Tayla Harris said it was ok, right?
NO. SHE DID NOT.
Well, the company is sending her, oh, at least 10% of the profits?
NO. They felt they were ENTITLED to make money off her and keep it all.
They got stopped?
YES, and they bitched about it.
Most people either don't KNOW what "intellectual property," "trademark" or "Copyright" are, or they don't care. Ask any blogger "sharing" movies, TV shows or music albums and they'll sneer "copyright is copy WRONG."
If you created something, EVERYBODY should be your partner. Like it or not. YOU have to go around protecting your rights, hiring lawyers, sending in DMCA's, and even then, you'll find people who will "re-up" the content you took down, or possibly engaging in a vendetta of pranks and abuse to "get even." OR they'll just sulk about being a victim.
TAYLA HARRIS? Who is she?
She is an Australian athlete.
She was very proud of a photo of herself where she was kicking up a leg, putting all the emphasis on...her athletic ability.
When some snickered that this was just a crotch shot, she went ballistic. The photo went viral.
The photo was news. That's "fair use."
One company decided to put the image on a t-shirt. No, that makes it product.
Whether you use the actual photo, or Photoshop it, it needs to be authorized.
The guy whose company tried to make a greedy killing by knocking off Tayla Harris shirts sobbed and growled and whined about having to cease and desist. Hey, he's just tryin' to make some money, and doesn't Tayla and her league already have enough? Give HIM a slice, and don't expect him to pay any licensing, either!
Copying is NOT creative.
Making money off somebody else's creativity...their INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, is counterfeiting.
What this guy seems to be grousing about, is that he carefully removed Tayla's team name and logo, so the league should not have complained. Their "trademark" or "copyright" wasn't violated, just Tayla's intellectual property. Pretty lame bit of hair-splitting, eh?
Let's put this into American terms. Somebody takes a photo of David Justice swinging the bat for a home run. The NY Yankee logo is Photoshopped off his helmet, and from his uniform. That makes it just a photo of David Justice that can be turned into product and put on a shirt, right?
Except we all know David Justice swings the bat for the NY Yankees. The photo was taken at Yankees Stadium. If they want to use their clout and do a favor to David by taking care of the matter, they can. And should.
There's a reason only one company makes baseball cards. They're authorized. You can't take a bunch of photos of players and start selling your own set.
There's reasons why some celebrities are fierce about their INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. They want to control the quality of what's out there. They want people to know that the t-shirt is not going to shrink, that the dupe photo won't fade, that the alarm clock or mousepad with their face on it will last, and that the image is one that they find flattering. Oh, and yes, they also figure that having made it against all odds, they should be PAID for licensing, and if they choose, the money should go to the charity of THEIR choice.
Somehow, a few morons and greedheads and childlike brats want to think everything should be theirs for the taking, theirs to "share," and theirs to copy off and make a profit on. They are unfortunately enabled by outfits such as Google (who run YouTube) and eBay ("we're JUST a venue") who don't ask uploaders or sellers to provide licensing agreements and, worse, often throw a load of hoops in the path of rights owners.
It's really time for the jerks out there to GET SMART, and for people to exert CONTROL over the KAOS.
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