Legal issues regarding acquired images

Rabidlamb

I designed a website for my wife about 6 months ago.
We had trouble designing an effective company logo when we found a Canadian website that had a gaphical image exactly what we were looking for.
I cropped it out of the banner of theie site & photoshopped it in as one element of her company logo.
The businesses are not related & with the Geographical differences I believed it would never become an issue.
Our site's traffic has grown exponentially in the past few months & I feel I must either decide to remove the logo or contact the original owner.
What should my next move be ?.

TL;DR
I stole a logo off a Canadian site but rather like it, can I keep it ?.

Freddio

You should find out if it is trademarked and how big their legal department is in any event

smash

Rabidlamb wrote: »

TL;DR
I stole a logo off a Canadian site but rather like it, can I keep it ?.

redesign it from scratch but try and keep the same look and feel before you land yourself in a lot of shít.

kakee

Who is to say the canadian company hadn't created their logo in the same way as you have done.

I would retain the logo if I was you. Perhaps work on one just in case they contact you to remove the present one, and then you can simply upload to your website and change the link in your css file and job done.

smash

kakee wrote: »

I would retain the logo if I was you. Perhaps work on one just in case they contact you to remove the present one, and then you can simply upload to your website and change the link in your css file and job done.

It doesn't work like that. Even though it's a different industry it can be considered impersonation and is probably copyright too.

Scotty #

Freddio wrote: »

You should find out if it is trademarked

It is. Simply using it as their logo automatically trademarks it (unless of course, they copied it too).

OP, is there ANY chance that someone could look at your logo and mistake it as representing the other company? If the answer is yes then you should change it. If no, then you are OK.

Rabidlamb

kakee wrote: »

Who is to say the canadian company hadn't created their logo in the same way as you have done.

I would retain the logo if I was you. Perhaps work on one just in case they contact you to remove the present one, and then you can simply upload to your website and change the link in your css file and job done.

Is that the way it works, would you first be issued a take down notice before a case is threatened.

worc

Presume you're not inclined to post your site up for a gander but unless the "graphical image" is a generic enough "shape" I would get it off your site ASAP - seriously get it down...as in right now.

There's no set way how something like this works because the original owner could contact you to ask you to take it down nicely or they could just lookup Whois, see how long your site has been active and send you an invoice for the number of days you've been using copyrighted material (of course they might not be able to prove you had it up from day 1). The amount they could bill you is pretty much their choice (within reason of course) so you're basically sitting on a potential time bomb...waiting to take god knows how much money off you...

To be fair, I don't know the rules about cross country breahes of copyright in terms of the Canadian owners invoicing/suing you but you also risk Google being contacted by the owner to request they remove your site from their index....I've had to do this and they take down sites within 4-5 days if remember rightly...so whatever traffic is coming to your site from Google will literally stop if this happens. You're potentially costing yourself not only the original owners invoice for breaching copyright but also any income from the site your wife currently receives.

Don't underestimate these things...to you it might just be some image you cropped and put into your own logo but for the original ownsers it's a valuable business image they will have full right to defend.

In short, get it off your wife's website and do what smash said - redesign it. Simples.

p

kakee wrote: »

Who is to say the canadian company hadn't created their logo in the same way as you have done.

Ethics, professionalism, maybe. Even if they did, someone else create the logo originally and owns the copyright to it.


To the OP, you don't own the copyright to use this image and what you're doing is illegal. The internet is a big place so you may well get away with this, however, for the business and your own reputation, I would follow the suggested advice of getting a logo designed from scratch that matches the spirit of the copied logo. Hell, you may even get something you like better.

Hope that helps.

Scotty #

worc wrote: »

send you an invoice for the number of days you've been using copyrighted material

He is not using copyrighted material. 'Products' are copyrighted. 'Branding' is trademarked. He is not using the other persons trademark as such as it does differ from the original. How much it differs, and, if it differs enough as to not be confused for the original is what matters.

smash

Scotty # wrote: »

He is not using copyrighted material. 'Products' are copyrighted. 'Branding' is trademarked. He is not using the other persons trademark as such as it does differ from the original. How much it differs, and, if it differs enough as to not be confused for the original is what matters.

Actually, the company own the copyright to the artwork if it's their logo.

Trojan

Lot of misinformation in this thread.

A piece of work is usually copyright the moment it is created, either by the creator, or by the employer of the creator if they have an agreement regarding Work For Hire.

Trademarks are usually awarded only after they are applied for specifically, and are usually limited to geographic areas.

Using copyrighted images without permission is theft of intellectual property and A Bad Idea. Go get your own logo.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. Seek some.

Feathers

p wrote: »

The internet is a big place so you may well get away with this

Hopefully the original site owner decides to use a site like TinEye & comes across it.

OP — do you do web-design for a living?

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Feathers wrote: »

Hopefully the original site owner decides to use a site like TinEye & comes across it.

Just used this site. It brought back 3 images on my own site which I have paid for

Scotty #

Trojan wrote: »

Lot of misinformation in this thread.

A piece of work is copyright the moment it is created

If it is original and unique. Simple generic shapes are unlikely to hold copyright (but can be trademarked).

Trojan wrote: »

Trademarks are awarded only after they are applied for specifically

This is not correct (in Ireland or Canada). A 'brand' can claim a trademark simply by using it. This would be an unregistered trademark and you would claim it be having the letters 'TM' beside it. A registered trademark has a circled 'R', ®, beside it. Using an 'R' without registering is an offense.

It is impossible for commentators in this thread to say if the OP is infringing anyone's rights without actually seeing the logos' in question.

Feathers

Scotty # wrote: »

If it is original and unique. Simple generic shapes are unlikely to hold copyright (but can be trademarked).

…

It is impossible for commentators in this thread to say if the OP is infringing anyone's rights without actually seeing the logos' in question.

Yeah, but come on — reading between the lines, the OP said 'We had trouble designing an effective company logo'. Presuming he then didn't hit on a black circle on a white background & cry eureka! :pac:

If it's good enough to steal as a logo, generally it's probably copyright protected (unless it's explicitly public domain).

Trojan

He's technically 100% correct, and a good reminder to me to never use definitive statements when I could be wrong

Rabidlamb

Feathers wrote: »

Hopefully the original site owner decides to use a site like TinEye & comes across it.

OP — do you do web-design for a living?

Regarding the logo I cropped it out of a larger image & inserted it as a new layer over our company title then merged as a renamed jpeg.
Tineye didn't bring back anything nor would expect it to.

I'm currently working on a replacement original logo which should be rolled out once our old promotional material is used up.
If anyone steals it I'll sue their asses.:)

Lantus

I'm sure the owner of this business has nothing better to do than work his way through 360,000,000 (approx) websites just in case a fragment of his logo was borrowed and used somewhere else in another country.

Of the people here how often do you check the entire web to see if your images have been nabbed?

worc

Lantus wrote: »

I'm sure the owner of this business has nothing better to do than work his way through 360,000,000 (approx) websites just in case a fragment of his logo was borrowed and used somewhere else in another country.

Of the people here how often do you check the entire web to see if your images have been nabbed?

The point people were making was that why would you leave a logo on a site that potentially contains a part of another logo that could lead to Rabidlamb receiving an invoice or legal letter over it. In addition, why leave something on your site that could lead to your site being removed from the Google search index because someone happens to come across it and sends Google a take down notice - this can be especially damaging if the site is providing any income for Rabidlamb's wife.

The underlying point was why sit on a potential time bomb when you can just redesign the damn thing.

I do a check once every 3 months for the most visited content on my sites and do an image search also - and have found other business websites using my content verbatim with images included; with Google kindly taking the offending pages out of their index for me