what's going on guys today I want to
talk to you about a topic I don't see a
lot of people covering and that's
because it can be a scary topic if you
don't know what you're talking about
or what to look for and that is when
you're doing Shopify or Amazon or
whatever it is and you're making any
designs whether it's for a t-shirt a hat
or even a mug or whatever you want to
put it on a laptop case there's a lot of
things you have to be careful about
because it gets very in-depth when it
goes to trademarks and copyrights and
just intellectual property rights and
it's something I've been doing a lot of
research on recently and noticed that it
goes way more in-depth than I thought
and I can't do a lot of the things I
thought I could do so I'm gonna go
through kind of a couple of mistakes I
made and what you guys need to watch out
for and show you some examples and how I
personally search very quickly so I'll
have to pay a lawyer to see any
trademarks and what's actually out there
this is not advice this is just what I'm
doing so consult professional if you
want to but first off is are we looking
at copyrights for designs for shirts are
you looking at trademarks most of the
time it's gonna be a trademark and
trademarks are anything that's any type
of intellectual property so it can be a
name it could be a word it could be a
phrase a logo or any of them combined
and it could be quotes so there's a
multitude of different things it can be
and there's different ways to classify
them but don't worry I'll make that make
sense in a little bit and next comes
intellectual property rights so let's
say you're looking online you say ok
well I'm gonna go search and see if this
is trademarked you say oh ok it's not
trademarked but I see someone using this
design I found this design online can I
use it
nope anything someone is made that's
online that's not a hundred percent
unique your own you cannot use so if I
find a garyvee quote and I like it and I
want to go put it on a shirt and he
doesn't have a trademarked I'm still
technically not allowed to sell that
because he owns the intellectual
property rights as soon as it's online
or on a public domain now you might get
confused in here when I talk about
public domain in a little bit but that's
different so what are some of the things
that you 100% can't do you can't be
putting any brands logos images they own
you can't be putting lyrics to a song
again unless all of that house
you can't be putting obviously company
logos or phrases their advertising kind
of slings or jingles they have you can't
use anything you've taken off the
internet or social media I don't care
what it is you cannot use images from
memes or viral videos no matter how much
you see out there
the person might not be suing people now
but it's possible they will go after you
or just send you a cease and desist
letter and it's not worth the headache
and then any phrases or quotes or poetry
from an author now trademarks generally
last around 10 years they do have to
renew it around year five or six and
rare cases they can be extended so I'm
going to show you guys some things you
can do real quick so you guys are
allowed to use royalty-free images
however they have to have an extended
license more times than not which means
you can use them for commercial use
which would be reselling specifically on
Shopify in this example so commercial
use you have to be able to resell it and
they will tell you a certain amount okay
you can print 500,000 shirts and one
thing I've noticed on a couple of these
stock image sites is they'll say okay
you can't do print on demand you have to
order inventory in bulk if you're doing
print on demand you're not allowed to
use this image period so I'll show you
guys that but first let me show you some
examples on my computer of some things
you don't want to do which are
definitely illegal right now so I'm
gonna pull up three different shirts and
you guys will be able to recognize all
of these so these are all kind of
entrepreneur shirts that I saw I did not
make these and obviously this is the
7/11 logo and it's pretty clear I don't
think they even changed the logo they
changed the lettering which is not
enough you're not allowed to take bits
and pieces of someone else's design
switch a few things in Photoshop or even
a decent amount of stuff and make it
yours that is not legal so he has this
for the 7-eleven he has the same thing
for the Starbucks logo and the
MasterCard logo so those can get you in
a lot of trouble and I'm really
surprised because it's a bigger store
and he has a lot of shirts like that
that he hasn't been pursued legally yet
but how can you search these kind of
things how do I know if a random design
is trademarked how
certain words are trademarked so how you
can know is by going just searching
trademark research or trademark
electronic search system right up here
and this is the government's website and
you can go in and search and I want to
show you guys a funny example so I was
looking at funny divine funny designs
and I found this one girls just want to
have funds so we see that and I'm gonna
go search that here now I'll go over the
different methods in one second so basic
search so I'm gonna search the exact
thing I found so I'm gonna make sure
it's on the combined words you don't
want all and then I'm going to do all
search terms because it's more specific
and I want to make sure it's live if
it's dead then it's not active anymore
so on this we see one thing comes up and
it shows the word mark right here girls
just wanna have fun so the same thing
but this one doesn't have a dollar sign
and it explains that it's for goods and
services so there's different marks so
different trade marks on different types
of goods and services if someone puts
the girls just want to have fun trade
mark on a piece of software and it's
used for software and advertising then
technically I can go use that on
clothing because it's in different
industries and that is technically
allowed however you can see they have it
clothing for advertising promoting
services in the financial industry
shirts blah blah blah and use in
commerce and then education as well so
clothing right there is what I was
looking to do so that one is taken now
what if I replace the S with a dollar
sign is that a big enough of a
difference and for me that's not
something I want to walk the line on
right there so I would not mess with
that so that was my personal example I
had now you guys can search any
combination of words you can search just
single words because a lot of stuff will
come up so let's say I just searched up
money and you can see 3130 results and
there are a lot of results to go through
which is why I like to personally do the
more advanced searches here which do
take a little bit more time and will
look pretty confusing but you can go
through any of these and if you guys
want to use mine you
and so I made sure it's it is a
trademark so I'm searching all
trademarks I'm searching everything
that's live I'm searching everything
that is under the clothing category for
goods and services and then whatever my
keyword is I can put down here so if I
want to put cats I can submit this and
I'll see everything that comes up that
meets all those requirements so right
here all of these have cats somewhere in
their keyword and I can narrow it down
to have the keyword in the title or the
description so it's pretty much as easy
as that now one thing to look out for is
under the very basic search the first
one it does not bring up designs the
second one on brings up designs so you
can do multiple you could say it's kind
of like the same one so we can go to
goods and services again and we'll just
type in 25 which is clothing and we'll
just leave this as all change this to
and and then we'll use our keyword and
we'll say cats so this will bring up
anything that has a trademark with the
word cats that is on the clothing so
bring up anything that has cats and is
under the goods and services of clothing
now honestly the best way is to either
make your own designs or hire someone
and if you're gonna hire someone ask
them what font they use so you can go
research that where they got the images
or how they made them and then if
there's any words or phrases on there go
and search that another example of one I
was just looking for it's just a basic
word is just self-made if I'm just
searching self-made we can see right
here boom self-made for enhancement of
photos photo editing digital image
correction so I should be able to use
that on clothing and if they don't have
a registration number that means they've
applied for it but it's not fully active
yet but you can see there are ones for
clothing and different things around
here and I really just look right here
to see if it is in clothing or whatever
items I want to put that mark on now if
you do hire someone to make your designs
you can do a five or upwork or whatever
you guys want once they're done with the
design I recommend doing a reverse image
search to see if there's anything really
similar to it because we're not trying
to straddle a line here
there's no reason to get sued for
trademarks or copyrights or anything
design-wise when you can just be
original copying them isn't gonna really
get you any sales or any more sales so
all you do here is just drag an image so
let's say I want to use the one I gave
as an example for you guys it'll pull up
everything that looks similar to like
that online now this one it pulled up
different t-shirts which if I just did
the logo without the t-shirt it would
pull up anything that is similar to that
logo not as much having the t-shirt in
the background but that is a way to kind
of see if you have a design that's like
anyone elses or if your designer just
copied some other images so just let
them know it needs to be an original
work and one thing you guys can do is go
and buy images now it is a little bit
more expensive but you can buy images
that you can use for Shopify and you
will own the rights to them an example
is this one right here so I like to use
shutterstock it's one of the cheaper
ones I found so let's say I want this
design I'm gonna put it on a shirt and
I'm gonna sell it well I can just
download it right now it says copyright
free royalty free that means I can use
it right nope you cannot put it on
anything for resale and a perfect
example right here is they show their
licenses and what they do so their
standard license it lets you have
physical reproduction production up to
okay we don't care about TV and online
legal we don't care copies of web or
print templates not allowed so there you
go right there use in merchandise or
promotional distribution again no so we
cannot do either of those and you can
read into it more but if we get the
enhanced license we can do all of the
above and do copies on the web and use
in merchandise now you can see five
images is four hundred and fifty dollars
with that license but it is a necessity
if you want to do print on demand or
Shopify selling and sell that design so
I'd have to go over here upgrade to
enhanced and then go through that
process and it's about $80 a photo and
that's the most legit site I've seen
I've seen one that's like $30 an image
but it just looks sketchy to me so it's
not really worth it
but that's gonna be all for this one I
hope you
learn something if you have any
questions feel free to drop them down
below and I'll try my best to answer
them this is just something I've been
going through a lot having to do a lot
of research and a lot of work to figure
out how to do this because not a lot of
people talk about this or even do their
own research on this so I'll be
consulting some lawyers and let you guys
know what else I find out and I'll see
you guys in the next video