There's this grafitti tagger here in town who scrawls his name everywhere in big black magic marker. On the sides of mailboxes, on walls, on doors. Thing is, it's a nice design and he's got a catchy name. I was thinking the other day that if I started a clothing line, I would like to use his tag as my trademark logo. Chances are, he hasn't trademarked his tag. If I decided to trademark it myself, then deployed it as the name of my clothing line, as well as use his scrawl on the backs of the hoodies I sold - legally, would he have any recourse?
posted by Sully on Oct 8, 2009 - 29 answers

Assuming I am true and honest to my word and delete the music from my hard drive once I sell it, how can I legally make money selling old music that I have legally downloaded and no longer want? [more inside]
posted by Effigy2000 on Jan 12, 2009 - 10 answers

"[Companies] have a legal responsibility to make their shareholders lots of money, which means they *MUST* rip you off for as much as they can get away with." Really? [more inside]
posted by divabat on Jun 13, 2008 - 24 answers

I am running a free Web-based service for friends and acquaintances. Lately, the volume on this service has been growing greatly. The next step is to move the service to a professional host. I am thinking of putting a paypal donation button on the site to help pay for it. Are there any legal or tax issues I need to worry about? Do I need a business license? What if I want to start selling Cafe Press items or running Google ads? I am located in the USA.
posted by Orkboi on Jan 16, 2005 - 5 answers

Copyright vs. Satire: How far can one extend the 'fair use' or satire legalities when it comes to using similar imagery in advertisement? (more inside) [more inside]
posted by BrodieShadeTree on Nov 9, 2004 - 7 answers