Copyrighted Materials As Part Of Design

I know this has probably been asked before but I'm going to ask it again (always famous last words). What is the policy for using copyrighted materials as part of SL clothing? For example, I just came across the site logogle.com (which will make your own fake google mastheads). And I made a "SLoogle" and an "Lindenoogle." They're really stupid looking shirts and all so if I risk violation of TOS or something for using these as textures I don't want to even bother uploading them.

If we do use copyrighted materials, are we supposed to include the copyright from the original source on the clothing somewhere as is the case in real life screen printed clothing?

Or are we allowed to do this at all?

I think this fairly summarizes the "collective wisdom" with regard to the SL rules: copyright violations will only be acted upon by Linden Lab upon receipt of a formal DMCA notification from the copyright holder or their legal agent. A DMCA notification requires a sworn affidavit claiming that the copyright holder is making true assertions under penalty of perjury. It is believed that chances are small that this would happen as SL is rather small, and the expectation is that LL would simply compel the removal of the infringing item or remove it themselves. Trademark violation has a much lower bar to jump and LL may remove such at anytime they become aware of it. Even though the expected actual result of copyright infringement is small, you could be subject to civil or criminal penalties if the copyright holder decides it is worthwhile to pursue it.

The moral side of the issue has been tossed around a zillion times with no clear "winner" and none likely to appear. Play it safe and make your own stuff and you need not worry.

ADDED: Simply adding a © or ® to someone else's image does not mean you are not infringing on someone else's copyright or trademark. For example, making an "IBM" logo t-shirt and sticking an ® is still an infringement of IBM's mark.

Well, the short answer is don't use copyrighted or trademarked material without the permission of the owner. Introvert is correct that simply acknowledging the owner is not enough. You have to have their permission to use their stuff. The longer answer is there is such thing as fair use, and I believe what you're talking about falls under it.

Trademark is what you're talking about here, by the way, not copyright. There's a big difference. Copyright is for things you can hold in your hand, like a book or a picture. Brand names, however, are not copyrighted; they're trademarked. SL's logo is a trademark, as is Google's logo. The logos themselves cannot be copyrighted, but pictures containing them certainly can.

Anyway, Logoogle claims to have permission from Google to do what they're doing, so I wouldn't worry about activities on that site (assuming their claim is true). As for bringing it into SL, that's another matter. I would say the actual Google logo is probably not something you should put on a T-shirt unless your name is Google. However, "Sloogle" and "Lindenoogle" do not belong to Google or anyone else, so don't worry about it.

Besides, what you're doing essentially is parody, and parody is fair use. Here is a pretty good collection of articles on parody & fair use if you want some more information on the subject, but I'll summarize it here for you as well. If you're a US citizen, the First Ammendment protects your right to make fun of anything you want, including trademarks and copyrighted materials. Crying "parody" isn't an automatic "get out of jail free" card if you were ever challenged though, just so you know. A court would have to weigh the potential consequences of your action to determine the relative importance of your right to parody vs. the liklihood of confusion or dilution in regard to the brand name you're parodying.

Generally speaking, as long as there's not much chance that your actions could be mistaken for the actions of the trademark holder, you're okay. Since it's pretty obvious that someone selling a "SLoogle" T-shirt is not Google, there's not really anything to worry about.

As for LL's trademarks, they've always been fine with people using them inworld as long as it's not done with any intent to defame Linden Lab or Second Life. Clearly you're not doing that, so again, I wouldn't worry about it.

Thanks for being conscientous enough to ask for opinions though. It would be nice if everyone were as concerned as you about doing the right thing.

Well, I've yet to be banished from any activity on the interwebs and I'd like to keep it that way for, well, for the rest of my life.

Just for the record, I was not planning to sell this t-shirt since it's nowhere near the quality or content that I would even try to sell. I only sell (well right now make and give away just to get my name out there) political t-shirts though I think the same issues sort of apply. I do use pictures from the web for these but in this case, I always check to see if these are, in any way, claimed as off-limits intellectual property. Being an avid LiveJournal user, I've learned fair use of pictures for icons so I figured the same rules applied.

I've just never run across the issue in the case of a logo since I usually avoid those entirely on political principle.

Thank you for all of your help!

Not to mention that the idea of a "SLoogle" logo or similar would be covered under the concept of parody, which is permitted under copyright law to a certain degree.

That's where all those Christian tee shirts come from that resemble corporate logos, for example.

P2

It doesn't seem to bother the people who flog famous paintings as textures at a profit to save their customers the hassle of doing their own Google image search and hitting 'upload'. At least your idea's a creative one *wanders off muttering*

Sorry, sorry, I know, personal gripe, but it was a teensey bit to do with the question!

That's the fault of the buyer. People shouldn't even bother buying anything that easy to make, it should be given away free (/socialism). Technically, however, any product in SL is that way since anyone can technically acquire any skill they want. Some people are just better at certain things than others.

I don't argue that the fact there is a market for such 'easy' items is, basically, because there's a market for 'em There will always be someone prepared to spend money to reduce the amount of work they have to do, or because they don't realise it would be cheaper to do it themselves - that's just people, in SL or RL. I'm whinging more about the copyright issues and lack of creativity that such sales represent.

It's not a huge whinge - pretty much everyone uploads textures they find that belong to someone else, either straight or as part of an unrecognisable edit (I try to do that if I need material myself which I can't get with my camera). On a lesser level all inspiration is as a rule influenced by *something*, whether we know it or not. So I'm not expecting everything to be original (though wouldn't that be nice!) - it's just I find this case such a blatant example of the very opposite and it makes me twitch every time I see a famous painting for sale

That wasn't meant to be so long, sorry. I'm putting off some work right now so I predict several essays in the forum today!

One thing about parody fair use, by the way, is that something has to be used to actually parody what it's referring to, not to take the piss out of something else. I've fallen foul of this myself.

If I made up a "Falun Google" logo I could say that I was satirising Google's censorship of their Chinese-hosted service. I don't really see how "SLoogle" is parodying Google. I mean, in this instance, the chance of Google complaining is effectively zero, but other companies can be a lot more defensive of their trademarks, and will chase down the smallest "infractions", even on something with as low a viewer base as SL.

A logo can be protected though, whatever the use, parody or other. But I don't think you need to worry too much about it, it's not like it's not happened before in all sorts of fashions.

If SL cracked down on everyone who uploaded (and profited from) copyrighted material because it violated the TOS, it'd be a very quiet SL indeed.

be sure it will happend one day or the other