London 2012 Team GB Suit...again

[area51tazz]

So now that it's 2015, why hasn't China cloned Tom Daley's White/Blue Team GB Diving suit?!? Hey @speedorob86 ...think you can die-sub some for us? :D

Has anyone seen the white/blue ones at a chinese clone site? On sale besides this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/261803389581 ?

[speedorob86]

Seriously tho!

Where is the knock off!

[area51tazz]

How many of you would be interested if I had them made as "team suits" by one of the team providers? We'd just have to leave the adidas logo off of them, but I think we could get them approved. Thoughts?

[speedorob86]

IN FOR 2!

Let me know!

[PSDave]

have you tried contacting Addis direct and asking them if it is available?

[area51tazz]

have you tried contacting Addis direct and asking them if it is available?

I have not, but I read somewhere one time that somebody else did, and they mentioned that it was special-edition. Adidas U.S. won't even acknowledge their existence in my experience (not specifically with Adidas, but just calling companies I know make briefs)

If someone in the U.K. wants to call, I'd support a "group buy"

[Torchwatch]

Every aspect of London 2012 was heavily copyrighted.
All the British competitors team clothing was strictly limited edition.
Any legitimate printer asked to do a copy would run a mile as they would risk being put out of business by the courts.
The people who can afford to pay $1000 for an Olympic swim suit wont want even obviously faked copies going around.

[area51tazz]

Every aspect of London 2012 was heavily copyrighted.
All the British competitors team clothing was strictly limited edition.
Any legitimate printer asked to do a copy would run a mile as they would risk being put out of business by the courts.
The people who can afford to pay $1000 for an Olympic swim suit wont want even obviously faked copies going around.

We'll see what they say, but I've already duplicated the suit with Splish and re-sold it because the sides were too much for me. I haven't submitted it anywhere, but we won't have any copyrighted logos on it. Can't hurt to try :D

[sebbie]

Copyright law extends to unique things like logos and unique symbols associated with a particular company or organization, but generally you cannot copyright things that would be regarded as generic, such as design or color. We run into the same issues with College logos. University of Kentucky colors are blue and white. I could make tee shirts that use the blue and white colors and sell them with no issues at all. If I were to write Wildcats, the team mascot across the front I would be in copyright trouble. If I were to write just cats across the front, that would depend on whether the college has copyrighted the word cats as a logo. Getting an official copyright on the word cats is much more difficult to do than to get a copyright on Wildcats, but possibly could be done. However, other lawyers would say the mascot is the Wildcat not just any old cat. I'm not certain what the status of cats is under current copyright law. But I could write things like Cat FAN on the shirt with no copyright concerns at all, and I could sell red and black shirsts that say cats on the front with no copyright issues. Maybe cats is copyrighted but only if blue and white in combination. Otherwise the Arizona Wildcats would be a copyright violation of the Kentucky Wildcats, or vice versa. Vendors are constantly testing the limits on this.

We have an HVAC company that uses blue and white colors and calls themselves the K.A.T.S. I suspect they chose that name because they checked and K.A.T.S. using a K was not copyrighted by the university. They advertize with phrases like the "K.A.T.S. are the best" and everyone gets the connection. They MIGHT also make a donatoin to the athletic program as a matter of good faith but that would be optional.

Universities pay attention to copyright law in part because merchandise with logos on is a major source of revenue for supporting athletics as well as other university programs.

If you have a suit made that simply uses the colors employed in the 2012 Olympics, even in the locations they were used on the official suit, that would not violate copyright law as color combinations as such generally are not subject to copyright. If you wanted to come up with a logo that looked like a copyrighted 2012 olympic logo on the suit you would be in trouble or If you wanted to use something close to a corporate logo, the Nike swoosh, or even the Adidas triple-stripe, you probably would be in trouble as these are copyrighted logos. Adidas has a triangular logo, but apparently they have also managed to copyright 3 stripes as a separate logo. Occasionally I will see shoes that do a variation of the three stripe logo, say 4 stripes, and that is no violation of copyright law. The Olympics worries a lot about copyright because again, the logo merchandise is a major source of royalty revenue for funding Olympic programs.

The Chinese are very brand/logo focused, in particular they like brands popular in the US, and are always testing the limits on all this. US copyright law generally does not apply and is not enforced in China, and companies are free to sell in China logo merchandise copyrighted in the US to the Chinese. They get into copyright law trouble when they try to sell this merchandise through US vendors. Some of these "copies" may be very good quality, and perhaps even made in the same factory used by the real company. One of the disputes the US government has with China is the fact that they often pay no attention to US copyright law.

The Aqux brand is copyrighted in Japan. At least until recently, I gether the paperwork has never been filed to copyright the brand in the US because they are not selling their product through US vendors. China generally is the wild west in terms of copyright law. I can import an Aqux branded suit direct from China and since the brand is not copyrighted in the US or in China there is no copyright violation. If I tried to do this in Japan there are legal issues. The factory used to manufacture the suit might be the same or very similar to the one the Japanese Aqux uses to manufacture the suits for sale in Japan. Who knows?. If The Japanese Aqux wants to keep this from happening, they need to copyright the brand and then make it available through US vendors, but getting this set up costs money and they would need to have some clear reason to believe that they could sell skimpy, low-slung and fairly-expensive suits to Americans in large quantities.

[area51tazz]

Awesome information, Sebbie! I had no trouble having the suit printed through Splish with no logos on it :D

I had put the 2012 Olympic logo on this version, but I'll take it off so we don't get in trouble. Anyone have suggestions on colors for the rings if we wanted to make a 5-ring Olympic-style set? :D

[NE_OH_thonger]

Be careful about the rings. They're trademarked by the IOC (As is the word Olympics, BTW. In 1982, the US Olympic committee filed suit against a group led by Dr. Tom Waddell for organizing a "Gay Olympics." They were forced to change the name to the Gay Games.)

[sebbie]

I would work up a logo using 5 interlocked circles, but put the rings in the form of a circle rather than a horizontal line, so the logo alludes to the copyrighted Olympic rings, but is also clearly something different.

As a kid, I recall there was a popular brand name for a paper tablet, called "Penworthy". A competitor wanted to sell paper tablets too, so they called theirs "Writeworthy" which alluded to the better-known and no doubt copyrighted Penworthy but was clearly a different brand. Later on, the Penworthy tablets disappeared from the market, and the Writeworthy ones ended up with much of the market.

Ahh, the days when getting a tablet for school meant a tablet with paper and lines to write on.

The whole area of cooking up logos close to but not identical to copyrighted logos is an interesting one. If you cook up a logo different but a similar design, then the company owning the copyrighted logo has to bring a case claiming that consumers would somehow be "confused" into thinking your logo was their logo/product. This is not easy to do, and at minimum they would have to convince a judge that buyers would be confused and accidentally buy your product thinking it was theirs. Lawyers cost money, and the company needs to be convinced they will lose more money from your "accidental" sales than it would cost them to pay the legal costs to fight. THey MIGHT try writing you a letter saying they think their copyrighted logo is too close to your logo and to cease selling your product, but that might be it. Fighting a Chinese manufacturer using a similar logo where copyright laws are rarely enforced and the company is exporting directly to consumers not through US retailers presents new and more complicated hurdles, which is why we see all the Chinese made merchandise made to look as close as possible to the real branded product.

[area51tazz]

It would only be a limited run for those of us on here who are interested in one. I have to have at least 12 suits sold before I can start the process. I've already drawn up the design in Photoshop

I like the cut of SRSport's Infinity suits (same as my water polo suit for the team I'm on), so I'm considering using them. My template was done on the Turbo template if that gives you an idea to the cut.

[Minimalist75]

Be careful about the rings. They're trademarked by the IOC (As is the word Olympics, BTW. In 1982, the US Olympic committee filed suit against a group led by Dr. Tom Waddell for organizing a "Gay Olympics." They were forced to change the name to the Gay Games.)

More extreme than that Olympics of the Mind a school age academic tournament, was forced to change their name to Oddessey of the Mind. Para Olympics and Special Olympics have permission to use the name, but it is difficult to get.