Licensing ?

[shg0664]

What is the name of your state? Tennessee

My wife is an independent artist, she designs and hand paints Matroyshkya Dolls (aka Nesting Dolls) and paints original art work on all types of media.

About a year ago a customer asked her to paint a nesting doll as a college football player of their favorite college team. So she painted one. From there the requests came flooding in for more college football nesting dolls.

Recently, we received a fairly nasty letter from a licensing group out of Georgia telling us to cease and desist any college related materials. They also mandaited that we issue a formal letter to them acknowledgeing our wrong doings and to verify in writing that we will never do it again. If not, they will sue us into oblivion.

I am not sure what to do at this point.

 

[divgradcurl]

What is the name of your state? Tennessee

My wife is an independent artist, she designs and hand paints Matroyshkya Dolls (aka Nesting Dolls) and paints original art work on all types of media.

About a year ago a customer asked her to paint a nesting doll as a college football player of their favorite college team. So she painted one. From there the requests came flooding in for more college football nesting dolls.

Recently, we received a fairly nasty letter from a licensing group out of Georgia telling us to cease and desist any college related materials. They also mandaited that we issue a formal letter to them acknowledgeing our wrong doings and to verify in writing that we will never do it again. If not, they will sue us into oblivion.

I am not sure what to do at this point.

Well, if you are painting trademarked college logos without permission, you could be liable for trademark infringement. You might want to talk with a local attorney before you do anything -- if you admit your wrongdoing to them in writing without also obtaining a release of liability, then you are just opening yourself up to a lawsuit. Go ahead and admit that you did infringe their trademarks, and promise not to do it again, but ONLY if you also obtain a written release of liability for anything you have already done. Get a lawyer to help you out -- lawyer's aren't cheap, I know, but in your case, it would be cheap insurance for the future.

And next time, get the appropriate permissions and licenses in place first!

EDIT: Another thing, you should find out who this licensing group is and find out if they even have the authority to pursue trademark infringers -- a Google search might tell you that info, or your lawyer can find out. Don't do anything until you verify that this group actually has the authority to enforce these trademarks. They might very well have the authority, but you want to make sure.