legal considerations

Debate - As I featured in an earlier post, Black Milk Clothing is a successful Australian company that features many prints on their clothing. They have become well-known for this specifically and have become very popular with almost 150,000 likes of their Facebook page, including myself. While researching the brand, as it may become influential to my designs, I came across several articles questioning the legality of the brand's practices. Many of the printed images on the garments are copied from well known artists, which would be impossible to buy rights from..... or would it?

Star Wars

These Star Wars character referenced swimsuits were taken off the website due to threats from LucasArts last year. According to some, James Lillis of Black Milk knows he is breaking the law. When he had to take the designs off his website he told Facebook fans to order a different swimsuit and comment in the order that you were actually wanting the Artoo or C3PO swimsuits instead.

Dali

MC Escher

Theophile Steinlen

Opposing the viewpoint that this is illegal and unethical, many argue that much of the art is public domain. If an artist has died more than 70 years before the work automatically becomes public domain. Using classical or iconic artworks is not a rip off, as they require no licence and are legal to use. 


As for the Star Wars swim suits and other more modern images, many people argue that countless t-shirts and garments have been printed with similar images, and therefore this is no different. Unofficial merchandising has been around for years many state.


http://youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com/blog3/black-milk-clothing-rip-off-dali-escher-klimt-lucasarts-and-more/


Clearly there is a grey area between what is legal and what is not. I should keep this in mind when I am designing using images, as I would like the collection to be legal obviously and avoid the risk of copyright infringement. I can easily avoid even the potential of this occurring by using my own photos or designs.