BrickWild

Use of 'Classic Fire' logo for a record label...

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Flashover Recordings is the record label set up by Dutch DJ / producer Ferry Corsten. After being in the music business for over 15 years, Ferry started Flashover Recordings in 2005 to release new, fresh and innovative dance productions.

L-426647-1344501302-4977.jpeg.jpg

It's a mirrored version of the 'classic fire' insignia from the early 1990s.:sweet:
I wonder if Corsten granted permission from TLG to use this.

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Certainly recognize that logo, it's even much older then the 90s, used as far back as 1978.

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4 hours ago, BrickWild said:

I wonder if Corsten granted permission from TLG to use this.

Why would he need to? It's most certainly a deprecated/ abandoned/ orphaned trademark - if it was even ever registered as such - and thus not legally defendable. Also trademarks are handled verbatim, meaning "exactly as registered" and in this case they would be registered in different classes, anyway. Throw on top differences in legislation in different countries and your case basically has no merit. That's the old gag of Apple Inc. trying to take down every logo that remotely looks like said fruit even if it's totally unrelated even to computers and such... Suffice it to say that we can have fun debating this endlessly, but I would begin by arguing that Mr. Corsten with an estimated value of at least 130 million Euro sure enough has the money to have hired a bunch of good lawyers and if there even was any issue, by now they have long figured out the legalities of it.

Mylenium

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LEGO only just now applied their "City" logo trademark (likely to combat clone brands from using it), so I doubt this 42 year old fire logo has any serious copy issues until it'd be used in a clone-brand set, and this one is reverse even.

 

Edited by TeriXeri

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It's possible Mr. Corsten had obtained rights or permissions to use the logo. Much like what TLG does to produce licensed sets.

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On 3/12/2020 at 10:32 AM, Mylenium said:

Why would he need to? It's most certainly a deprecated/ abandoned/ orphaned trademark - if it was even ever registered as such - and thus not legally defendable. Also trademarks are handled verbatim, meaning "exactly as registered" and in this case they would be registered in different classes, anyway. Throw on top differences in legislation in different countries and your case basically has no merit. That's the old gag of Apple Inc. trying to take down every logo that remotely looks like said fruit even if it's totally unrelated even to computers and such... Suffice it to say that we can have fun debating this endlessly, but I would begin by arguing that Mr. Corsten with an estimated value of at least 130 million Euro sure enough has the money to have hired a bunch of good lawyers and if there even was any issue, by now they have long figured out the legalities of it.

Mylenium

The fire image would not be likely to be registered as a trademark. It may be covered by copyright, however, which is entirely different.

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6 hours ago, 62Bricks said:

which is entirely different.

...but equally irrelevant. Even copyright doesn't last forever and is subject to different regulations across different countries.

Mylenium

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3 hours ago, Mylenium said:

...but equally irrelevant. Even copyright doesn't last forever and is subject to different regulations across different countries.

Mylenium

In the US copyright protection for a work for hire (which the fire logo would be) is 95 years. In the EU it's 70. This design is certainly still under copyright.

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3 hours ago, 62Bricks said:

In the US copyright protection for a work for hire (which the fire logo would be) is 95 years. In the EU it's 70. This design is certainly still under copyright.

If only it were so simple. It's easy to say that everything comes with a built-in copyright, but the legal interpretation is a million times more complicated. Not every doodle on a piece of paper is art, after all. This could be endless. Suffice it to say that I stand by my initial statement: This would be going nowhere. If I were a judge I'd immediately dismiss he case because LEGO have exceeded their statute of limitation and not filed a complaint in a timely manner. You know, formal aspects are just as important in legal matters and I don't even need to give you a million other reasons dealing with the actual merits of an alleged copyright infringement that may be relevant. A potential case just doesn't hold water.

Mylenium

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36 minutes ago, Mylenium said:

Not every doodle on a piece of paper is art, after all.

Those doodles would be protected under copyright. You can't take someone else's work and use it for your commercial purposes without an agreement. 

Also copyright is secured automatically when the work is created. Registration of the work is not required, under US law registration is not a condition of copyright protection.

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15 hours ago, koalayummies said:

Those doodles would be protected under copyright. You can't take someone else's work and use it for your commercial purposes without an agreement. Also copyright is secured automatically when the work is created. Registration of the work is not required, under US law registration is not a condition of copyright protection.

Sure, but how would you defend your doodle if someone still misused it? That's ultimately the point: It comes down to that old "the letter of the law vs. its interpretation and practical application vs. whether you can afford the litigation". That's no different with this logo here. On a plain legal level you would have to proof malicious intent to begin with and then some... Again: If LEGO were to make a fuss about this artwork, it would be going nowhere. Too many ways to explain this coincidental similarity away. :P

Mylenium

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12 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Sure, but how would you defend your doodle if someone still misused it? That's ultimately the point: It comes down to that old "the letter of the law vs. its interpretation and practical application vs. whether you can afford the litigation". That's no different with this logo here. On a plain legal level you would have to proof malicious intent to begin with and then some... Again: If LEGO were to make a fuss about this artwork, it would be going nowhere. Too many ways to explain this coincidental similarity away. :P

Mylenium

You don't have to prove malicious intent, all you have to prove is that you created it; with some works its easier than others like digital photographs (exif/metadata/raw files). For a doodle or a song publishing it online can establish copyright. Proving that another party was using it for commercial purposes is easy.

A large company like TLG wouldn't have much trouble with this except for what you pointed out the statute of limitations depending on jurisdiction.

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11 hours ago, koalayummies said:

For a doodle or a song publishing it online can establish copyright.

Nope. Publishing something doesn't magically imbue it with some form of extended protection beyond its initial creation. It only empowers you to determine the usage rights by ways of specifying a specific license type like GPL, BSD, CC0 etc. and to some degree control proliferation of your works. And you are also wrong that doing so is limited or defined by commercial use. If I publish an image online and just don't care about limiting its usage it is free to be used in commercial works, for personal use and whatever else. I may just need to spell that out somewhere and may stipulate that at least a citation of the original source may be required.

Other than that it seems to me that you assume that copyright law has some magic aura that protects you from all evils or at the very least allows you to reclaim your works by just pointing fingers. That's just not the case. You proactively have to defend and keep track of your works and any "letting it slide" attitude weakens your case. Ultimately that's why I as an media and graphics artist never have bothered. I've seen stuff of mine being used on Discovery Channel documentaries when it was never intended to. Should I have sued the production company and be caught up in this for years? An utter waste of time and not worth the effort.

So once more: If anyone took this logo thingy to court, this would end up being the same. At the end of the day it would be something like 2 million lawyer fees against 2 million paid in damages and nobody gains anything, if this would even be considered a winnable case on LEGO's behalf, which I don't. Let's just leave it at that or else this ends up like those pointless "Someone stole my precious MOC/ instructions." threads...

Mylenium

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13 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Nope. Publishing something doesn't magically imbue it with some form of extended protection beyond its initial creation. It only empowers you to determine the usage rights by ways of specifying a specific license type like GPL, BSD, CC0 etc.

I never said it grants protection, publishing the previously listed examples helps establish copyright.

13 hours ago, Mylenium said:

And you are also wrong that doing so is limited or defined by commercial use. If I publish an image online and just don't care about limiting its usage it is free to be used in commercial works, for personal use and whatever else. I may just need to spell that out somewhere and may stipulate that at least a citation of the original source may be required.

One cannot use a work for commercial purposes unless those rights have been expressly waived. I'm guessing personal usage one of the murky Creative Commons licenses is the reason for this indifference. The record label in discussion is using another company's creation for his own personal commercial usage (album cover, sales). Whether a basic Photoshop>flip horizontal is altering it enough from the original like Shepard Fairey's Obama/AP Photo is for the courts to decide.

14 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Other than that it seems to me that you assume that copyright law has some magic aura that protects you from all evils or at the very least allows you to reclaim your works by just pointing fingers. That's just not the case. You proactively have to defend and keep track of your works and any "letting it slide" attitude weakens your case. Ultimately that's why I as an media and graphics artist never have bothered. I've seen stuff of mine being used on Discovery Channel documentaries when it was never intended to. Should I have sued the production company and be caught up in this for years? An utter waste of time and not worth the effort.

This sounds like an idle approach to copyright enforcement.

If your work was being used for commercial purposes without your express consent and agreement (especially within the same country you reside), or you waived your rights by releasing to the public domain/one of the 'Creative Commons' licenses that allows for commercial usage so long as the creator is attributed then easy money was given away along with rights [unless it was being used in another country other than your own that has poor copyright protections and thus not likely to be fruitful in damages]. There are individual photographers that make 5-6 figures a year (US dollars) just from copyright suits, as easy as emailing their lawyers who deal exclusively with copyright.

TLG could very well have a case here. You don't agree so that's basically the end of this back and forth. You may have the last response.

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Nope. You're wrong on so many accounts. It's not as easy as "emailing your lawyer" nor is anything in copyright law ever "obvious". It's all riding on expert opinions and a judge/ jury understanding the arguments presented in a legal case. Even those photographers cashing in still had the burden of proof the first time around and only after setting a legal precedent, i.e winning their first case or getting a settlement with the person the sued acknowledging their wrongdoing. Anyway, this could be endless and it's getting tiring, so I'm retreating from this discussion....

Mylenium

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