Question about selling arcade art???

uolarethian

Member
Joined
Oct 3, 2009
Messages
78
Reaction score
0
Location
Danville, Pennsylvania
How is it legal for some one to sell say a t-shirt with Pac-man on it, or key chains? I am having some things made for me using repo art from the net and think that some of my fellow game lovers would like it to but I am not sure how that works with copy right laws and all.

Any info would be greatly appreciated.
 
Well it is really not legal to reproduce copyrighted art work with out the permission of the owner. People just take a chance and do it sometimes.
 
Yea I'd like to understand this further.. Obviously copyright
is copyright, but the real question is who is really enforcing?
How difficult is it to license various logos and artwork? Who's
a PIA? Who's easy? Who owns Atari or Bally/Midway?

Rich? Darin? Thoughts?

I have a line of game room signs I am developing as well that
include a bunch of manufacturer logos and various artwork
- centipede side art in Metal for example. I'll also do custom ones.
 
I think it matters if the item is still in production.
For instance, it would be illegal for you to reproduce Mario images and sell it.
But nobody is making any PITFALL or Centipede reproductions. I think you just have to be careful about what you reproduce.
 
I think the bottom line is that if it's copyrighted then reproducing it without consent is illegal. That said some companies could care less if you repro the stuff and don't enforce their copyrights. Others like namco have been known in the past to do so. Many repros basically fly under the radar because atari or whatever company doesn't care to invest the time to really search out everyone making a repro product. Some folks like Darin of Phoenix arcade will contact the people who own the copyrights in certain cases and negotiate a deal to repro the items they want to. Mostly though if you are making repros that will be sold to a small community like ours, you will fly under the radar and not be noticed. Unless you are trying to repro stuff that twobits.com sells.
 
If you printed up ten t-shirts (because your print shop had a 10-shirt-minimum) with some pac-man logo on them and decided to sell off the other 9 to people here, you'd most likely be fine. Make 1000 and try to sell them on Ebay or at Wal-Mart, and you'd be getting a C & D...
 
This is what my Cousin tells me, how true it is I don't know...You will get a cease and desist first before anything bad happens. If you don't stop then a lawsuit can start. It is hard to actually get sued unless the company in question can prove they lost money, or you took potential money away because of your product. I personally think vintage side art is pretty safe but something like Pac Man T-shirts might be a different story ;)
 
This is what my Cousin tells me, how true it is I don't know...You will get a cease and desist first before anything bad happens. If you don't stop then a lawsuit can start. It is hard to actually get sued unless the company in question can prove they lost money, or you took potential money away because of your product. I personally think vintage side art is pretty safe but something like Pac Man T-shirts might be a different story ;)

If you are small potatoes you'll get a C&D most likely. If you are someone and they think they can either make an example or really hurt you, the'll slap you w/ a lawsuit. Typically it's an evaluation of cost and benefits. Going the lawsuit route costs them quite a bit. Often times they lack the staff on hand to handle a lawsuit so they hire out to handle that. That's a ton of additional costs depending on how clear and drawn out the lawsuit is.

Most of what the guys have said here are right on. Most of the game companies that out there protecting their properties are there to protect "trademarks." If you see a (R) then it's been registered and they paid to clear that trademark. It's theirs and they will mostlikely defend it, that's what they trademarked it. TM means it's in process or they intend to. Nothing is binding, yet. (c) is usually for text or writing. Commonly it's for books and or a story.

Namco is the most aggressive I've heard of in protecting their back catalog of properties.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100730/17081510430.shtml

I would also say that Activision is very litigious as well.
 
Last edited:
I would not try to sell the stuff on ebay. I've listed things and had them pulled before, like NOS Bally back box decals. Engineering software NIB too.
 
Last edited:
shhhhhh dont ask dont tell lol
heres a little story for you, so a few years back my exwifes uncle comes back from over seas i think he was in turkey. so for he brings gifts for everyone. he bought all the adults rolex watches. now i dont wear jewelry i never have so i have no idea what a real rolex looks like and he had picked up my ex and i matching his and hers they came in a sweet rolex box i mean these watches looked amazing great detail. so a year or two passes and we never take them out of the box i ask my ex hey money is tight and christmas is coming up would you mind if i try to sell those watches to get some extra money? she said go ahead so i list them on ebay i get a email from ebay saying that they were notified by a third party that the watches are fakes and pulled my add. i contact ebay and say im sorry i had no idea and thanks for the heads up. a week later i get a letter in the mail from some hot shot 5th ave lawyer saying that on the behalf of rolex in need to C&D and turn over all property along with a check for $350 for their legal bills and give them the name and contact of the person who sold / gave me the watches. to make this very long story short i never gave them the watches i told them to get bent and that they cant charge me with a crime do to they have to show intent and i showed no intent because how was i to know they were fake. but its funny how they tried to bully me so i fought rolex and won lol. what im getting at is i would stay off the main stream sights like ebay and craigslist. just sell to friends and in small numbers you should be fine. but some companies have people out there just searching those sites looking for this kind of stuff. again i would not worry about having a few things made up as long as you stay low key and are not getting rich off of it i dont see them wasting their time going after the little guy like i said rolex was trying to bully me to send them the watches and $350. sorry for the long story not trying to high jack your thread
 
What it comes down to is it's completely illegal.


Somebody who owned the copyright though would have to prosecute you, and in general it's not worth it to them. They MAY send you a letter threatening you with a lawsuit, but probably not unless you were pretty public about it.

Lots of gray areas and of course there's the moral issue people bring up where they're only making it for their machine, blah blah blah but when it comes down to it, if you go to court on it, you're going to LOSE.

Lets hope that doesn't happen with the big guys, it would hurt us that need the art.









The big guys that watch out for counterfeit are Disney, Tommy Hilfiger (used to, who knows now?), Namco, Nintendo will put you in prison over the shit. Nintendo doesn't say anything about their Arcade Art, though, so no big deal. Williams and Gottlieb are very protective of their pinball stuff because they've sold the license rights (temporarily).
 
Last edited:
Thanks for all the info, all things considered I may have something to sell if any one is interested. I have to wait to see how it turns out but it could be of interest to others.

Thanks again for all the info, you all have been more then helpful.

Larethian
 
So Namco owns Galaga and the pacman series.
Obviously they created games back in the day.

Have they acquired anything else over the years?
 
I haven't been in the scene much lately, but I remember a rather large online side-art/marquee place that I bought stuff from back in 2004 or 2005, they had a TON of art for sale, but then one day I went to buy something and they only had a disc available you could buy that showed you how to print it yourself and included a file of the artwork. Does anyone else remember these guys? If so, did they possibly get a lawsuit or threatend with one so they had to stop selling?
 
i have a wierd copyright question non arcade realted

me and the family had some xmas pictures taken at JcPennys

i took one of the 8x10 and made some 5x7 (like 2-3) made at Meijers.

i had to sign something saying i have permission from jcpennys to reproduce the pictures of me and my family.

how and the heck is pictures of me an dmy family copyrights from Jcpennys.

Also Jcpennys told us the same thing that i could only get the diffrent sizes from them, i just laughed at them and took my pictures.

Why is this copyright infrinment???

ty
frank
 
Because they took the pictures, you only own the copy of the photo not the original. The next time you get pictures done ask how much it would cost to buy the rights to the pictures so you will legally be able to make as many copies as you want to.
 
well

what has my interest is why yours in this?
What do you have planned?
must have something in mind with a total of 7 post's on here and this topic to come up..

tell us what your thinking about doing :)

How is it legal for some one to sell say a t-shirt with Pac-man on it, or key chains? I am having some things made for me using repo art from the net and think that some of my fellow game lovers would like it to but I am not sure how that works with copy right laws and all.

Any info would be greatly appreciated.
 
Back
Top Bottom