KU Buckets T-Shirts
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Unfortunately, anything with Kansas University or Jayhawk or even with the crimson and blue color and any reference to basketball would have KU lawyers all over it and there is now a precedent…just ask Joe-College.com
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Thanks for the link-that scares me but the intent is non-profit- Just exposure. Perhaps in the end I just need to print a few things and give them away-zero change of money beyond what I pay someone to print and then give them away.
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First, I am not a lawyer. But if I were you, and wanted to pursue these T-shirts, I wouldn’t let any one’s gloom-and-dooming and fears get in the way. Why don’t you just write Larry Keating a letter and ask him if it would be okay with him and his lawyers if you were to make up some KU Buckets t-shirts, and sell them to cover costs, and inform him that any surplus that might unintentionally result you would be happy to donate to KUAD, or the Williams Fund, or the Assists Foundation, or whatever he thinks would be appropriate. And if he says no, then respect his wishes and just don’t do it. We live in an age when too many don’t give persons in authority a chance to act with some generosity of spirit, or to explain why they cannot. You would not be asking to do something similar to what the firm mentioned in the story was trying to do, so there is no real reason to assume what Mr. Keating might decide without asking him. Too many persons go negative and/or scare the heck out of others rather than just give them common sense advice. You are a fan. You love KU Basketball. You like this web site. Its not a commercial web site, so far as I understand it. Its reputedly 42 board rats that post frequently and some others that don’t, and a bunch of spam identities; that’s all. We are not talking about commercial competition for anyone. We are just some fans using the web to talk hoops. I am not even knowledgeable enough to know if KU would have any implied rights in such t-shirts. So: probably all you ought to do is write Larry Keating, or whomever is the appropriate contact person and ask them; that 's all. In the story, Mr. Keating sounded reasonable to me. He indicated KU gave the firm and its management in the story many chances to stop before any legal actions occurred. The key thing is you won’t know until you ask. Mr. Keating might have a very honorable and legally sound reason for saying no, or he might say, sure, go ahead. I don’t know. But it can’t hurt to ask. At least that is how it seems to this layman.
Rock Chalk!!!
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Even if you give them away for free, you are getting the benefit of the exposure. You would have to license them through KU and the process is long expensive and you have to pay royalties on each item you produce.
An acquaintance of mine had a flooring business and wanted to make area rugs with big Jayhawk in the center; it took several months and had to pay several hundred dollars to process the application and he has to submit samples before getting approval, plus he had to pay a percentage of sales. as royalties. Unless you are producing large quantities, the cots is prohibitive.
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@jaybate-1.0 said:
just write Larry Keating a letter and ask him if it would be okay with him and his lawyers if you were to make up some KU Buckets t-shirts, and sell them to cover costs, and inform him that any surplus that might unintentionally result you would be happy to donate to KUAD, or the Williams Fund, or the Assists Foundation, or whatever he thinks would be appropriate.
I agree with this approach if we want to pursue this. And just follow whatever comes out of his answer to the request. However, the request needs to include the final design so that the request is specific and well understood.
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I’m not sure… but you always need a catchy phrase on the front if you will wear our shirts to a game. Who knows… we might get on the tube!
I’m not sure about printing the Jayhawk. It may be hard to find someone to do it without authorization, especially since our logo is unique, identifiable, and known to be protected.
But if we can I think a short quick run could be done without issues, and not for profit. I wouldn’t keep them on this site and show them for sale. Just describe the designs, maybe show some of it, people place orders, then they just mysteriously arrive in the mail.
I think we can also go through the front door on this one and find contact info on the university site and ask for permission.
“Kansas Athletics earns about $2 million a year in licensing revenues, received through the sale of products that contain Jayhawks, KU logos, Kansas team names and other related items, said Jim Marchiony, associate athletics director.”
There used to be a tricky way around this.
In my examples above… saying… “University of Kansas, Jayhawk Basketball” would probably be as wrong as printing the Jayhawk.
I thought it used to be okay to say “Kansas Basketball” because what exactly does that mean? It could mean anything… but from reading that article it wouldn’t surprise me if the courts see otherwise because it is always tough for the little man to win in court.
I remember that shop down on Mass but never went in. Did any of you go in and know what he printed on his shirts?
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The owner of Joe College thought the same thing and yet KU prevailed.
As far as asking permission, this is what “licensing” is all about, you ask (and hopefully receive) permission to use the “art work” legally owned by the university for a fee and royalties.
If you write a letter I am 100% sure that they will direct you to the Licensing Department. Depending on the product, the university (through its licensing department and/or partner agency) will either give you permission (for a fee. i.e. “licensing” ) or deny it all together if it feels it is on poor taste or does not follow the guidelines outlined; alcohol and tobacco fall under this category. There is no way that they will let you use and art work owned by the university at no cost, otherwise, they would have every non-profit organization asking for the same exception; most likely you will have to either get a license or use one of the current licensees to produce the end product. There may be a smaller, local licensee (Kansas Sampler??) that is wiling to produce a small batch (under 100).
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This is what the licensing department does. You can write Larry Keating or Bernadette Gray-Little or any big shot at KU and regardless of who you write, I can just about guarantee that you will be directed to the Licensing Department, as I mentioned in my previous post.
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My kids have had shirts made up at acme in Lawrence. Pretty sure they could help you figure one out. They would know what would be legal. We just made up some shirts there for the royals, some slogans they been using. They are pretty good!
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Finally we have a real and valid option.
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I’ve been extremely busy recently and so I’m sorry I haven’t gotten anything done on this. @JayhawkRock78 and you guys have my endorsement however you want to go with this. This will always be a community and I appreciate your efforts in making good things happen. Rock Chalk!
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If you want an easy way for people to order, plus have it done “one off” then companies like Cafepress do a pretty good job.
They aren’t as cheap as doing a run, but shirts/caps/everything is only made per individual order. Plus… they have a shopping cart system so people can pay by cc.
I’ve had them do several things before and the quality is pretty good. I don’t believe shirts are screenprinted, but they use a high quality transfer system that isn’t like the old way where the designs start peeling off.
@JayHawkFanToo - Yes… you described it right, and I don’t think there are any exceptions around paying licensing fees.
But you can avoid fees when you make it vague. I’m not sure you have a problem with a basketball image and the word “Kansas” written over it. At least, that is the way it used to be. Univ of Kansas owns rights on material using their name and mascot, but they don’t own our State name, even when combining it with a basketball word or image.
Joe College wasn’t in any position to take on the university. And i’m positive they gave him a chance to bow out gracefully without a lawsuit. If he would have ceased his operation of anything relating directly to the university, they would have pulled the suit.
Here are some links to Cafepress that has some Kansas things that I’m talking about:
They probably have a couple of hundred things on there that hint about the university.
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Joe College did take on KU, unfortunately for them, they just did not have the law on their side so KU prevailed.
Cafepress might be a KU licensee.
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There are a few Naismith images in the public domain, so that shouldn’t be an issue. The only problem would be using “KU” … kind of hard to avoid that since it’s in the site url.
Maybe if we just add (No Malice.) to the art, they’ll go easy on us?
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Or… not mention KU so prominently (other than the website)
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Riff on Slayr’s last slogan above…
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This is a big help.
I am in touch with Acme and am looking into cafepress today as well. I will find out what we can or can’t do but acme tells me they run things by ku regularly.
I am beginning to think I just try a few designs with cafepress t shirts and a simple hat. Everyone could order themselves or even design their own. If they are so inclined.
I will keep ya’ll posted.
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@DanR Those are all outstanding. I was trying to do a cut and paste with the website logo. Acme has it and will let me know.
However, I love all three of your designs and it may be best to use yours as is.
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This might be legal?
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@DanR Those are outstanding! I’d buy any (or all) of them.
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I still suggest asking Mr. Keating before doing anything. Give him and KU a chance to be generous and kind, or to explain why they cannot be. And unless the image DanR used of Naismith IS in the public domain, and probably even if it is, because DanR used Naismith’s name in the slogan, you should probably ask the representatives of his estate. And Wilt’s estate, too, since his name is used in the slogan. It seems the right thing to do.
It sure is a handsome looking t, regardless.
Backfill here.
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And here.
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And here.
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@JayhawkRock78 These were just a couple quick ideas. I’m in the graphic design/advertising biz and have created more T-shirt designs than I care to remember. If we can all come up with a decent idea and legal design, I’d be happy to prepare the print-ready artwork.
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I love what you did. You remind me of a marketing gal that worked for me back in the day. I would cook something up and show it to her-the next day she’d have something that would blow my socks off. I guess my brain is just too linear.
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@jaybate-1.0 said:
Larry Keating
No need to bother Larry Keating. As JayhakwFanToo mentioned, just about anything with “KU” on it will need written approval from the trademark licensing director at KU before any local printer will touch it.
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Ok, I am an old layman coot and know nothing of such things.
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Back when the Saints went to the SB the NFL tried to get New Orleans shops to stop selling merchandise with the fleur-de-lis on it or “Who Dat” on it. They backed off with the stipulation that as long as it wasn’t marketed as official Saints or NFL merchandise. Just my 2 cents worth. Two hours to “Play Ball.” (beer)
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Perhaps that will keep us below the radar.
And please don’t take this as a shot at you. I love to visit NO, but that is a very corrupt city/state IMO. We were there for my daughter’s club bball tourney, and they made the girls show them all their bags and made them throw out their water bottles, making them buy inside the facility for $2 each. I’ve never seen an athletic organization do anything so sleazy in my life.-there were probably 100 teams of teenage girls in that tourney.
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Anyone ever watch the “Nathan for You” Dumb Starbucks episode?? He opened an “art gallery” called Dumb Starbucks in which he sold coffee much like the real Starbucks and was legally able to do so. The logo was pretty much the same as Starbucks but had dumb in front of it. The same with all of the items the store sold. The episode was pretty funny and the show in general wasn’t bad at all. Check it out. But to my point…
Under Fair Use you can:
One of the rights accorded to the owner of copyright is the right to reproduce or to authorize others to reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords. This right is subject to certain limitations found in sections 107 through 118 of the copyright law (title 17, U. S. Code). One of the more important limitations is the doctrine of “fair use.” The doctrine of fair use has developed through a substantial number of court decisions over the years and has been codified in section 107 of the copyright law.
Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair.
The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes The nature of the copyrighted work The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted workThe distinction between what is fair use and what is infringement in a particular case will not always be clear or easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.
The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.”
Copyright protects the particular way authors have expressed themselves. It does not extend to any ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in a work.
The safest course is to get permission from the copyright owner before using copyrighted material. The Copyright Office cannot give this permission.
When it is impracticable to obtain permission, you should consider avoiding the use of copyrighted material unless you are confident that the doctrine of fair use would apply to the situation. The Copyright Office can neither determine whether a particular use may be considered fair nor advise on possible copyright violations. If there is any doubt, it is advisable to consult an attorney.
I can’t believe we don’t have a lawyer on this site!?!?!
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I can’t believe we don’t have a lawyer on this site!?!?!
LOL. Be careful with what you wish for…
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I’ve worked with Cafepress before and they void out any obvious copyrighted material unless you have approval to show them.
@DanR - RIght on! I’d buy those! Just make it a darker blue! If those images are in the public domain then there will be no issues with those designs! Great job!
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“If we can all come up with a decent idea and legal design, I’d be happy to prepare the print-ready artwork.”
I’m on board with all of your designs… but especially love the one about Naismith and Wilt! Maybe you could tweak it to make “kubuckets.com” a bit larger because we should promote this site!
It is no problem to say kubuckets.com on our shirts… that does not infringe on university rights, plus… kubuckets.com has the right to promote their name. If they didn’t have that right, they would already be potentially breaking copyright law by having a website, especially if there is any related commercial aspects.
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I did go into joe college. They had 50+ different designs most were clearly copyright infringement.
Some of the more memorable: muck fizzou, beat KSU, Missouri 5million people 8 last names, I bleed Crimson and blue therefore I crap purple.
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On top of the note to Acme & cafepress I sent an email to Keating who replied he sent it on to the proper contact.
As for designs by DanR and other suggestions I think we can go with all of them until we hear from the powers that be and then let users choose style and sizes.
RCJH
@approxinfinity said:
I’ve been extremely busy recently and so I’m sorry I haven’t gotten anything done on this. @JayhawkRock78 and you guys have my endorsement however you want to go with this. This will always be a community and I appreciate your efforts in making good things happen. Rock Chalk!
With all you’ve done with this site you should never apologize to anyone here for anything. RCJH
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Watch out! Looked what happened.
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@Crimsonorblue22 Big Government went on a panty raid…
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LOL. Big Government has been on panty raid for as long as I can remember.
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@Crimsonorblue22 Too bad they don’t show as much concern with protecting our southern border.
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Suggested slogans for the T-Shirt
KUBuckets Old Farts Talking Hoops
KUBuckets Talking KU before we kick the bucket
KUBuckets Guardians of the Jayhawk Legend
KUBuckets Phog Allen Ghostwrites Here
KUBuckets We don’t often blog, but when we do, it’s KUBuckets
Or KUBuckets, when we write, Bill Self Listens because we’re the most interesting men on the face of the earth.
In the Beginning God created the heavens and KUBuckets.
KUBuckets John Wooden Read Here
KUBuckets Tom Keegan wishes he was us
KUBuckets @Jesse-Newell Gets His Ideas From Us
KUBuckets If Guy Lewis read us there’d been no Jim Valvano running around the court looking for someone to hug.
KUBuckets James Naismith Invented Basketball We Perfected It
KUBuckets Thankful every day we’re not the major school just to the east and just to the west.
KUBuckets The epicenter of the hoops world
KUBuckets We Wish There Was a KUGridiron
KUBuckets Thankful we’re not UKBuckets
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@wissoxfan83 DUDE! You’re on your game today - those are awesome!
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Yo! I know I’m a lil late to the party, but I’m totally down for a t-shirt. In fact I want two!
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Here is the guy we need to obtain written permission from:
Paul Vander Tuig, Trademark Licensing Director
The University of Kansas
Office of Trademark Licensing
1601 Irving Hill Road
Burge Union, Room 306
Lawrence, KS 66045-7557
Phone: (785) 864-4650
FAX: (785) 864-3877
e-mail: pvt@ku.edu
Here’s the list of verbiage that is trademarked:
- The University of Kansas
(Use “THE” when possible) - KU
- Kansas Jayhawks
- Jayhawks
- The Crimson and the Blue
- Kansas
- Beak 'Em Hawks
- Rock Chalk Jayhawk
- Allen Fieldhouse
- Kivisto Field
On the KU Athletics page they have a FAQ page and one of the questions is about royalties and what happens to the money raised from the royalties. Proceeds generated by the trademark licensing program are returned to KU students through academic or athletic scholarships and student programs administered by the KU Endowment Association. All net royalties are deposited into these funds annually.
This is some more info on my Fair Use stance.
Some courts have recognized a somewhat different, but closely-related, fair-use defense, called nominative use. Nominative use occurs when use of a term is necessary for purposes of identifying another producer’s product, not the user’s own product. For example, the newspaper USA Today ran a telephone poll, asking its readers to vote for their favorite member of the music group New Kids on the Block. The New Kids on the Block sued USA Today for trademark infringement. The court held that the use of the trademark “New Kids on the Block” was a privileged nominative use because: (1) the group was not readily identifiable without using the mark; (2) USA Today used only so much of the mark as reasonably necessary to identify it; and (3) there was no suggestion of endorsement or sponsorship by the group. The basic idea is that use of a trademark is sometimes necessary to identify and talk about another party’s products and services. When the above conditions are met, such a use will be privileged. New Kids on the Block v. News America Publishing, Inc., 971 F.2d 302 (9th Cir. 1992). Read Here for more…
- The University of Kansas
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@wissoxfan83 PHOF
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@Kip_McSmithers said:
Here is the guy we need to obtain written permission from:
Paul Vander Tuig, Trademark Licensing Director
The University of Kansas
Office of Trademark Licensing
1601 Irving Hill Road
Burge Union, Room 306
Lawrence, KS 66045-7557
Phone: (785) 864-4650
FAX: (785) 864-3877
e-mail: pvt@ku.edu
Here’s the list of verbiage that is trademarked:
- The University of Kansas
(Use “THE” when possible)
- KU
- Kansas Jayhawks
- Jayhawks
- The Crimson and the Blue
- Kansas
- Beak 'Em Hawks
- Rock Chalk Jayhawk
- Allen Fieldhouse
- Kivisto Field
On the KU Athletics page they have a FAQ page and one of the questions is about royalties and what happens to the money raised from the royalties. Proceeds generated by the trademark licensing program are returned to KU students through academic or athletic scholarships and student programs administered by the KU Endowment Association. All net royalties are deposited into these funds annually.
This is some more info on my Fair Use stance.
Some courts have recognized a somewhat different, but closely-related, fair-use defense, called nominative use. Nominative use occurs when use of a term is necessary for purposes of identifying another producer’s product, not the user’s own product. For example, the newspaper USA Today ran a telephone poll, asking its readers to vote for their favorite member of the music group New Kids on the Block. The New Kids on the Block sued USA Today for trademark infringement. The court held that the use of the trademark “New Kids on the Block” was a privileged nominative use because: (1) the group was not readily identifiable without using the mark; (2) USA Today used only so much of the mark as reasonably necessary to identify it; and (3) there was no suggestion of endorsement or sponsorship by the group. The basic idea is that use of a trademark is sometimes necessary to identify and talk about another party’s products and services. When the above conditions are met, such a use will be privileged. New Kids on the Block v. News America Publishing, Inc., 971 F.2d 302 (9th Cir. 1992). Read Here for more…
Thanks. I have a response from acme-see cut and paste below.
- The University of Kansas
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Below is my answer from Acme in Lawrence.
Hi there,
Yes, this is something we could potentially print, but only because we have a licensing agreement with the university. As such, anything with KU or Jayhawk or reference to that, has to be approved by KU. How it all works is we would put the design together (either in store or via email) and then you pay a $5.00 approval fee. That fee goes to the university for using their logos and we submit it to the approval board. Once they give us the okay, then we can go ahead with the order. Since any of your ideas would need approval I think all of them would work equally as well, so it’s really just up to you which direction you’d like to go with the shirt. Just let us know which one you’d like us to put a design together for and we’ll get a rough draft started for you!
Now as far as the printing goes, we could make a design and just have it on file and people can call in or email and order one and pay for them individually. If you want to get them at a cheaper price though, I would suggest having a bulk order printed up that people could purchase from you or the website. Any order over 24 shirts, we can have screenprinted by our friends here in town and save you a lot of money. So for example, an individual shirt in our store, with a one sided single color print is $18.95 before tax. The same shirt with a one color print on one side screenprinted would just be $8.71 before tax. So if that would be a possibility I would recommend going with one big order. But again, that’s totally up to you and what would work best for you!
Please let us know if you have any questions and if you’d like us to put a design together!
end of email.
So fellow Bucketeers,
Here is how I see it. Every design comes with a $5 approval fee. I have the feeling if we were to all pick the same one, we might not even get to the price break of 24 each that would lower the price from $18.95 to $8.71.
I could start the ball rolling if we were to vote on one, but I am thinking maybe we all want to choose our own shirt, and individually deal with acme for $5 + $18.95. There are so many good choices already I think it would be cool if different messages/slogans about KU Buckets are out there for the world to see.
What say you?
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@JayhawkRock78 just wanted to add- we ordered from there last week and got the nicer shirts-not the 100 percent cotton. Not where I can look it up, but just wanted you to know there’s a choice.
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@Crimsonorblue22 Good point-individuals would have lots of flexibility with types of shirts, colors, etc.
But as I said, if ya’ll want to vote on one to get a standard rolling, I will get it going.
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Being a layman, I cannot explain why, but I just don’t have a positive feeling about getting into the shirt activity in terms of possible fallout for the site’s owners without first getting permission from KU, and the estates of anyone else’s name, or image, put on the t-shirt. And even with the permissions, it seems some sound legal counsel would be prudent. My hunch is that @approxinfinity needs to weigh in on this, because this is his site and the actions that are being discussed are being discussed on his site and apparently aim to use the name of his site on the t-shirts.
I just don’t want to see any harm come to @approxinfinity and @bskeet, or the community. No one probably gives a hoot about our small online community, but I sometimes wonder about attorneys involved in seeking to set precedents for trademarks in the internet era and on the payroll of high powered players in the marketing game picking on tiny online communities like ours precisely because such communities are not funded to defend themselves, and because that makes them an easy mark for setting precedents with. Just a thought from a concerned layman.
(note: @JayhawkRock78, this is the post I moved from the quotes thread. Not sure how I goofed and got it on there in the first place. I hope it works out that it is ok to do the shirts, because they would be fun. )
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This is pretty much what I indicated the process would be like based on precedent. Since Acme already has a licensing agreement in place (this is the harder and more expensive part of the process), then I cannot see why there would be any concern about legal backlash. The shirts would be printed by a “licensed” business and the design approved by KU before hand. If there are any legal repercussions, it would be on Acme and not on this site or its owner; this is the reason why I suggested using a provide with an existing licensing agreement in place.
Looks like the leg work has been done. Great job!!!
