Question: Copyright and Private Designs

I was sort of wondering the same question as I have seen another person asking, but that I didn’t see a firm answer for.

Is it okay to do as some users have suggested, and make a shirt with something copyrighted that you wouldn’t offer for sale, only for your personal use?

For example, one of my favourite musicians has a tattoo that I have been wanting for a while to put on a shirt or something for myself. No intention to sell, just wanna celebrate the design personally and feel like hot stuff. Since the tattoo is someone else’s art (the musician’s, if he designed it himself, and the tattoo artist’s), I wouldn’t dream of selling it, but I was wondering if it’d be okay to do on my own, just for myself. Would RedBubble allow this content to be uploaded, or would it be considered encroaching into gray copyright area?

Thanks in advance for any help that can be given.

—Alexa

www.alexapolito.com

I don`t see any issues with this

if you make it not for sale i don’t believe you have the ability to buy it yourself. even if you could though, since Rb is making some level of profit from the sale to the artist i would think it is not a great idea

“if you make it not for sale i don’t believe you have the ability to buy it yourself. even if you could though, since Rb is making some level of profit from the sale to the artist i would think it is not a great idea”

That’s a good point I didn’t think of. But isn’t RedBubble’s profit, when selling to the person who uploaded the art, primarily only the printing costs? Not on the art itself? And as I’m vectorizing the tattoo design for my own purposes, it’s been very slightly modified. Does that change things at all?

if you can make it your own and have no real common features then yes, however if you were to print the original then NO
You would have to have the artist either recreate or photograph it , have them create an account and purchase it from them, For the original

i couldn’t imagine RB would not make some small profit from creating works for the artost. afterall, someone has to get paid for their time and labor.

Nononono they do it for love ;) and a few mint slice biscuits

“if you can make it your own and have no real common features then yes, however if you were to print the original then NO
You would have to have the artist either recreate or photograph it , have them create an account and purchase it from them, For the original”

Well, I would be vectorizing the image myself, in Illustrator. It’s fairly close to the original, since that was the intent, although not perfect, since it is a recreation. It’s also a different medium; this is a digital illustration as opposed to its original form of ink-in-skin, haha. Does that count as making it my own enough? The lines get so confusingly blurry.

unfortunately not no common physicalities may apply

hearing you guys always talk about biscuits makes me laugh because we only call dog treats biscuits, or some kind of bread rolls are biscuits

Aw, poop. I was really hoping I could get this made, if just for myself. I’d have liked to have something with it on it in a quality better than t-shirt iron-on. But if not then them’s the works! ;^;

Here Browse This Topic you may find some useful info or tips on getting around this or it may not be possible at all

The thing with that topic is that it concerns someone who was selling the images. To my mind this is a slightly different issue, since I would only be making it for personal use. I’ve wondered this about some other design ideas I’ve had before- things spoofing a celeb, or a reference to a film or show- that I wouldn’t offer for sale but would have loved to get for myself.

but if its not for sale you cant purchase it lol

Can’t you upload a t-shirt design, for example, keep it private, and only order it for yourself? That way it isn’t offered for sale to the general public? Or am I misunderstanding (which happens often enough, haha)?

If somebody, either you, redbubble, redbubble’s printers, the postal service or anyone makes a profit out of this it’s potentially not OK without permission.

How about getting a plain white T-Shirt and drawing the design on it yourself with a felt tip pen.? You don’t need permission to do that unless you then try to sell the T-shirt.

there are many places you can go locally to get a t-shirt made for yourself that would not be as public as online. i once had one printed up for $10

And there yah go…

Is it okay to do as some users have suggested, and make a shirt with something copyrighted that you wouldn’t offer for sale, only for your personal use?

No. I don’t think its even a grey area.

This is copying something that has copyright protection … there are some exemptions but but getting someone else to make a copy for your own use isn’t one of them!

“This is copying something that has copyright protection … there are some exemptions but but getting someone else to make a copy for your own use isn’t one of them!”

I was thinking of it as myself making the copy, since I would be doing the vector version of the image, rather than RedBubble copying it. But you’re right, that’s a fair point.

“there are many places you can go locally to get a t-shirt made for yourself that would not be as public as online. i once had one printed up for $10”

“How about getting a plain white T-Shirt and drawing the design on it yourself with a felt tip pen.? You don’t need permission to do that unless you then try to sell the T-shirt.”

I may do one of these, though I cringe at the idea of the clumsiness of a felt-tip pen, but I’ve been reading up on how to do silk screening on your own so maybe I’ll end up going that route. ^^

Thanks to everyone for the info and advice!

“How about getting a plain white T-Shirt and drawing the design on it yourself with a felt tip pen.? .”

That is still copying the design

True Joe,

it is still copying but doesn’t infringe copyright as it would be a hand drawn one off creation.

Uploading the felt tip logo and then offering it for sale is a completely different matter.

it is still copying but doesn’t infringe copyright as it would be a hand drawn one off creation.

Can you give a reference please to support this?

Why can’t you just go to the person who has the tattoo and ask for permission? If he says the tattoo artist designed it, find out who did it and go ask.

It’s really a simple solution if you want a tee for yourself. The artist might be flattered. For the matter, maybe the artist has already got tees for sale with the tattoo art on it.

@Martin, It would depend on if it was a Derivative Work or a Transformative Work See

In Rogers v. Koons
it was held to be a Derivative Work and a copyright infrigement

In Blanch v. Koons
we have a example of a Transformative Work.

It depends on how close the hand drawn copy is to the original work.