Know-How Exchange : Copywriting

Dear Francky,

Do you really have to contact each band? If you want to keep your backside out of court and if you don't want to spend the rest of your life paying legal bills, yes, I'm afraid you do.

The logos and, in most cases, the names of rock bands and international recording artists are protected by international copyright. Bands like the Rolling Stones and Kiss make hundreds of millions of dollars every year by licensing their logo so that it can appear on t-shirts, mugs, and so on.

Every time one of their logos appears on a shirt that's sold, they get paid. If they don't get paid, someone else profits from their name.

Now, sure you could go ahead and print your shirts WITHOUT official permission. But you'd be opening yourself up to a world of legal pain.

Four years ago I worked on a fund raising letter for a natural history museum (a non profit) that had a clown fish (of "Finding Nemo" fame?) on display as part of a diorama of the Great Barrier Reef, where clown fish are commonly seen.

As the copywriter for this letter, I wondered if we could use the name Nemo as an attention grabber, so I called Pixar Animation in California.

Pixar's legal person referred me to those nice people at Disney, and weeks later, Disney informed me in writing, and in no uncertain terms that the name Nemo was NOT to be used—ever—because Disney owns the copyright and unauthorized use would be a violation of intellectual property laws.

If the vintage clothing you'll be producing carries the logos of classic bands or artists (The Rolling Stones, The Who, Jimi Hendrix and so on), you'll be infringing all kinds of copyright if you don't FIRST secure some kind of written permission to use the aforementioned name or logo, AND yes, you'll have to pay a fee to the owner of the license per shirt.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

You might want to start by contacting https://www.copyrightmv.com/
They'll tell you about the relevant copyright law, and the best ways to proceed.

"I was kinda hoping that there was a sort of convention or company where you pay them, they take a %age for the service, they pay them all."

Not likely.

Branding ("image") is quite a big deal for most rock bands and famous people. They will want to control the entire marketing mix of everything that is associated with their brand (the quality of the product, the places where it is sold, the price and how it is sold).

Just handing the entire merchandising and line extension affair over to some company who will let you decide how much to charge for a possibly crappy t-shirt and just take a percentage will never happen. They will mostly be very hands on and very fussy.