Congratulations on the birth of your baby girl, Dave! That is very happy news. I hope all of you are doing well. And I hope that you and your wife are slowly adjusting to the lack of sleep.
Ok, so here's another question for the peanut gallery: Can I use current presidential candidate political icons for commercial use in my product? I would imagine they would want to spread the word, right? I can't believe every Hillary for President t-shirt has been sanctioned by Team Hillary for use.
Although it seems reasonable to think presidential candidates, or any politician, would benefit from the free publicity they would get if their names or images are used in or on products created by others, and that they would therefore appreciate having their names or images displayed and distributed and marketed by others, that is not always the case. Politicians, and all famous people, DO give up some of their
privacy rights when they place themselves on the national or world stage. But, what they lose in the way of privacy they
gain in the way of
publicity rights.
Publicity rights allow a person (any person) to use their own name and image for commercial gain. Most people, though, do not have names or images that are valuable. I could not easily sell a tee-shirt that had my image on it (except, perhaps, to my mom). Celebrity or famous people names and images DO attract public attention and the public will often pay for items connected to these famous people.
This is most apparent in advertising campaigns, when celebrities are paid by a company to promote their business, their product or their service in ads. You have famous people hawking colognes and insurance companies and cosmetics and sports equipment. These famous people often make the bulk of their fortunes through their sponsorship and endorsement deals.
While not too many companies will use
politicians to help promote a product or service, because politicians can draw unwanted controversy and criticism that a company does not want attached in the public's mind with what they offer, the names and images of politicians have been used in commercial ways in the past. Sometimes this works out well for all. Sometimes it doesn't.
There was a lawsuit filed by Arnold Schwarzenegger against the makers of Bobble Heads over an Arnold Bobble Head (the case was settled and all profits from the sales went to a charity of Schwarzenegger's choice). And there were problems when a doll maker (Mattel? I can't remember offhand) made Malia and Sasha dolls in the image of the Obama girls. The first lady was upset with the company's use of her daughters' names and images and, under public pressure, the dolls were removed from the market.
So, while making a Hillary tee-shirt may not make Hillary threaten a legal action (and she and President Clinton both have Bobble Head dolls), I suppose a derogatory tee-shirt could draw some Clinton wrath. A suit could be based on either publicity rights or, depending on what the tee-shirt depicted or said, defamation.
Finally, most images you see online or elsewhere have a copyright holder and you would need to acquire rights from the copyright holder (usually in the form of a license) if you wish to use any copyrighted image of a politician.
In other words, it really depends on the facts of your use and the politician.
Also, I have a meeting with the Director of Licensing at Colorado University and the head of the campus bookstore to use their logo. I'm going to try to pitch this as a homegrown product and hopefully obtain the CU license. Any information I should be aware of before the meeting or do you have any suggestions?
Here is a link to information on University of Colorado's licensing policy, which lists the minimum standards for licensees:
http://www.colorado.edu/policies/licensing-policy
If you are talking about Colorado State University, here is a link to their website - but the University of Colorado's licensing policy is similar to that of most universities, so it is worth a read:
http://www.colostate.edu/
Thanks once again!
PS The product has been delayed because my wife gave birth to our beautiful baby girl 3 weeks early! I know everyone has been refreshing this page every minute for months to find out exactly what my mystery product is.
Once the website is finally finished in the next week or so I'll post a link with a quick description (if that's allowed....if not, I'll just describe it).
It is always nice to have you back here, Dave - and, yes, we are anxiously awaiting information about your mystery product. Links are often flagged by the moderator but you can try to post a link - if not, a description would be welcome.
Again, congratulations on the birth of your baby.
