Hi folks. Sorry in advance if this is a naive question. I'm a t-shirt designer, i've been working on some designs for the up coming world cup. My designs for an England shirt feature 3 lions. The England badge contains 3 lions, so is copyrighted. I have completely re-drawn the lions from scratch, loosely based on the Plantagenet lions of Richard 1st, presumably also the starting point for the England badge. Additionally, my lions heads are side on, rather than looking at the viewer....... So my question: Am I in the clear?
I'm going to say this as gently as I can, so here goes: The only thing more foolish than for somebody who contributes on this site to try to advise you would be for you to take any such advice.
If you have any intention of selling these t-shirts to make yourself some money, you need competent legal advice. That can only come from somebody who has seen your design and can make a determination if you have any copyright issues.
Wow, that's pretty black and white. Thank you........ I've read since my post, that the design is owned by the Royal family, and that the Football association have to ask to use it. Maybe i'll write to the Queen to ask if i can too.
Besides being a very fact-dependent question as mentioned - e.g., your legal counsel should be looking at both images side by side (and no this is not an invitation for you to be linking images here), and also search for other images - note that you can be "right" and still get pounded.
What I mean is, you can be legally right that a competent judge would, in the end, find that your designs do not infringe copyright, do not infringe trademark (either directly or in some indirect manner like "trading on" the notoriety of the other's trademark), do not infringe trade dress rights, and other - but still end up spending a lot of money defending yourself from an overly-litigious organization in a "close call" situation.
I'd say the best you can do is spend the money to get direct advice about all the above and hopefully on how not to skirt the line and find yourself in a "close call" situation.
Hi Martin,
Your subsequent comment came in while I was typing my first reply.
I hope you're joking there. That'd be like an admission that you think your design is in the "close call" category.
I think I might just file the artwork away and pretend today never happened. Thank you for your help.
Well, the saying is that you have to spend money to make money. Businesses have costs. How much did you hope to net on the shirts? Is it worth say a thousand in legal fees to reduce risks?