MLB vs Donruss and what it means for Hockey?

[bigzippy]

Should HI be worried? Would our banner/header be cause for legal recourse?

 

[quincy]

I doubt that. I may be wrong, but our banner would likely fall under Fair Use.

 

[bigzippy]

Think it would be good to see a copy of the agreements to see just what the wording is. It would be nice to know too the wording of the case being brought aainst Don Russ

 

[jetsman]

I doubt that. I may be wrong, but our banner would likely fall under Fair Use.

Q, the Internet is very very sktchy on copyright law because there has not been an international law established for what can and cannot be on the internet. That being said, if any of those teams, players or leagues pictured state that their logos cannot be used without consent, then they'd have to be removed. Canoe, for example, has very clear usage policies stated on their website, and anyone found disobeying those laws can be subject to a lawsuit. How often that happens, I don't know; but in my capacity as an editor for a Canoe subsite, I've asked fan sites to remove and I've never had a counter argument.

Now for the HI Mag, though, that's a different story. Advice to Bruce -- if you plan on using any photos, be they regular shots or card images in the print version, make sure you have permissions in place. Print publications cannot simply publish photos at least without proper credits. the card manufacturers and memorabilia peeps will usually say "yeah you can print stuff from our products, no problem", but get it in writing.

Any other photo though must have proper accreditation with a traceable source. When I shot photos for CSM/CSC of the CFL or what have you, I had photo accreditation from the host team. If we used a photo from Getty, we paid Getty for the use and they had all the licensing already in place.

J

 

[cardz1976]

There must be some gray areas there somewhere... it's hard to believe that their legal department wouldn't have looked into it before going full steam into the release.

 

[leafschik1967]

I doubt that. I may be wrong, but our banner would likely fall under Fair Use.

For the logos, probably - but if a photographer (or whoever owns the rights to the photo) wanted to get picky, they would probably win.

 

[quincy]

I defer to more learned opinions. I'm at best a dilettante on the topic....