Copyright/Trademark issues

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Posted By: Bert Shealy

Sorry if this has been discussed previously. Does anyone have any information on the legal issues involved with reprinting some of the vintage cards? If I wanted to reprint the T206 set, for example, does anyone still own the rights to cards? I know that the images of many of the players are protected by companies like IMG. What would it take to reprint common players?

Thanks for any info.

Bert

[Archive]

Posted By: petecld

Companies like IMG do own the rights to image of players but they don't own the rights to the "image" of a Baseball card created from those images. The resultant Baseball cards aren't copyright protected. The original art an be copyright protected but that would all be depend on the contract between the artist & company. Most artists in those days didn't keep the rights to their work.

If my understanding of copyright is correct even if a company like IMG holds the rights to an original photo of say the T206 Cobb (bat on shoiulder) they don't own any rights to repoduction of any of the T206 cards. If so anyone selling a T206 Cobb (bat on shoiulder) anywhere would be breaking copyright law.

Since T206s and other vintage Baseball cards aren't copyrighted, there can't be copyright infringement when reselling those cards.

[Archive]

Posted By: Paul

The copyright laws don't prevent anyone from reselling an original card. They only prevent you from copying (reprinting) the card, or selling an unauthorized copy.

Many vintage baseball cards were once protected by the copyright laws. For example, the famous uncut sheets of Old Judge cards in the Library of Congress were originally sent by Old Judge to the Copyright Office to obtain copyright protection. You also will occasionally see for sale the original 1933 Goudey cards sent to the Copyright Office for copyright protection.

Copyrights eventually do expire. For cards (and everything else) dated before 1976, I believe the copyrights expired after 56 years, though I'm not 100% sure about this time period, and Congress does sometimes extend these periods. In addition, copyrights effectively expire when a company goes out of business and never sells its rights to anyone. I believe Goudey went out of business long ago, and I've never heard anyone claim that they purchased Goudey's rights.

If you're interested in reprinting a set, and have concerns about possible copyright problems, I would call the Copyright Office in Washington D.C. If you give them the date when a set was distributed (like 1910), they should be able to tell you whether there is any chance that the copyright is still in force. If the Copyright Office isn't helpful, you might try to contact someone else who has reprinted sets in the past -- Bert Sugar, Dover Publishing, Larry Fritsch, and Frank Slocum come to mind. (Slocum published a book with pictures of cards, not actual card reprints, but it's the same thing). Your only other real choice is to contact one of society's leeches (a lawyer). Lawyers who specialize in copyright law should be able to determine whether a particular card set was ever protected by copyrights, and whether the copyrights have expired.

A separate problem you might encounter is the rights owned by the players themselves, or their heirs. Every famous person has what is called a "right of publicity." This right prevents other people from using their name or photograph for commercial gain without permission. For vintage sets, this USUALLY isn't a problem. For a player to have a right of publicity, he must have claimed that right during his lifetime. Back in 1910, there was no such thing as a "right of publicity", so no players made any claims. However, the heirs of a few players -- particularly Babe Ruth's heirs -- have tried to stop others from using the player's name and picture without their permission. They are usually unsuccessful, but it can be an expensive court battle to defeat their claims.

I hope this helps. Good luck!

Paul