Copyrights - Interesting Thoughts

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I read that on facebook The jist of it all and it has been said here over and over is that this stuff is such a grey area and go from town to town and you never know. You take your chances whenever you sell brand name logo items of any sort. yes taking items that have been sold in one form or another and then you buy them and change the form such as make them into pens is again borderline because the name of the company is still there.

I had seen first hand people from Disney, Harley Davidson, and NFL come to a craft show I was selling at and handed out seize and desist papers to a few crafters because of use of their names. One was a friend of mine who scrollsaws also. He made team logo plaques. He had to take them down. I never did find out if he ever pursued it or just abandoned the line.

In this case "Maker Beware":smile:
 
Two,terms that are different.

Trademark

Copyright


Harley Davidson get to enforce Trademark

FBI gets to investigate Copyright.
 
Harley

Here is a mug I made with the Harley logo. It was only for my own use. Since Harley has a lot more money to spend on attorneys than I do, I contacted them before I made it and below is what I got back....

As long as you a) make this article yourself (as opposed to having someone else make it for you); b) understand you can never sell it under any circumstance; c) understand that it cannot be used in any way in connection with a business (such as showing it (or photos of it) to prospective customers; and d) that you can't put any words in it other than HARLEY-DAVIDSON MOTOR CYCLES, you should be OK.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Judy Henslee
Mgr., Global Brand Protection
Harley-Davidson Motor Company


I get a lot of people asking me to make them things like this with company logos and my answer is always sorry, can't do it (unless it's their own company or they have approval in writing). As has been said, maker beware.
 

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Two,terms that are different.

Trademark

Copyright


Harley Davidson get to enforce Trademark

FBI gets to investigate Copyright.


Part true, part not true.

Copyright applies to the workproduct of a creative effort - that could be text (eg, a book, magazine article, a speech, or an depiction such as a drawing, paining or photograph, etc). Trademark is a symbol or logo that uniquely identifies a product. The most famous trademark examples are the Coca Cola logo and the GE monogram.

Ownership of either gives the owner the right to restrict or prevent use by others, and it is normally left to the owner to initiate actions.

Police agencies don't enforce copyrights, but occasionally do get involved in trademark issues. In the past, the former US Customs Service would occasionally do spot checks on merchandise purchased outside the US by travelers and would confiscate items bearing counterfeit trademarks. While I suspect that they still have the authority to do that, they have other priorities today and I don't recall being asked to show merchandise for customs inspection when returning to the US in at least 30 years.

I believe that the modern Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency may still occasionally check shipments of commercial merchandise for fraudulent trademarks although that is probably not their primary focus. And there have been instances where the Consumer Products Safety Commission has gotten involved in situations in which fraudulently-labeled products created consumer safety issues - the most famous being the instance in which bolts with counterfeit strength markings found their way to several automotive manufacturers.
 
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