Seven Legal Tips For Your T-shirt Business
Seven Legal Tips For Your T-shirt Business
When starting a tshirt business you might come across confusing legal issues. The legalities of business cant be over looked. A lot of the legal info you find while conducting your research might seem confusing so were gonna break some of it down so its easier to understand. Make sure you know your stuff before you get into legal trouble!
Copyright and trademarks A copyright is the right to copy and gives the copyright holder the right to be credited for the work to determine who may adapt the work to other forms financially benefit from it and other related rights. A trademark is a type of intellectual property and typically a name word phrase logo symbol design image or a combination of these elements. You should copyright your tshirt designs and trademark your label name to protect them legally. But dont worry about copyright and trademark too early. Until your work is being widely purchased or distributed copyright may not even be necessary to launch your tshirt business.
Images from the internet Dont use em without permission. Images from the internet are copyright unless you took them in which case you own the copyright. There are ways of beating the system though: If you use a basic generic picture for example one of a dog youd probably get away with it in some cases. Is there is nothing peculiar about the picture you use and it looks like something you could very well have taken most likely the copyright holder wont really be able to distinguish the image and wouldnt waste time trying to hunt you down. On the other hand if you use a picture thats very specific or complex for example a picture of a white pitbull with black spots wearing a football helmet youll get caught easily.
Famous quotes When using quotes in tshirt designs you should quote the person who originally said it. Dont pretend like you made it up. Just give them their credit even if its in super tiny print. You definitely wouldnt like it if you said something funny one day and saw it on a bunch of tshirts the next without any recognition for it.
Popular characters Never use them unless you have a license to do so. Just make up your own characters or get someone else to. Simple as that. Using popular characters in an attempt to sell quick is just plain lazy and uncreative.
Writing and signing contracts Learn the ins and outs of contracts before writing or signing them or youll get screwed. Also dont sign a contract for anything until youve weighed out the options of having the contract signed or not as well as how youd feel about your decision to sign when a few months go by. Find some sample contracts online or in books so you get an idea of how they should be formatted.
Parodying familiar figures and icons Its allowed thanks to the right to parody. Just dont get too crazy with it. When your parodying becomes overly offensive you may get attacked and or kidnapped by the entourage of figure youre parodying. Just beware.
Political figures In most cases they can be used. Its no wonder there are so many political tshirts on the market. The only situation you wouldnt be safe using them is if you find a famous photo of a political figure. The photo would most likely be recognized as x photographers famous photo so youd be in hot water. In addition to political figures you can also use flags coat of arms and national symbols.
WHAT LEGAL ISSUES ARE YOU COMING ACROSS?
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