Re: Trademark issue
Solmu said:
I think on this and some other threads you've been giving the impression that a few tweaks here and there and someone will be safe - I'd say that's very much not the case. They may get away with it with sufficiently expensive lawyers (justice being an ever fickle dame), but Copyright law would indicate that shouldn't be the case.
Copyright won't protect an idea or a concept, but it will protect more than just an exact image.
I have been doing more than giving an impression, I have been stating fact as it pertains to US copyright law. Here are the facts:
1. If you create a design for a t-shirt, if someone steals that design, the only way you can bring a suit against them is if you
register your design with the copyright office. Straight from the US copyright office website:
Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of U. S. origin.
Translation: It doesn't matter how many psd files you have or any other files, or if you can prove that you created it first, if you don't register, you have no legal recourse.
2.If you register your design, it may not give you the protection that you think it does. Your registration only protects your image as you have registered it. As in the example I gave in the earlier post, (which is more than a tweak here and there) someone can take the concept for your design and make a new image using your same concept. It was more than a mere tweaking, some of the objects were different, but the
concept was the same. We're talking about copyright law, not trademark law that deals with designs and slogans as part of a logo. Again, straight from the copyright website:
Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed.
It goes on to state in yet another part of the website:
Several categories of material are not eligible for federal copyright protection. These include among others...:
Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring; mere listings of ingredients or contents...Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices
Some of those things may me protected by getting a trademark, but not by copyright. Most t-shirt designs would fall in this category.
So any short phrases or "funny little sayings" that are part of your t-shirt design wouldn't be covered by the copyright. My example of a fly in a stick of butter, compared to a fly in a tub of butter in plate, you have two different design elements. The copyright only protects the elements of your design, the actual design. If you create a stick of butter with a fly, that is what's copyrighted. You didn't create a tub of butter with a fly, and can't claim that it is yours, because the copyright doesn't protect your concept or idea. As before, I referenced the US copyright office. You state that it will protect more than just an exact image. Where do you get this from? Is this just something you heard and believe to be true? It is easy to tell me that I'm wrong about it. It is another thing entirely to tell me I'm wrong and support it with why I'm wrong. You didn't say why I was wrong.
Show me that I'm wrong. Copyright protection is
very limited. Maybe it works differently in Australia, I don't know. You said that copyright law would indicate that it shouldn't be the case. What part of the copyright law? Just like the example situation I gave in the earlier post, I can change someone's design and keep their concept and not infringe on a registered work,
because (even as you say) it doesn't protect ideas or concepts. You say it protects more that just an exact image. Like what?
Also, my point about the psd files was that it didn't matter if you had them or not, if someone wanted to steal you exact design, they can easily make it look as though they went through the creative process themselves and you having some psd files wouldn't make a bit of difference. And if you haven't registered your design, it is all moot anyway. Because someone could steal your exact design, make all the color separations and make minor changes. And if you haven't registered your design, they could register theirs and sue you for stealing "their" design(which was yours in the first place). This is why I said it didn't matter what you had.
REGISTER, REGISTER, REGISTER.