T shirt design continued

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sheryl
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T shirt design continued

Post by sheryl »

Didn't want to hijack the Peru thread.

To reply to Dells, my having reproduced the cover art onto a tshirt...a single tshirt for my own use...was not, I don't believe, really violating any law. I didn't mass produce it to sell or share, and in fact what I did was turn myself into a walking billboard for Dave's cd. The cd art was reproduced in several articles, and I'd seen it on quite a few fliers, so it wasn't as if it were sacrosanct.... where is the line between what's reasonable fair use and what's blatantly ripping someone off?

And I should point out that the person who took exception to it wasn't Dave...and it was Dave's record! Dave walked by me half a dozen times that night and never so much as blinked an eye over that shirt.

In all honesty I was very surprised that anyone in or connected to the band would be upset that Dave was getting free advertising.

I did learn my lesson though. I had several other homemade shirts, all of which were just as cool as that one....one of them had reproduced liner notes from a record and it looked absolutely amazing...another had bits of lyric sheets combined with album art in a sort of collage...I just got rid of them all. Gave them away, threw them away, whatever.

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lune ellise
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Re: T shirt design continued

Post by lune ellise »

If a simple personal Tshirt violates copyright law, then so are custom made compilations (I have my own "Best of SA" CD)?

This is really bad. And I don't mean to offend, but US does have these complicated laws over littlest things...


I also have a very bad feeling that you are refering to Dan here.
"There's no such thing as a man-tamed girl."
My reviews of Soul Asylum albums: http://fritzi.gironella-cdo.com/search/ ... l%20asylum

sheryl
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Re: T shirt design continued

Post by sheryl »

we do have silly complicated laws over ridiculous things, it's true.

but in this case i think it was more someones personal feeling about it rather than any kind of genuine legal violation.

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philipgar
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Re: T shirt design continued

Post by philipgar »

lune ellise wrote:If a simple personal Tshirt violates copyright law, then so are custom made compilations (I have my own "Best of SA" CD)?

This is really bad. And I don't mean to offend, but US does have these complicated laws over littlest things...


I also have a very bad feeling that you are refering to Dan here.
Actually, in the US, custom made compilations are considered legal if they're for personal use. The RIAA might argue otherwise, but if you own the albums the songs come from, then it's considered fair use to transfer them to another format (the same does not however hold true for most DVDs due to the DMCA).

Custom t-shirts are a different story due to being a public display, so the laws might be different. Either way, for a personal shirt, I haven't heard of anything more than what sheryl said. Even that though seems strange to me, as i've heard of enough people doing the same thing before and having it appreciated.

Phil

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Re: T shirt design continued

Post by CrazyLittleWoman »

I'm pretty sure that Fair Use would apply to the T-shirt as Sheryl described it.

Fritzi, under Fair Use, as long as you only made one or even a few copies of the T-shirt for your own personal use and didn't try to sell it or in any way profit from it, then you can use it. As long as you owned the CD that the cover art and lyrics sheets came from, you can copy them for your own use. I'm not sure public display really changes that, because as Sheryl said, it's basically FREE advertising for SOMEONE ELSE's product.

Not to drag off point too much, but there was NO merchandise at all for sale at ANY of the four shows I attended in the past year. No CDs, no T-shirts, no posters, nothing.

So I don't see how making my own shirt would infringe on their ability to profit since they aren't even attempting to profit. I would happily have paid for a Soul Asylum T-shirt, but none were available for sale. If I want one, I'm going to have to make one myself.

Dells, like you, I'd probably be violating Rolling Stone's copyright because they took the photo that I like. :)
"Dave Pirner was the coolest motherfucker to wield a low-strung telecaster who isn't called Keith Richards." -- Ginger (Wildhearts)

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Re: T shirt design continued

Post by Homesick »

Copyright looks reasonable at first glance but in reality it's quite silly. After all, Soul Asylum didn't ask the designer of the toys on the cover of Say What You Will for permission, not to mention the band's poster art. I'm not saying Soul Asylum are immoral in doing this; on the contrary, I'm saying they're being just as reasonable as everyone else.

I don't know what position that guy who made the remark about copyright had in the band, but as long as there's no official word on it I'd say it's nothing to fret about.
Jakob Kallin, webmaster of EnterTheSoulAsylum.com

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lune ellise
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Re: T shirt design continued

Post by lune ellise »

Homesick wrote:I don't know what position that guy who made the remark about copyright had in the band, but as long as there's no official word on it I'd say it's nothing to fret about.
I agree! On to homemade shirts! And Sheryl, I do hope you really didn't throw your shirts away...
"There's no such thing as a man-tamed girl."
My reviews of Soul Asylum albums: http://fritzi.gironella-cdo.com/search/ ... l%20asylum

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AlyssaJones
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Re: T shirt design continued

Post by AlyssaJones »

I made an SA shirt a few weeks ago. It's really cool. It's green with a brown felt star on the chest in which I embroidered the words "Soul Asylum" and further down there's this pic on it:
Image
except I cut out Sterling Campbell and Karl (sorry, Karl) so it's just Dave and Dan. And right under them are my CD's which I scanned, resized, and printed onto iron-on paper.

I didn't really want to cut Karl out of the picture, but I couldn't find a good enough picture of just the three of them, so I think I'm going to put his picture on one of the sleeves. And maybe if I feel like it I'm gonna embroider "November 13, 1981" somewhere on the back.

So yeah, it's a really cool shirt and I don't care if it happens to violate any copyrights.

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Yaz McBoo
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Re: T shirt design continued

Post by Yaz McBoo »

Well, camera stores and online novelty outlets usually have some kind of warning against using someone else's work on your custom tshirts, mugs etc. But I think it was pretty lame that this guy called you out, at both shows. That's hardly the first bootleg tshirt ever worn to a concert. Usually with more popular bands you get the local guys selling bootleg shirts in the parking lots, on the street etc. Not to justify what they do, but making one's own one-off shirt is hardly in the same league and def. not worth put down from someone with the band. They don't even bring merchandise to the shows anymore!

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triumph3434
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Re: T shirt design continued

Post by triumph3434 »

cheryl, I cant find reference to this story on another thread. Will you repeat the story you are talking about? I gather that you got yelled at for wearing the shirt. Where? When? by whom?

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