Magazine Covers

[Spoony]

Forgive me, if this isn't the appropriate place to post this. I am new to this site and have been a member for several months but rarely ever visit this. Again please forgive me...I will start to try and make a conscious effort to do so in the future. What I am asking is, is there anyone who has any experience in dealing with or creating "fake" magazine covers to be sold. I know there are such available, such as being sold at Six Flags, etc. for memory keepsakes. I recently built a Sports Illustrated cover in Photoshop and have to admit it looks like the real deal even though it isn't. I am concerned with the copyright/trademark infringements. I emailed a trademark attorney and he said that SI would look at this as a trademark infringement and he advised me to come up with my own original mag cover name. That's where I think I will lose the interest of selling these. Does anyone have any info or advise on this subject... I would greatly appreciate to hear anything anyone has to say.

Thanks again
Spoony

[CaptainTom]

Listen to the lawyer. If you did it a couple of times just for fun, you'd probably avoid court and I would guess you'd lose if you did go to court.

Contact SI and find out how much a license would cost. Probably a fortune, but that's just a guess.

Even if you change the mag name to Sport Illustrated you'd be deep into infringement territory.

[Spoony]

Yeah, that's kinda what I was thinking even by just dropping the "s"

Thanks for your input.

[toverman]

Calling it something entirely different but using the same font might work, though. Although I'd certainly want to make sure before doing that, either.

[ggeen]

Call it 'Sports Imitated'

Listen to the lawyer. I think Cpt. Tom is on the right track. Even if you just dropped the "s" at the end of Sports that may not be enough to differenctiate yourself from the trademarked name.

-G

[sea_ledford]

I think there is actually a legal amount that has to be different. Like if it's 20% different from SI, it's legal. How they rate the percentage, I have no idea, but there is a legal standard. It's probably how spoof movies are made without getting the pants sued off 'em.

Chris

[ramblinray]

You may find that if you start with something they have created, it doesn't matter how much you change. It is still a derivitive and would be considered copyright infringement. You would have to come up with something different. The look can be the same, just can't use any of their content.