 The Shortcomings of TMs and Copyrights for shirts
Hey guys, I've been doing my homework on trademark and copyright law and it seems that T-shirt designs fall into a weird gray area. A copyright protects an original work of visual art, but it's geared more toward the kind of visual art like a painting or a photograph. A t-shirt idea, or the joke or premise on which it is based, doesn't fall into this category though, and in a lot of cases the "joke" is what sells the shirt, not the design itself. And a trademark is a ***** to get, and it can protect a slogan only if you can prove that it distinguishes your brand from others, but not just a slogan on shirt, in most cases.
So doesn't that mean that if I have a design, and I copyright it, a person can still take the general idea or joke, change the font and illustration, and be perfectly fine legally because I have no claim to the joke itself?
I guess this doesn't really bother me, I know that I'll never intentionally rip anyone off, and that I'm creative enough to stay ahead of would-be copycats, but I'm curious if my basic legal assessment here is right. Anyone have any experience with this? Or has anyone here ever been accused of ripping of an idea that they came up with independently? |