I just got email from a representative of Cafe Press informing me that my Gunter Certified Beverage Engineer graphics have been removed:
We cannot accept some and/or all of the images in your CafePress.com account
due to the following reason: Your image(s) may be Copyright/Trademark protected
and require a license prior to the use for merchandise sales.
I’m no expert on how the parody exemptions work on for-profit stuff, so I’m not going to try to argue with them over it. But I’m sure that they are going to lose a lot of their shops if they are tightening up on this type of thing. A lot of the merchandise in their shops was based on parodies of famous marks.
So, to the guy in Wisconsin who ordered a mug and a sweatshirt early last year: congrats! They’re one-of-a-kind collectors items now!
sigh… I guess one day I’ll try to whip out some new graphics and recreate some merchandise. Not that anybody seemed to care. Except for that one guy in Wisconsin.
Damn me and my lack of a round tuit. I rather liked that stuff, and I’d meant to buy something. Maybe a mousepad.
As for the removal… I’m almost certain that, in a legal sense, it’s tripe. In a practical sense, copyright and trademark disputes have an irritating habit of favoring the larger primate.
“In a practical sense, copyright and trademark disputes have an irritating habit of favoring the larger primate.”
Too true. I can’t really blame the cafepress people for playing it safe. It’s a lot cheaper to be safe than to be right.
Maybe I can try to sneak a “Gunter Institute of Technology” logo past them
Hmm… Gunter Institute of Technology… I like it! And the mascot could be a fuzzy beer. OK – maybe not.