Legality of Logo...

kdw75

Well-known member
If someone asks me to print them a poster with Taco Bells trademarked logo on it and they are going to hang it on their living room wall, is that illegal?

Scenario #2. If someone sends me a photo of them standing on a busy street corner and in the background are a dozen storefronts with trademarked logos from Nike to the NFL. Is it legal to print a poster of that?
 
By the book, it is a protected trademark and shouldn't be used without authorization. For a one-off personal use from the customer's art with no commercial use or monetary gain, who is really going to care. The problem is when their friends see it and say "I want one, too!" Then it's a fine line between personal use and you profiting from "mass production" of their trademark. The same goes for the photo. If I want a photo of myself in Time Square made into a poster for my wall, no big deal. If you want to use it commercially, it's Photoshop time to blur all of the logos.
 
For a one-off personal use from the customer's art with no commercial use or monetary gain, who is really going to care.

Disney is incredibly aggressive with their trademarked property. You might want to look up the total scope of what Disney owns. It's staggering.

GoPro, ESPN, Nat Geo, ABC, A&E Networks (History, Discovery, VICE, Lifetime), Photobucket, Hulu, Movies Anywhere, etc etc.

And then there are the obvious companies they own, like Disney Cruise Ships, Marvel, Fox Entertainment, Star Wars/Lucasfilm and PIXAR.

There are several cases of people using Mickey Mouse in rudimentary things and Disney will tear them to shreds.
 
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I sometimes wonder this too when it comes to artwork created versus supplied.

i.e. if someone asks me to create an artwork that contains a trademarked logo then obviously I'd want proof of authorised use BUT what would be the deal with taking in print ready artworks that just go straight to press?

We're only small but trade houses have almost fully automated systems, I wonder do they flag mainstream logos?

I do feel you'd just have a sense of when something is out of sorts with a dodgy job.
 
I don't know how this has played out in the past and that is a large factor in how these things are decided if they end up in court. But I would think the reasonable argument would be that it would be an almost impossible task to burden printers with policing whether everything they're printing is authorized to be there. I mean, imagine what it would take to have an automated system checking for trademarked material: a database of all trademarked material to compare against every element in a print file. It would rapidly be out-of-date. What if the customer slightly altered a logo enough to trick automated systems but close enough in likeness to fool human observers? Now you're talking needing a machine-learning system that is trying to decide how close is too close before asking for authorization. You'd start wanting to throw around the phrase "undue burden" in court.

Maybe we just make every print customer sign some fine print that says they verify they are authorized to use all fonts/trademarks present in their files and if somebody mad comes knocking, you can produce the signed paperwork and point them towards their true target.
 
Pretty sure you are safe if you are just printing a photo/poster for someone who took the picture. If this was an issue no one would have been developing photos they took at places like Disney over the years. I think the issue is when you use it to make money or advertising your own business.
 
Printing is the art of copying (no offense, - I am a printer myself).

So from a rational perspective, if there is an infringement on copyright, it SHOULD be between the copyright owner and the customer who provides the artwork and places the print order, - not the printer.

But of course sometimes what I feel should be obvious is not what the law says - probably especially in America, the land of lawyers.

It would be interesting to get the cleared up by a lawyer, since I am sure this is quite common.

Best regards

Ingi
 
Pretty sure there are cases that have been rules one way or another by the Supreme Court - we're not liable in almost any way to take what someone gave us and print it. Europe may be different.
 
Well... I don't know the laws in your countrys, but in mine (europe based), as a printshop, we print what our customers bring us to print.
So, if they bring a mickey mouse with a nike shirt and a taco bell logo on the side, we print it, no question asked. Its up to the customer to negotiate the rights to those logos, and we are no copyright police to check the legality of those logos. Thats up to the customer and the law enforcers.
Of course if it's some nazi symbol or something that extreme, we might ask some questions. Otherwise it's not our problem.
It's the same as in stock photos and fonts. If we are sent a PDF to print, we aren't going to ask for the invoices for the photos or the fonts. We just print whats on the PDF.
 
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If someone asks me to print them a poster with Taco Bells trademarked logo on it and they are going to hang it on their living room wall, is that illegal?

Scenario #2. If someone sends me a photo of them standing on a busy street corner and in the background are a dozen storefronts with trademarked logos from Nike to the NFL. Is it legal to print a poster of that?

I am not a lawyer, although I attended law school.

Copyright and trademarks are two very different legal areas.

If the poster art is not created by Taco Bell (or its ad agency, etc.) and you are not using it to sell food or commit any kind of fraud, you are almost certainly not infringing on their trademark. (You could, of course, be involved a libel suit if you are ridiculing Taco Bell. That has nothing to do with copyright or trademark law, though.)

If the poster has already been printed by anyone, you are PROBABLY infringing on copyright, unless the creator of the poster is your customer. In the US, copyright applies to anything written or imaged, even without the (C) symbol.

Scenario #2: This almost certainly falls within "fair use" from the copyright standpoint, so long as the pictures are the usual amateur shots with no commercial motives.

From a trademark standpoint, so long as you're not trying to sell anything by using the image, you're fine.

++++

Printer's responsibility on these matters:

Generally, the printer IS responsible in the US if it is obvious that the use or publication of the "intellectual property" (I.P.) can result in a loss to the owner of that "intellectual property". Loss of good reputation can be considered a loss. (Except for "fair use", which is a very interesting sideshow in the I.P. world. Suffice it to say that brief quotations and parody are almost always allowed.)

A very common example of this "loss" for printers and copy shops to keep in mind is duplicating the trademarked and copyrighted figures of Mickey Mouse or a Muppet or Spiderman onto birthday invitations.

This is a clear violation of copyright because the I.P. owner could create the invitations and sell them at Hallmark for your customer to buy and have you imprint them. The I.P. owner is totally within its rights not to choose to produce invitation cards (or tapestries, or anything else). That some poor little whimpering child could suffer grievously because of this is not a valid legal defense.

Incidentally, I generally despise most of intellectual property law, especially the absurd length of copyright life. But I.P. law does exist and has severe penalties, and it should be dealt with carefully unless you like courtrooms.
 
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