hey but what's up it's Rob this is a
pair of success and in this episode here
I want to talk to you guys about
copyright infringement okay can I use a
famous person inside of my designs can I
take a character from a movie or a movie
quote and incorporate it into my designs
and can I go online and find a graphic
and use it inside of my designs I want
to talk to you guys about what needs to
happen before that can take place it
should be a really good episode and stay
tuned so basically what we're covering
here is called intellectual property
rights okay and in order for you to use
a famous person or a character from a
movie or a movie quote or even the
design that you find online inside of
your t-shirts you have to have written
permission from the owner of the
intellectual property or a license okay
and basically a license has two main
components it has a term which is the
length of time that you are allowed to
use their designs inside of your work
and sell it and a territory which is
basically where you are allowed to use
the designs and sell them you're
probably wondering how so many stores
and websites use all these characters
from movies and famous people and other
designs inside of their t-shirts and the
answer is that they're probably doing it
illegally okay if you do decide to use
designs that aren't your intellectual
property inside of your own designs you
are not definitely going to be sued but
you are at risk of being sued okay this
is where we enter into the gray area of
all this so if you do end up getting
sued by these ding-dongs god forbid they
still need to prove that the designs
that you used are actually intellectual
property theft and that you were in the
wrong to use them okay and there's
several criteria that they follow in
order to come to this conclusion the
first question that they'll ask to come
to a conclusion on this is does the
famous person the movie character the
movie quote or the design that you found
online have an identifying
characteristic so an example of this is
if I wanted to use the movie character
scar from the movie Lion King inside one
of my shirt designs and when you look at
my shirt designs I clearly use the exact
same
guard that scar has over his left eye
inside of my shirt designs this would
obviously be a pretty clear giveaway
that what I did was intellectual
property theft and I'm using that exact
same character from the movie another
question that might come up is what if I
wanted to use a character from a movie
but do it in the style of a parody right
like what if I wanted to turn scar into
like Tupac right the answer is that you
could still be sued alright the
intellectual property owner could use
what's called the fair use defense which
has several criteria but the most
important one is the potential effect on
the marketplace okay they give the most
amount of a weight to that so if my you
know parody of scar and a Tupac design
messes with the whole image of Lion King
then that might you know lead to some
negative consequences the last thing I
want to cover here is if you're using a
design that's similar to another
clothing brand that might have been
trademarked and it's not quite identical
but it's similar okay there's a criteria
for this as well and the first question
that they'll ask is does the design
cause confusion in the marketplace as to
who's the owner of the design there are
a lot of different criteria that they'll
consider in order to decide whether or
not there's actually confusion in the
marketplace okay the first thing they'll
consider is what is the strength of the
trademark right does the other person
have a trademark on all the designs
maybe one design or just the word itself
a word mark the second thing that
they'll consider is what is the
proximity of the goods to one another so
if I'm selling in Canada and another
person opens up right beside me with the
same name and everything obviously
there's going to be more confusion than
if somebody opens up in China and starts
selling to a completely different market
the third is similarity of the
trademarks right how similar are the
brands actually to one another right the
fourth is evidence of confusion right
have people been maybe messaging you
saying oh I thought you were you know
this brand or you guys are really
similar to this brand right because that
would be evidence that there's actually
confusion going on in the marketplace
the fifth piece of criteria is what are
the market
channels being used right are you guys
using the exact same marketing channels
vi is intent what was the intent when it
all started up were you trying to you
know take advantage of an ongoing trend
or did it happen spontaneously and it's
completely out of your own original idea
last one is the likelihood of expansion
right does it look like
these are big trends that are moving
forward and all this is going to expand
or is this all something that might be
just short-lived I think this is a
really good video to end on a general
statement just to give you guys a sense
of how I feel about this whole thing and
how I think that you should move forward
given this information and basically the
reality of it is even if you were using
completely legal designs you can still
get sued okay so any time you're
designing you should obviously always
try to use your own original work and
create everything originally and if you
do end up using other character famous
person inspired designs I think that you
should just be really really careful and
take everything that I said into
consideration first I really appreciate
you guys watching this video and if you
guys have any sort of video topics that
you want answered definitely write them
in the comments section okay because I'm
going to be answering them all and I
really want to sort of create a
community for clothing brand owners to
come together here and really help each
other grow all right so I really hope
you liked this video and stay tuned for
the next one peace
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