Copyright laws??? Discussion only. I am not asking for expert legal advice.

[tedly]

We've got a wide range of people here, and I'm hoping someone might be able to help shed some light on this area for me. Keni and I are starting to get into re-doing and upscaling old furniture, making stuff of our own designs, and just generally working towards having it be a reliable source of income. We've been scouring sites like Pinterest, Youtube, and Instructables for inspiration as well as getting to know local shops we could sell through. One of the things I keep seeing is people using video games, movies, or other such stuff to make something old and boring exciting . I get that most of this stuff is for personal projects and not meant to be sold, but I'm wondering where the line is. If I did commission work where someone requested a piece with, say, Mario or Pacman on it, would that fall under copyright laws?

We are going to be consulting a lawyer, but at the moment money is tight and we are not going to stray to that area until we get definitive answers.

[Monk]

Neato stuff............

[squirrel]

Might be careful, if you think it will make you enough money, that it would be worthwhile to sue you.

[SuperBuickGuy]

don't do it - playing litigation roulette is a quick way to go bankrupt - remember the music cases? they didn't care that they were bankrupting people.... while fair use is fair use (such as the Jack Daniels lights), the rest.... I wouldn't play there.

[RockJustRock]

A lot depends on how litigious the copyright or trademark holder is. DC Comics once bragged of suing a farmer for painting a red and yellow Superman S on a barn roof. Really silly. What did the farmer gain that DC lost? Poor guy loved Superman and thought he was helping DC by promoting the brand. Fortunately litigation leans more towards "making whole" and away from "punitive damages" these days, I think..... I hope?

In the words of the honorable Judge Marilyn "We're not here to give anyone a Bow-nanza".

(C)2019 RockJustRock

[tedly]

Ok, so what makes the Jack Daniels different? I’m going to look into fair use when I get back home, just on my phone at the moment.

[Loren]

It's just their bottle that was bought-and-paid-for by someone, and you stuck it up there.

If you were making your own JD labels and selling them, you'd be looking for trouble.

I would imagine having someone ask you to make a Pac-Man and making them one, would get you no worse than a cease-and-desist in any event, hopefully the Pac-Man people are already busy enough and it would be hard to prove harm. However if you were a very rich guy and did something like that, well...money always makes you a target.

The above legal advise is to not to be construed as legal advise!

[RockJustRock]

Funny you should mention Jack Daniels...…

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jesscoll.../#5fa34564624c

http://mashable.com/2012/07/22/jack-.../#I3ZiibTiiEqZ

Of course the first one was a competing product, but the second? Would Jack sell less whisky if people could get their label style on a book? A lamp? I'd counter with offering a royalty on a per unit sold basis and an agreement not to sue THEM if they suddenly decide to sell hanging lamps.

In contrast Namco/Bandai seems pretty liberal. A lot of people got away with knock offs of the actual Pac Man game even at the peak of it's popularity.

[Gateclyve Photographic]

The copyright office will probably issue a certificate on about whatever you send in with the filing fee. That doesn't mean the copyright will ultimately be enforceable if challenged.

Ideas are not copyrightable. Only specific artistic expressions of ideas are.
.
Things that are rudimentary, common-place, standard, or unavoidable are generally not copyrightable.

Facts are not copyrightable.

Compilations of elements that are not copyrightable in isolation may be subject to "thin" copyright protection (e.g. ~ exact duplicates are infringements but small changes can be enough to satisfy the minimum level of creativity to get around a copyright).

Scènes-à-faire (think stuff like stock characters, ordinary features, common design motifs, tropes) are generally not copyrightable.

Ideas that "merge" with the expression (in other words, something that's expressed in about the only ways they can be, or in a very limited number of ways) are generally not copyrightable.

Parodies cannot be stopped based on copyright. (Weird Al thanks you)

If memory serves, Harley lost the fight to copyright the sound of V-twin motorcycles . . . .

Bring plenty of stacks if you're picking one of these fights . . . Lots of ways to get hosed.

If you somehow get smacked with a violation, it can get expensive.

THIS IS JUST GENERAL INFO -- NOT LEGAL ADVISE. GO GET A LAWYER . . . . .

[Gateclyve Photographic]

If you were making your own JD labels and selling them, you'd be looking for trouble.


The above legal advise is to not to be construed as legal advise!

I'd bet the Jack Daniels label is trademarked . That's a bit different from copyright. Still a bad idea to wrongfully copy someone else's stuff (especially if they've got corporate money and lawyers to fight)

Not much of a way someone can prohibit alternative uses of old bottles (unless one is refilling 'em with corn liquor . . . . ) They're in the stream of commerce and nobody is likely to get confused . . . . Still, why risk it?

GENERAL INFO -- STILL NOT ADVICE-- GET A LAWYER . . . .

[tedly]

It's just their bottle that was bought-and-paid-for by someone, and you stuck it up there.

If you were making your own JD labels and selling them, you'd be looking for trouble.

I would imagine having someone ask you to make a Pac-Man and making them one, would get you no worse than a cease-and-desist in any event, hopefully the Pac-Man people are already busy enough and it would be hard to prove harm. However if you were a very rich guy and did something like that, well...money always makes you a target.

The above legal advise is to not to be construed as legal advise!

That's kind of what I was figuring. So taking an already existing, bought and paid for thing and either using it or altering it without the intent to defraud someone into thinking it's a licensed thing is in bounds. Is that the rough idea?

Now, taking the VW dresser as an example. If I did that but without the VW badge on it, would that still be too close? What if I had the badge and applied it to an otherwise plain dresser?

I know this seems like splitting hairs, but I want to stay comfortably inbounds of potential legal trouble. I know none of this is actual legal advice, just discussion of ideas, but thanks for all your input.

[Loren]

I'd bet that on the tailgate table, the tailgate is OK but the wooden Chevy bowties are not. I have a funny feeling about Edelbrock and the GMC Truck but can't say why, when I thought the JD bottles were OK.

[Gateclyve Photographic]

OEMs have become ridiculously protective of what's called "trade dress" (one of the reasons modern Hot Wheels are often so weird (avoidance of paying licencing fees to OEMs) and scale model kits are now so expensive (cost of licensing fees). It's a profit center and many of them have lots of lawyers churning out scary letters and even lawsuits to keep the licence money rolling in.

The same thing has happened in the restoration parts industry . . . .

If you're copying an "iconic" design that's identifiable, (e.g. Lego's VW Bus kit), VW's probably going to get too interested at some point. The more points of difference you have in your design and the better story you have about how it's creative and an independent idea, the better your chances of avoiding trouble are.

Example: Scooby Doo Mystery Machine . . . exact copy for commercial gain = bad idea. Scaled-down toy copy = still a bad idea. Generic '60s van with mod flowers and pastel greenish hue -- probably different enough so long as the shapes don't match. (it's that idea-expression thing that saves you). Painting a fan tribute on a '60s Econoline or Chevy van for non-commercial purposes -- likely "fair use." Selling painted-up "Mystery Machine" vans = bad idea unless they're a lot different from the cartoon/movies (the words "mystery" and "machine" and the general idea of a van generally aren't protectable although the specific order of the words and the whole phrase might be) .

What if you ran your photo of the Mystery Machine through color altering and distorting illustration program? It might slide by as an artistic interpretation of it.

Sorry this isn't more black and white . . . .

But now you know why some products have such odd phraseology and design quirks . . . it's not always just because the knockoff artists are not native English speakers and are lousy copiers.

[tedly]

The valve cover one is not what I thought it was, there was another I had saved that had a factory logo on it. The bowties on the table were iffy to me as well, not just from legal but style as well.

There is a lot of grey area I need to look into, but you guys are mostly echoing what I was thinking.

[tedly]

If you're copying an "iconic" design that's identifiable, (e.g. Lego's VW Bus kit), VW's probably going to get too interested at some point. The more points of difference you have in your design and the better story you have about how it's creative and an independent idea, the better your chances of avoiding trouble are.

Example: Scooby Doo Mystery Machine . . . exact copy for commercial gain = bad idea. Scaled-down toy copy = still a bad idea. Generic '60s van with mod flowers and pastel greenish hue -- probably different enough so long as the shapes don't match. (it's that idea-expression thing that saves you). Painting a fan tribute on a '60s Econoline or Chevy van for non-commercial purposes -- likely "fair use." Selling painted-up "Mystery Machine" vans = bad idea unless they're a lot different from the cartoon/movies (the words "mystery" and "machine" and the general idea of a van generally aren't protectable although the specific order of the words and the whole phrase might be) .
.

See, now we're getting into another grey area. Say I made a Mystery Machine for myself - legitimately only because I wanted one. After some time passes, say a couple years, could I sell it as is? The amount of General Lee, Ghostbusters, and KITT clones would suggest so.

Now what if someone paid me to paint their van like a Mystery Machine? Not to sell, but to have as their own. Again, common experience would tell me that is ok. I would still be hesitant to do it without paid legal advice, though.

Now look at tattoos. half the people I know probably have some form of copyrighted or trademarked image on their body. Can they be sued? Can the artist? If a contractor takes a job to redo someones game room at their house and paints Mario or Pacman, is that infringement?

I'm staying clear, but just wondering where to start looking and what to avoid.