Fake Magazine Covers

← Return to forum

• May 26, 2010 @ 2:47pmsilverhalide says:

  Hello everyone. This is my first post so forgive me if a similar question has already been asked.
  
  I work for a professional photo lab. One of our services to our photographers is to create various templates that are displayed through an ordering software and applied to their images before printing.
  
  For our sports photographers, we offer many different designs such as baseball trader cards, graphic prints, etc.
  
  One of those types of graphic prints we offer is magazine covers. Our templates are always completely designed by us. My question is: Is it illegal to base a magazine cover template off of a popular magazine design?
  
  For example, we would like to emulate the design of Sports Illustrated, but call it Baseball Illustrated. The design aesthetic would LOOK LIKE Sports Illustrated in font choice, etc. Another option we want to use is BQ: Baseball Quarterly, and make the design style look as close to GQ as possible.
  
  We never use actual magazine cover names, just change them up to coincide with our sports theme, but The templates themselves are never sold to our clients, they are only online. We just sell the final prints to them, which are then sold to their clients.
  
  A perfect example of what we are doing with our templates is what SHOWTIME did with their ad campaign for the previous season of Dexter:
  
  http://thetvaddict.com/2008/08/28/exclusive-first-look-dexter-turns-cover-boy/
  
  So, is this legal?
• April 15, 2011 @ 4:25pmarnold24 says:

  [quote=silverhalide][color=#f1f1f1]best mortgage rates[/color] Hello everyone. This is my first post so forgive me if a similar question has already been asked. I work for a professional photo lab. One of our services to our photographers is to create various templates that are displayed through an ordering software and applied to their images before printing. For our sports photographers, we offer many different designs such as baseball trader cards, graphic prints, etc. One of those types of graphic prints we offer is magazine covers. Our templates are always completely designed by us. My question is: Is it illegal to base a magazine cover template off of a popular magazine design? For example, we would like to emulate the design of Sports Illustrated, but call it Baseball Illustrated. The design aesthetic would LOOK LIKE Sports Illustrated in font choice, etc. Another option we want to use is BQ: Baseball Quarterly, and make the design style look as close to GQ as possible. We never use actual magazine cover names, just change them up to coincide with our sports theme, but The templates themselves are never sold to our clients, they are only online. We just sell the final prints to them, which are then sold to their clients. A perfect example of what we are doing with our templates is what SHOWTIME did with their ad campaign for the previous season of Dexter: http://thetvaddict.com/2008/08/28/exclusive-first-look-dexter-turns-cover-boy/ So, is this legal?[/quote] This is a bit of a grey area. The key thing that would be discussed in court is whether or not you are misleading the reader into thinking that he is looking at the original publication. Some graphics / logos might be protected so that's something you would need to look into as well.
• April 18, 2011 @ 2:14pmGClement says:

  Silverhalide, the description of your company's service -- where you are deliberately trying to make the design style look as close to a well known magazine as possible -- seems like you could be creating brand confusion. For this reason, you could be looking at a trademark issue. Trademark is out of the scope of this copyright discussion board, and you may want consult other resources such as the US Patent and Trademark Office at http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/. The USPTO website even offers an online search where you can enter the name of interest (such as 'Sports Illustrated') to see what trademarks have been issued).
• July 26, 2011 @ 2:36pmomcsupport says:

  I have to agree. I think its one thing if this is in a non-publicized arena, but it definitely opens the possibility of retribution. I was also wondering about a grey area though I may have to re-post in appropriate area and that is can a person use the word google as part of a domain name or is that a copyright infringement? Thanks.
• September 15, 2011 @ 3:58amLaura090 says:

  Yes if i was you i would check up on this before going ahead with it.. although this type of thing happens every day online and people seem to be getting away with it, in the real world i doubt they'd be so forgiving :( [color=#dedfdf]crate training puppies[/color] [color=#dedfdf]puppy aggression[/color] [color=#dedfdf]puppy whining[/color] [color=#dedfdf]puppy growling[/color] [color=#dedfdf]weaning puppies[/color] [color=#dedfdf]puppy chewing[/color] [color=#dedfdf]puppy separation anxiety[/color] [color=#dedfdf]puppy crying[/color] [color=#dedfdf]how to leash train a puppy[/color] [color=#dedfdf]why do dogs eat grass[/color] [color=#dedfdf]why do dogs eat poop[/color] [color=#dedfdf]puppy toilet training[/color] [color=#dedfdf]how to train a puppy[/color] [color=#dedfdf]puppy training tips[/color] [color=#dedfdf]puppy barking[/color] [color=#dedfdf]puppy biting[/color] [color=#dedfdf]house training a puppy[/color] [color=#dedfdf]puppy feeding schedule[/color] [color=#dedfdf]a[/color] [color=#dedfdf]b[/color] [color=#dedfdf]c[/color] [color=#dedfdf]d[/color] [color=#dedfdf]e[/color] [color=#dedfdf]f[/color] [color=#dedfdf]g[/color] [color=#dedfdf]h[/color] [color=#dedfdf]i[/color] [color=#dedfdf]j[/color] [color=#dedfdf]k[/color] [color=#dedfdf]l[/color] [color=#dedfdf]m[/color] [color=#dedfdf]n[/color] [color=#dedfdf]o[/color] [color=#dedfdf]p[/color] [color=#dedfdf]q[/color] [color=#dedfdf]r[/color] [color=#dedfdf]marijuana seeds for sale[/color] [color=#dedfdf]weed seeds for sale[/color] [color=#dedfdf]buy cannabis seeds[/color] [color=#dedfdf]cannabis seeds for sale[/color] [color=#dedfdf]pot seeds for sale[/color] [color=#dedfdf]northern lights weed[/color] [color=#dedfdf]female seeds[/color] [color=#dedfdf]medical seeds[/color] [color=#dedfdf]seedbank reviews[/color] [color=#dedfdf]lemon skunk[/color]
• September 16, 2011 @ 6:41pmFreya Anderson says:

  I agree that the original post describe a gray area. I wonder, though, if the service described might be considered parody rather than brand confusion. I suppose that's unlikely in this case, but I find it intriguing.
• November 28, 2011 @ 11:22ammickle_john says:

  One of those types of graphic prints we offer is magazine covers. Our templates are always completely designed by us. My question is: Is it illegal to base a magazine cover template off of a popular magazine design?

Posting to the forum is only available to users who are logged in.

← Return to forum