Copyrights

I am unsure where this topic should go, so I hope this is ok, and if their is another thread like this, that has the answers I seek, please forward the link.

I am hoping to get a little clarification on what is considered copyright/stealing.

I had an exchange or words/discussion/debate with a very nice woman who owns a piece of land.

The situation:

On the owners land she has a Tim Hortons. My other half made Tim Hortons T-shirts and gave one to the owner and to myself and my cousin.

After the gift, she informed us, that she sells Tim Hortons t-shirts in the shop and to please not give them away. We did not realize she had shirts for sale, and stated we would not pass them out, and realized, that the shirts looked similar as well, to hers.

After we stated we would not pass them on, she made a comment about "stealing" and "Intellectual property rights"

Now, I understood what she was saying as far as the T-shirt goes, to an extent. What I did not understand, is she felt the same regarding having a Tim Hortons as well.

She explained, she felt that if someone was to go and make a Tim Hortons and their own Island, it would be classified as stealing.

This confused the heck out of me. Tim Hortons is a chain, the same as McDonald's/Subway/Coca Cola/Nike/Gap etc. I cannot understand, how if someone makes another Tim Hortons, or many people make T-shirts with Coca Cola on it, how only the first person who did so is not classified as stealing. Unless of course, everyone in SL needs permission from Tim Hortons/Subway/Coca Cola/Gap etc to use their product in world to begin with. Is this the case?

How does this work on a mass franchise out of SL?

Frankly, unless both of you have written permission from this chain to use their logo, you are both infringing on this 'Tim Hortons' company's copyright. As for you both selling something you created from a picture/logo available to everyone, you aren't infringing on her rights, as it belongs to neither party. If she has permission from the company to use the logo, and you don't then and only then could it be construed that you were infringing on her rights. (P.S. I'm not a lawyer, but this is my understanding based on reading hundreds of internet lawyers over the years )

And because i was curious: http://www.timhortons.com/