Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. - Thomas Edison
We have a client that wants us to print a picture of a Nike sneaker on their shirt. Now we've had our share of people asking us to print "The Swoosh" or the words "Just Do It" etc ... and we're smart enough to know that this is a NO GO, as it is licensed trade mark stuff, and we want know part of that beast. But this request brought up a few questions. For example, the photo of the sneaker that they want printed is a photo that they took. So it's their sneaker and they took the picture. However, the sneaker does bear the Nike Name and Logo, so if we print it it, we will in effect be printing the swoosh and the Nike name. Right now we're leaning towards "no" because the client is not Nike. Does anyone have any insight on if trademark law applies when you are simply asked to screen print a photo of an item that bears the trademark?
We had a Fried chicken company want to print a pic of a rooster wearing nikes and a Nike box. I said no go on that but if you airbrush that out it should be fine. They said nah and walked. Not sure if they were narcs
Quote from: merchmonster on March 31, 2018, 01:36:41 PMWe had a Fried chicken company want to print a pic of a rooster wearing nikes and a Nike box. I said no go on that but if you airbrush that out it should be fine. They said nah and walked. Not sure if they were narcsAre there folks that really go around and do this? I've heard of it during the super bowl and world series in the cities that are playing, but not just anytime of the year hoping to get someone on shoes on a chicken. It would make more sense if they came in and asked you to print a bunch of bootleg NIKE shirts with the swoosh or something like that.Most people don't understand copyrights and trademarks. I had a customer that had to keep telling a guy that you can't make replica jerseys for Cam Newton...even if they were on t-shirts and not jerseys. He thought since it was a t-shirt it was fine.
I don't know about narcs that are this agressive, but I've heard that image copyright owners will seed the internet with high-res quality photos or artwork and leave it dangling there for someone to take and use without permission. They'll have the lawsuit ready to go when they find someone who took the forbidden fruit.
i just assume everyone with a copyright violation request is a narc
Has anyone actually ever been sued or had legal action taken against them for printing a shirt that mimics a corporations branding?Im under the impression that it is far far too expensive to actually pursue a legal battle against a small clothing company ( or screen printer for that matter) who prints 150 shirts that mimic a Nike™ Swoosh™I have heard of cease and desist letters for sure, and have in fact received some from the NHL for one of my own companies that "Borrowed" the Washington Caps logo. The NHL sent a letter, said stop it ( We did, and wrote them back and stated that we had stopped) and that was the end of it. We ran maybe 200 shirts total... They had zero interest in who printed the shirts, and just wanted to make sure we abided by their letter. This would have obviously been a different story had we printed 250K of this design, and were making a lot of money. So curious to hear if any one else has actually gone to court over this?