Just make the shirt. I mean there are fake Rolex’s, fake other types of expensive watches, bootleg cds, bootleg dvds… I don’t think you would ever get caught with a bootleg unicycle T-shirt. Infact I bet Koxx probably wouldn’t even care to much that you made a Koxx shirt, not unless it got out of hand and everybody started doing it. You could probably even get it done professionally at a shirt printing company because i doubt they would bother to look it up to make sure it wasnt copyright anyway.
if you make one and not making money, they wont touch ya. Courts woulnd’t even bother with it.
Why would they spend tonnes on a court case for a t-shirt where you made no money and yet advertise their brand?
it’s not gonna happen, just make the t-shirt.
Would a mirror image be change enough?
And Zippy: If you were a lawyer and could be sued for malpractice in the event he gets into problems, only then would it be wise to take legal advice fom you.
Isn’t this a trademark?
That is a different can of worms than a Copyright, although many aspects are the same. I would include the little circled ‘r’ that indicates it’s a registered trademark, make the shirt, and enjoy.
But potentially there is a loss here – so courts will allow a civil case. If you made a shirt and the quality wasn’t up to par, this could result in others not buying a shirt (if available) from that company because they saw your poor quality shirt.
Change the K to an R.
Yes. But a trademark is intended to represent a brand (or product), and is not the product or intellectual property itself. Any trademark that’s established, whether formally registered or not, surely includes copyright protection for itself.
A T-shirt with Koxx logo on it could be seen as positive, advertising the brand, or negative, if the owners consider it a poor representation of the brand. But that’s up to the owners, not anyone else.
As before, if your plan is to make one shirt for yourself, and if you’re doing it because you like the logo, Koxx is unlikely to have any problem with it. The worst-case scenario would be the company contacting you to ask you to “cease and desist.” In other words, stop making shirts, or even less likely, stop wearing it at prominent cycling events or in videos.
well it cant be THAT illegal because if you go to flee markets, there are FULL of stands selling copyed brands like volcom or DC shoes.PLUS their making money off it. Why don’t they get busted. Are they doing somthing to make it legal?
Yeah…they canhge the names.
no they don’t.
I have one of the DC shirts I got at the flee market and one i got from a skate shop. Their identical.
The law doesn’t do degrees. It’s legal or it’s not. penalties have degrees. The likely ramifications have already been listed.
Two possibilities:
- The products are made under a licensing agreement. This means they’re paying the brand’s owners to use the brand. If this is the case, it’s all legal. But it’s probably not the case.
- The products are bootleg. In this case, they are examples of you doing the same thing (only on a bigger scale). The brand’s owners are probably trying to track down the illegal copy-makers right now. If those products stay available for a long time, they’re either not doing a very good job, or the thing is possibly tied up in court and they couldn’t get a cease-and-desist. But this sort of thing goes on all the time, and no it’s not legal.
I’ve done accounting work for many different companies over the years and while most people I’ve dealt with are honest, ethics can vary considerably from one company to the next. When people do things that are unethical and it is brought to their attention, the first thing you hear is “everybody does it”. To some extent it’s true. How many of us drive 62mph when the speed limit is 60? Most people do that and never get a ticket. That does not make it legal and not everybody does it. We all have various self imposed limits on what we consider acceptable behavior. Often these limits are dictated by laws or social norms. I am not going to push my morals on anybody else but there is a slippery slope one starts down when engaging in a new illegal or immoral activity. “Its only one shirt-who cares-it’s for myself”. Next time, maybe your friends want them also. “Ten shirts-no big deal-they charge too much for their stuff anyway”. If you keep sliding down that slope, some day you might be one of those people at the flee market with a trunk full of bootleg stuff. “Hey, a guys’ got a right to make a living doesn’t he?” Sure, what ever you say, but I’m not buying it.
Look at the people on trial for looting corporate America. Do you think these crooks woke up one day and decided to take millions of dollars from the company? No, it starts out small. “If we only had two cents more per share in earnings, I’ll get my bonus. Let’s see how we can create some income to make that target!” Next time, they need to make it up plus they need two more cents per share for the current accounting period. The corporate accountants need to get more creative. This goes on and on until at some point, the whistle is blown and the house of cards collapses. Good people are thrown out of work, stockholders get ripped off, retirement funds disappear.
The US Treasury is cheated out of billions each year. There are a few big tax cheats and lots of little ones. Most justifications people use for tax cheating have been touched upon in this thread. I’m not trying to equate tax fraud or the collapse of Enron with an illegal t-shirt but beware of the slippery slope.
Dye3:
You took the initiative to ask the question and it appears from your replies that you are trying to do the right thing. That is commendable.
/
eh?
Have a look at these websites:
http://www.bedfordunicycles.ca/
or http://www.krisholm.com/
Dont make the shirt, unicycling is such a small sport and it is very hard to make a living out of it, it is very specialised. I have talked to Yoggi and I am sure he wouldnt want you to make the shirt.
Rolex and DC Shoes are HUGE companies that are seen as faceless corporations. People like Yoggi and Kris Holm are not faceless.
Mike
You probably read that the West Point Graduates Against The War are in trouble for using the name of the alma mater–copyright infringement.
Dye3
If you did not make the illegal t-shirts, good for you.
Start making bad choices now and it might lead to a life of crime like it did for Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling.
Summary from link below:
The Government skewers Enron Corporate big wigs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling for gutting the company out of 10’s of millions of dollars and leaving it to rot in the Texas sun. Accounting tricks and deception led to the massive corporate failure. 5,600 people thrown out of work, stockholders ripped off for $60 Billion, employees see $2.1 bill in retirement money vanish.
When the verdict was read, Skilling took it like a man. He sat emotionless next to his brother. When it was Mr. Lay’s turn, the red-faced man listened to “guilty” “guilty” “guilty” as wife, daughter and granddaughter cried on his shoulders.
These convictions bring the government headcount to four in the Enron case. Other trophy mounts for the feds include execs from WorldCom and Adelphia. Of course, Martha Stewart is the loveliest catch so far, but what she did was peanuts compared to the professional corporate crooks.
Saddly, these guys haven’t spent a night behind bars since the gig came down five years ago. But their time in the pen is coming.
Bon Appétit:
Back to this thread: If I do interpretive unicycling or juggling to a Beatles song, must I pay royalties or something??
Billy
West Point Graduates Against The War
Only if it’s televised, or filmed for DVD or video distribution.
dude if you like somehow made thousands of shirts and sold them for all the profets and gave nothing to the company then yeah… but if you just go and make yourself a shirt or even like 20 shirts… then youll be fine
Chase
Are you sure about that? What if you’re being paid thousands of dollars to appear on a cruise ship, for instance? Is it only if the performance is going to be “mass produced”?
I ask this as a performer as well. Though I have some music that belongs to me, mostly I use stuff I haven’t paid any royalties on…