Copyright obligation? What now?

[jsore]

I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

I want to sell miniature embroidered reproductions of ancient Chinese robes for profit on the Internet. These would be sold as wall decorations for the home. The originals are displayed in museums around the world.

On the website itself, I will not be using any photographs/images of the original robes themselves. I will be using the images of our actual finished products. I don't know if this would make a difference or not.

I believe that the robes would not fall under any copyrights but maybe the images of them are? If so, what if any, are my legal obligations and how can I best accomplish them?

Basically, I want to know if I need a copyright lawyer. I'm not sure how to proceed from here.

Any comments are most welcome.

 

[counsel]

The ancient robes should be in the public domain. Photos of the robes may be copyrighted. However, if you are copying the robes themselves, you probably are not infringing any copyright, especially since you will be making miniatures.

It might be different if you were painting exact, realistic pictures of the PHOTOS, i.e. the same angle, lay out, lighting, etc. But you are not, you are copying the robes themselves.

Of course, you may want to also attempt to protect YOUR robes from others.

 

[jsore]

Thanks .. another question

Thanks Counsel! I very much appreciate your input.

On the subject of protecting the miniatures, should I trademark them? Can I copyright them? I am not the creator of the original designs on the original robes.

Also, if I trademark the brand name - let's say brand "ABC". Will it be covered in the trademark if I call them "ABC Mini- Robes"?

 

[counsel]

Usually, owning the shorter trademark is more valuable than owning a longer trademark. However, the answer is not black and white.

The basic question is what would consumers think? Trademark law is designed to protect consumers from getting counfused as to which company makes what product. If consumers might think that "ABC' is made by someone different from "ABC Mini-Robes", then the latter may not be protected.

It also depends on how you use the marks. Would ABC be your COMPANY name or the name of the robes? And are there other companies using ABC in their trademarks? If so, it might lessen the chance that consumers would know that you are both ABC and ABC Mini-Robes.

There is also a trademark law doctrine called "family of marks". That means that a company like "Coca-Cola" owns all trademarks that use its "family name", Coca-Cola, even if there are different "first names". So if someone tried to sell "Coca-Cola rum", they would get sued. The family of marks argument, however, is eaiser for bigger companies that own alot of marks.