Copyrights and the Virtual World

I was surfing through SL exchange for a while today and i found a number of people selling T-shirts for bands from the real-world..

Now I have made a few Band T's in game for my own use, but i always thought you couldnt sell them because it would be copyright infringement.. after all, if you are profiting off someone else's name and image that is exactly what it is, isnt it?

So are you allowed to do this in-game? or are those people lining themselves up for a lawsuit?

if your selling copyrighted material in SL your asking for leagle problems

you can report ppl for such a thing, but unless your the actuall owner of the IP it will probally be thrown in the spam bucket @ LL, and i doubt that "insert favorite band here" is crusing SLX looking for it

but you never know

I saw someone selling a single prim likeness of a FedEx box (not a parody) on SLExchange today for L$1000!

http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=62496

The seller even commented in the description of the product that the design and logos were fully copyrighted by Federal Express. Maybe they should read this...

http://www.fedex.com/us/about/news/newsroom/logos.html

...so they can learn about copyright the way most people do, instead of the HARD way!

Well between the box being no mod so you can't even add stuff to use it the 1k linden price for something a newbie could make with a couple images off the web... mmmm looks like someone just trying to find a sucker dumb enough to buy it.

All that aside, this person apparently hasn't even a vague clue about copyrights, or just doesn't care. That's scary!

From a legal standpoint, no, if you don't hold the rights to something protected by copyright, trademark or service mark, or to a popular image or name, you would be on very thin ice legally if you made stuff and sold it in SL using that copyrighted material. For that reason I have always refused to make t-shirts and other products that represent popular game characters, comic book characters, bands and the like. I'm sure such things sell well, but in my opinion, it's not legal.

There are a LOT of people in SL who sell stuf that has trademarked images on it. Most of them just don't care about the legal issues. Most of the companies that own the rights to those rip-offs are blissfully unaware of anything that happens in SL. If they found out, they might take legal action against the SL merchant. On the other hand, if they have to choose between acting against a RL merchant who is making thousands of dollars a month in profits, or an SL merchant who is making a few cents on each sale, they probably won't bother with the legal expenses of enforcing in SL, unless the use is very blatant and is explicitly brought to their attention. Not when the court costs in both cases are the same.

Whilst I agree whole-heartedly with Ceera's comments, there are some notoriously litiguous companies and trademark holders out there. It is also illegal, so you really shouldn't do it.

Rock bands have some funny trademarks out there - just about any KISS band shirt will be illegal if recognisable and desirable to a fan because they've copyrighted the logo, the face paint etc.

That said you could write and ask for permission. You might get a stern no, but some of these people might well say yes, I know someone did for Hawkwind in a different but similar setting, and (possibly not entirely in their right mind) they said yes sure, and even provided copies of their official logo for use for a very notional fee (£5 I think, or about US$9).