Why can Disney sue you for a photo of a Disney tshirt on your website? My wife sews things and she likes to put photos of her creations on her blog. Now we found, that people received cease-and-desist warnings (with a 1000€ charge) for putting photos of clothing on their websites, that contain for example Disney characters (also happened for other brands IPs). To be clear: there are companies that license these images by the IP owners and print them on fabric. People bought this fabric and sewed clothes from it. Now these people get in trouble for posting photos of the clothes, they created. How can that be, if the IP owner licensed these motives to the company? Can this also happen if I post a photo of a shirt with a disney print, I bought in a store? If not, where is the difference?
The IP was licensed to a company to allow people to put it on their shirts as part of a hobby. It did not license anyone to sell shirts with those prints already applied on them, least of all a third party. That is, Disney licensed a company to sell prints for sewing on shirts, not shirts. When you moved into the shirt market, you are competing with Disney for a different licensed product. Disney may offer a shirt with the same image of Mickey Mouse on it (or may wish to in the future) and you are competing and with copyrighted characters to boot. This wouldn't happen if you were to walk into a Disney Store, buy a shirt, and later sell it on a second hand market as you have legally purchased a shirt with a print on it (as opposed to selling a shirtless print with a shirt on it for profit). Even if the shirt fetches a higher bidding price on EBay because it is a collector's item as Disney is in the market of selling brand new never worn Disney shirts and does not want to be in the market of second hand Disney shirts that some guy may have sweated in. Furthermore, if you are posting the picture wearing the new shirt with the sewing print applied, but not with the intention to sell the shirt, but say, discuss the consumer experience of using Disney's product, then it also wouldn't count as here you are giving an opinion on the quality of Disney's merchandise, which may affect sales, but is not competitively selling a similar product. For example, if I have a blog that reviews movies and I say &quot;Avengers: Infinity War was better than Avengers: Endgame&quot;, I'm not selling Endgame, but stating my subjective opinion on the film and that it wasn't the best foot forward compared to a similarly offered product. Product Reviews (in the United States) fall under a specific subset of protection against IP rights claims called Fair Use, which allows for a new product to be produced using copyrighted property so long as the product is material changed (for example, I'm if it was IP theft, I would have to sell the Endgame film in full. But since Disney is selling a movie and I am selling a review of the movie, we are not competing in the same market space). Fair Use is considered an affirmative defense, which means that the defense must meet a burden of proof in its claim. Affirmative Defenses essentially are Defenses where you in part agree with the claim, but the dispute is on the context in which the action took place. Without showing evidence that the circumstances of the action are not such that make it unlawful, such defense would basically be pleading guilty. Suppose then you are accused of taking a cookie for the cookie jar. Ordinarily, the person making the claim would have to show it's not you and could never be someone else, thus your defense would be that maybe Jane stole them. Or the evidence hinges on proving &quot;WHO unlawfully took the Cookies From the Cookie Jar?&quot; In an Affirmative Defense, you would answer the charge by questioning by saying that both you and the complaint against you agree to a statement &quot;You TOOK the cookies from the cookie jar&quot; but have disagreements on his statement that &quot;You UNLAWFULLY took the cookies from the cookie jar.&quot; because your mother gave you permission to have a cookie and have evidence to support that. In many copyright cases that could be Fair Use, there is nothing stopping Disney from making the claim, so Disney can still file a suit and hope that their army of lawyers scares people into stopping even if you could have a valid fair use, as that is a burden you must prove. Of the three possible outcomes for the suit, either the matter is settled quietly outside of the courts and does not make case law, Or the courts find in favor of Disney OR Find against Disney. Disney wins in two of these outcomes, including the settlement of complying with a cease and desist notice (which is not a lawsuit, but a threat of a lawsuit should the practice continue) as you are doing what they want and a settlement will still show Disney will sue to other potential violators where as a losing case will create binding law (in common law systems, like the U.S.) that could limit Disney, but even then the victory is Pyrrhic at best as Disney can usually afford legal fees incurred where as you are less likely to be able to afford to see a case all the way through to a favorable outcome. Thus Disney will sue in cases it would likely loses as they gamble that the threat of the financial impact of reaching a decision in a court is something that will scare you into stopping. This is especially true on some websites like Youtube which would be threatened with suits for hosting a third party video and until very recently (2016 or 17) Youtube would give into the copyright holders despite a valid Fair Use claim existing. These practices can be defeated if one can argue in a court that Disney is doing this unfavorable fair use (called and anti-SLAPP) but this relies on the defense having knowledge of the law and the time to press the matter... ceasing is much easier and cost effective.
As far as I am aware both these answers are incorrect, but as I am not a lawyer let me quote the World Intellectual Property Organization (part of the UN): Photos of trademarks Unlike copyright law, trademark law as such does not restrict the use of a trademark in a photograph. What it does forbid is the use of a trademark in a way that can cause confusion regarding the affiliation of the trademark owner to the image. If consumers are likely to mistakenly believe that the trademark owner sponsored a photograph, then there may be trademark infringement. For example, if a Nike logo was visible on the t-shirt worn by the boy in our photo-shoot scenario, this could be seen as an attempt to appropriate consumer goodwill associated with the Nike trademark. So, caution is required if photographing someone wearing or consuming a trademarked product. Source: IP and Business: Using Photographs of Copyrighted Works and Trademarks (emphasis mine) So the basic idea is that if the Washington Redskins would not want to be associated with the Biden campaign, they could file a lawsuit claiming that the photo suggests there might be an affiliation between the campaign and the sport organization. In other words, the question one has to ask is: Is there a chance we might benefit in any way from the goodwill associated with the trademark? The way it was explained in a copyright course1 I watched was that: you don't need to worry about a McDonald's in the background of your photo you need to be careful where you use a general photo of a specific McDonald's and taking a photo of a political candidate in front of a McDonald's is not acceptable without permission2 The verdict The biden campaign claimed that A campaign aide told Fox News the logo was removed from the photo because it is &quot;copyrighted&quot; and claimed that such a step is &quot;a very common practice on campaigns.&quot; To my knowledge that are no actual copyright concerns here, but - just like with the aforementioned course - trademark matters often get covered in the same setting as copyright laws, so I have a very easy time believing that this is 'a very common practice on campaigns'. It's incredibly unlikely that for this specific photo the Washington Redskins would have actually claimed that Biden was benefiting from the goodwill associated with their brand (especially considering all the controversy surrounding them), but it's a completely believable general policy. The interesting thing is that they didn't care as much about postings on social media compared to more traditional channels, but this is in line with what I have seen in many companies and organizations. 1 - This course was trying to generalize international law in a way that content producers won't get in trouble anywhere rather than exclusively explain US law. 2 - The example didn't use a 'political candidate' explicitly, but something along the lines of a recognizable public figure who is not just getting a burger
Is it ok to copy the game concept and even with mostly similar content like "fighting", "building houses" etc ? Yes, but ... I should also mention that pretty much my whole User Interface is based on the User Interface from "Parallel Kingdoms" Is copyright violation. Ideas are not protected by IP law. The tangible representation of those ideas (art, words, layout, format etc.) is protected.
Your question lacks some details. So you registered a domain name, and later find someone else used that domain name (in the past) for a hobby website? Then no, you don't need to worry about it. If that person has a current trademark on the name used in the domain name, and your website provides/sells products or services in the same area, then you could have a problem. But that doesn't sound like it's the issue.
Summary from comments. (Hat tip @jqning) Daniel Nathan Ballard writes here: [It] is not only improper it is UNLAWFUL and may result in serious repercussions... Such a misuse may constitute false advertising... (“It is no doubt true” that affixing the ‘Trade Mark Registered U.S. Patent Office” notice on goods that are not protected by a federally registered trademark creates “a prima facie case of fraud against the public… .”). ... Such use is also a form of “unclean hands” that can bar the user’s registration of the mark. ... Such a use may also bar the maintenance of an infringement case. ... And the fraudulent use of the trademark registration symbol DOES provide other marketplace participants with standing to oppose the user’s registration of the mark. http://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/use-of---symbol-but-not-federally-registered-1125746.html
A character can not be copyrighted. Only a work (picture, text, movie etc.) featuring that character can. However, a character can be registred as a trademark (more specifically, its name and its appearance).
A matter of terminology, what you want is not the copyright, but a license to use the copyright, presumably a non-exclusive license. You would probably need to approach a licensing department at Disney. They will ask lots of questions, and if they are open to the possibility, will quote a fee, which will, i would think, be sizable. Anyone should be able to ask, but I suspect that most requests are refused. It would probably be well to have a business plan laid out, and exactly how the images would be used in your plan. Disney can refuse any license, or offer one on whatever terms it pleases.
This overstates the case. A company must pursue infringements, arguably even when it isn't economically sensible in isolation to do so, to prevent its trademark from being diluted. But, that isn't the case &quot;when it's blatantly obvious that there is no infringement.&quot; There is no benefit from pursuing cases that aren't even colorable infringements. The notion is similar to adverse possession. If you let someone openly use your real property without your permission, eventually, the squatter becomes its legal owner. Also, as in the case of adverse possession, an alternative to suing someone for infringing is to make their permission non-infringing by writing them a letter expressly authorizing them to use your mark. Permissive, licensed use does not dilute a trademark.