anything you personally use. You can't however attach a Harley patch to a leather bag you made and sell it as a Harley Bag. You can have Joe Leatherworker make you a bag and have the patch sewn onto that bag. That's ok. Joe Leatherworker can't buy the Harley patches and make a line of "Harley" bags to sell to you though.

Confusing? You bet.

We deal with this all the time from custom pool table cloth, to advertising items, to sports fans who want stuff with their team's logo.

We can show off things we have done which have logos on them as examples of what we can do. We cannot offer for sale any of those items with the logos on them without written permission from the owners/licensees of those trademarks.

Personally I think that as long as something is a one off for personal use and the logo is intended to be used in an artistic way then it's no problem for a leather worker to use it for a customer.

What I mean by that is if the intent is advertise the brand without representing the underlying product as "made by" that brand, then it's no harm to the brand. An extreme example would be getting the Harley logo tatooed on yourself.

If the intent is to make people think that the THING is made by the company that owns the brand, i.e. a T-shirt that has the Nike emblem on it, then that is infringment and not a good thing to do.

Ah the wonderful world of intellectual property.

I'd be a millionaire several times over if I had the profits from all the cue cases that have been and continue to be sold using my designs.

If you all want to make some T-Shirts with JB Cases on them go ahead :-) But please don't make cue cases with JB Cases on them.........

[K-Man]

John Barton:

That's true for the most part. There are, however, ways to make and sell items that have trademarked logos on them. It's a very finite area within the law.

For anyone considering something along these lines, the best thing you can do is obtain advice from a trusted legal advisor/attorney.

[Kevdbry]

I use a lot of patterns that I've acquired over the years form various points. Each of those patterns did come from a printed document. Tandy had the "Doodle Pages" back in the day and offered it to everyone to use. Not copyrights of any sort. Using the cell phone case from Tandy as your own pattern is not infringing on any copyrights because if go and look in any country/western stores, you will find cell phone cases that are almost identical to Tandy's. If you change any portion of the pattern, its yours. Plus, I can only assume that you are not selling it as a "Tandy Original". No true leathersmith will every do that!! I make key fobs for some local colleges fraternaties. I use a fleur di lis stamp and put the colleges letters under it and use "like" colors when staining/painting. Those fobs sell like hot cakes. I DO NOT advertise the product as "official" collegiate products. It is something that I have come up with and ANYONE can do it. The only thing that I claim as official is the leather I use and myself, a leathersmith.

If you do not use the terms "Official Gear" or "Lisenced Products", you are in the clear. If you change ANY portion of a drawing or pattern, you are in the clear. Just don't change a color and hope for the best. Use your craftsman brain and make a change that will make a product better. I've enjoyed making changes to patterns and I have found that lots of other people like it as well.

Good Luck!!!

[Mike]

'End of the Trail' is a large statue that I believe is now in the Cowboy Museum (can't remember the exact name) in OK. It has been copied in so many ways it's hard to keep track. It's image has been copied for pictures, belt buckles and so on. Even by a well known leather artist. All of it for profit.

How is this ok?

Just curious,

pmiker