IANAL
Let’s say I want to create a one-off T-shirt with a phrase from a favorite book on it. Is that a copyright violation? What if I print up a bunch of them and sell them?
For example: “Zaphod Beeblebrox, President of the Imperial Galactic Government”
Can I use that on a shirt while remaining within the bounds of law?
I am not a lawyer either, but a friend of mine has a website where people would post wacky pictures and captions, which would often include characters or catchphrases from movies and books. He looked into a deal with an online t-shirt company where customers could request a shirt with their favorite picture on it, and the shirt company specifically told him that they would only print up shirts without copyrighted material on them. Maybe it’s only a grey area, and the company is just being overly cautious, but it suggests to me that there are copyright issues involved in this sort of thing.
Also not a lawyer, but I agree with Spiratu. I believe its against the law, but the odds are vanishingly small that anyone would actually sue you for a single shirt.
I wonder, though, if there is some sort of corollary (sp?) with home taping where you can make a T-shirt of Batman or whatever for yourself as long as you don’t distribute to others.
The example given is more likely to be a trademark violation than a violation of copyright.
But for just one shirt, no ones going to bother to sue you.
You are more likely to run into trade mark and trade name issues than into copyright issues, because a short phrase generally can’t be copyright, but can be a trade mark or trade name. That won’t come into play if you just make one thing for yourself, but if you made a few t-shirts with “Mickey Mouse” on them and sold them, the Walt Disney corporation bight have grounds for an action against you. There’s a database that you can search to see whether “Zaphod Beeblebrox” or “President of the Imperial Galactic Government” or the like is a registered trade name, at http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=tess&state=4005:8pqtu5.1.1
ETA: “Zaphod Beeblebrox” was registered by Disney Enterprises, Inc. in 2006, but they abandoned it in 2007, so you have no problem with that in the US.
Copyright law does not protect single words, names, short phrases, titles, slogans, or catchphrases.
Copyright law does protect fictional characters and creative works that constitute images of fictional characters.
However, single words, short phrases, titles, slogans, catchphrases, names, or images or fictional characters might be protected by trademark law if they are being used as an indicator of the source of goods or services.
For example, putting the words “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” on a T-shirt might not constitute copyright infringement, but it might constitute trademark infringement.
This is very bad advice. Unregistered trademarks are protectable.
So what effect does “Live/Dead Indicator DEAD” and “Abandonment Date May 29, 2007” have in that database? Presumably Disney has abandoned to the trade mark, and no one else has registered it in the US. Perhaps someone else is using it as a trade mark in the US, but without registration it would surely be hard to get damages for its use.
But, of course, I’m not a lawyer, so this is not legal advice.
All that means is that particular application was abandoned.
Nope. Trademarks are not like copyrights. You don’t have to have registration in order to get relief. Unregistered trademarks are protectable under common law, under state consumer protection and trademark statutes, and under the Lanham Act (the federal trademark statute).
And just because Disney might not hold trademark rights, what makes you think that someone else might not?