Legal Tips for T-Shirt Designs

Video Transcript

GRACE FRAGA: Hi. You're watching Expert Village. I'm here with Chantelle Tibbs from Wear Me Naked, and she's teaching us how to design T-shirts. And today, specifically, you're going to teach us, right now, how to design it and place it where we don't get sued, correct? CHANTELLE TIBBS: Exactly. Well, we can place it anywhere you want, but let's double check and make sure that your design isn't sued, especially if it's like something where you're wording something. You want to double check it, and a good way to do this is just to Google things, like if you can Google stuff and see as much as you possible can. Check to make sure that you haven't done--you're not taking anything from anybody. And just as important as this is, you need to make sure that nobody's going to take anything from you. The U.S. Copyright Office has a form called visual arts form. You want to make sure that you're sending off physical pictures of this. You also want to make sure that you have enough friends, enough pictures on your Website, if you have your own T-shirt company. You want to make sure that you have people and evidence, pretty much. Not to make you paranoid, but pretty much running a business is collecting evidence sometimes when it comes to creative property. You want to make sure if it ever has to go to court, which it may, that you have enough evidence on your side to prove that it was your artwork. There's nothing worse than feeling like somebody stole something you designed, and, of course, there are a lot of big companies and I don't think I can name them or I'd get sued. I don't want to sit in court. But there are a few companies--and I'm sure you know who they are--that really steal from younger artists and they alter the design just a bit. You want to make sure that you have enough friends or enough people, or people that buy your stuff to get in there and go, "Uh-uh. They did it first. They did it in this year. I know that. I took pictures of them on their Website." GRACE FRAGA: Wow. CHANTELLE TIBBS: So cover yourself and make sure you're not stealing from somebody else. GRACE FRAGA: So do your homework, do a real research, and make sure that you copyright it, so if they steal from you, then you have evidence that it's yours. CHANTELLE TIBBS: Uh-huh. GRACE FRAGA: Okay.

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