Hello,
I would like to make my own no-ghost logo magnetic labels (for my car). My question is: is it even legal to sell it (like a lot of people on ebay are already doing)?
Is it legal? Probably not.
Will anyone do anything about it? Again, probably not.
And if they do do anything, most likely they’ll first send you an email telling you to cease and desist. A big corporation really doesn’t want to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a lawsuit to stop some guy from selling a few magnets.
Now if you were making thousands of t-shirts with the logo, you might have a problem.
That’s what I thought. Thanks!
Yeah probably not totally legal, as GhostGuy said, but I think there are a couple of people who have sought permission from Sony(Fifthrider and V71 maybe?) and I think there’s an unofficial agreement that it can be used as long as you’re not profitting from it, or bringing the brand into disrepute.
… and then maybe it just depends on who’s running Sony at the time, lol.
Technically your selling a copyrighted logo…
The only way its illegal is if you show your not using it for monetary gain.
Not exactly.
When you produce a copyrighted asset, even if you can show you are making zero profit, a copyright holder can still argue that you are costing them a potential to sell. Meaning, even if they’re not producing, say, a GB ballcap right now, and you make a few and sell them at cost to a bunch of people, the copyright holder can argue those are people who are now no longer interested in buying from them, if they were to decide to start making their own ballcaps. And they don’t have to actually show intent to produce the caps - it can always remain a hypothetical. They MIGHT want to make them, etc.
But that’s just getting nit-picky. In general, as mentioned above, if you’re making a couple, it’s barely worth the cost of the lawyer to draft a C&D letter. If you’re making thousands, even if you’re not making money, it’s a problem and you will run into trouble.
The only reason I mention it is that “I’m not making any money” isn’t the defense people often mistakenly think it is.
Thanks, castewar. It drives me crazy seeing how people on the internet think copyright and trademark law work.
Just to clear up one more thing about trademark law… you won’t get arrested for No Ghost stickers, but you might get arrested if you started putting tags on them to make them look like they’re official Sony products. Then it might be considered bootlegging, which leaves the realm of civil law and enters the realm of criminal law. It’s still a sticky area, though.
Usually disputes like this are completely civil law, and it’s up to Sony to track you down and sue you. Again, you’re more likely to get a Cease & Desist with no follow-up, but if you DON’T stop or try to fight them after a C&D, you’re likely to be judged more harshly in court if they DO sue you.
Remember when Fox sued a bunch of fansites over the Simpsons?
I don’t remember the outcome, but a lot of fans were sure ticked off about it. Fox was within their rights, but attacking your fans is a shitty thing to do (I’m looking at you, Metallica).
Didn’t Metallica go after people that were illegally sharing music over the internet…
Need to side track the discussion, But how does one make they own Magnetic labels?
I like to get a few in our franchises logo, and trough them on the assist car since not everyone can fit in the ecto with equipment etc.
Well, so far I have found this material and I am going to see if I can have the logo printed at a professional print shop.
Any graphics shop should be able to print and cut magnetic logos.
I recommend myvinyworks.com
The man’s a genius.
Fixed the url, because Scott really is a genius.
Thanks, since Boomer doesn’t reply to PMs…
We have something in common… me and Boomerjinks…
Yep!
Oh my goodness. Different movie, but here’s my experience with studios, print shops, and trademarked logos…
I made a Jurassic Park workman costume. Originally I was going to have the shirt printed by a firm I use for my shirts. They would not do it without permission from Universal Studios. Totally respectable, they are a for-profit business and can’t risk loosing it by printing copyrighted logos for some nerd. I was risking nothing, the printer would be taking all the risk.
So I’ll ask Universal Studios, I thought. What’s the worst that can happen, they say no?
In talking with their media licensing department, I was told in probably less then ten words, that I would, never, have written permission to use the Jurassic Park logo for fan-ish purposes.
So the printer could not do my shirt. Which kind of bummed them out, the guy really seemed into Jurassic Park and was asking about cons and stuff. He offered to use different fonts, logos or etc. Cool, but can you imagine using some fakey “Ghoul Buster’s” logo on all your stuff? So I did the shirts at home with thermal transfers. I say shirts, because transfers don’t last and I have to keep a few of the shirts in wear rotation.
tl;dr
You might have a hard time getting a shop to copy logos for you without permission. Any shop doing otherwise is profiting on copyright infringement. Might seem goofy, but the reality is that if a property is worth copying, then it’s worth protecting.
I think it’s more of an issue of being unethical vs illegal
Anyone selling proton pack parts is technically selling things they don’t own, but it’s a gray area. It’s not really taking money from Sony. You could argue its unethical when a person recast parts. You could also argue the point that everyone is breaking the law.
Same applies to Ghostbuster door labels. It’s probably not quite legal for a company to fill your request and custom print a label for you and its definitely illegal for them to mass-produce them and sell them in a shop. Unethical? It’s probably okay. It’s not hurting anything.
Sony seems to be really cool about it.
If your shop doesn’t want to produce the decals, respect their decision. They’re trying to be ethical and legal. If your shop agrees to print a couple decals for your door, it’s cool too. Sony isn’t going to kick down their door over $30.