Federal Court Rules Schools Can Protect Their Colors

I could see if they were using the schools name or logo but the T-shirts I've seen in this post should not be a problem. Aren't these PUBLIC universities? When did LSU become a private corporation?

 

If anyone is a copyright lawyer, what are your views? None of us know anything about copyright law or what this decision actually states and means. I personally believe that this company was trying to be sly and circumvent licenses, which should be punished.

 

This is where I think it is fair. The SMACK shirts, though i love them, all but name the university but everyone who's a potential buyer of the product, knows what it stands for, so, these school want to protect their stuff. the school colors are offical and belong to the school. So where your purple and gold shirts, as long as they don't reference anything that has to do with LSU.

BTW: Check out SMACK's new motto

 

ok, so I was in a sports law class a year ago and we talked to a guy in the athletic office about this. IT does not prevent you from going out, making a shirt and wearing it. For example, the LSU shirts with the S as a superman. What it does is prevent you from going out and selling the shirt without having it properly licsensed. The logos and colors and etc. are used to make a profit. The schools have standing because the idea is that you are making money because of the school or the relationship of the product to the school, and the school has the right to protect its trademarks,etc.

 

Not to split hairs, but it's a trademark issue.

Who cares, though. The "smack" shirts normally suck anyway.

Like the shirt that TigerWins posted:

"Baton Rouge -- a drinkin' town with a football problem"

I guarantee if you're wearing that, you're either homeless or a hopeless jackhole.

 

With Breaux?

 

Of course, the easy way to get around this is to use a color that is just a shade different (like the many shades of purple and gold on this very page). If they want to copyright a specific set of colors, thats fine, but they better specifically state which shade of purple and gold is theirs.

 

I think the issue is if it is sufficiently close to where people know which university the product is referring to - it doesn't have to be exact.

 

yeah breaux, don't know if they still offer it cause of the lack of funding for it. I got lucky and the decided to offer it that semester.