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Legal Conversation (Split from T-Shirt Thread)

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Like I said, as long as no-one is out on a bullhorn yelling "WE'RE SELLING TSHIRTS" it should be fine. There is no way that OSU permits some of the shirts that are sold around the stadium on game days and they are there every week. Lick these Nuts... Rub em for Luck, Calvin wearing a OSU helmet pissing on Michigan, Ann Arbor is a Whore, Do it for Woody... Calvin pissing on a Four Leaf Clover (got that one at the Notre Dame game), Fuck Ann Arbor and the Horse she rode in on, Ann Arbor got Donkey Punched and thats just the ones I have. There is no way these all met with Rob Cleveland's approval. I am thinking that is just the policy he was given to spit out for everyone that calls to ask about selling shirts. Send one to his office the next day with a tag that says Buckeye Planet is not affiliated with the Ohio State University.
 
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I think what the OSU guy said is bullshit. I had several customized t-shirts with the OSU symbol on it made at the OSU shop just south of the campus McDonald's on High. I had to pay a small trademark fee for each. But...that had OSU's official logo on it, and these do not.

The simple answer may be be to incorporate yourself. "Buckeye Planet, Inc." or something like that, or make yourself a limited liability company, or whatever type of business form. You could even trademark that logo you created yourself. The idea with the corporation or limited liability company would be that you would almost certainly have nothing to risk personally.
 
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I agree that they were simply replying with a generic message.

I think if we sell these shirts on this site, hand out the shirt orders that were ordered online, and then maybe discretely sell a few more we should be fine.

The more we try to comply with this rule, the more attention we are going to draw and the more chance of getting in trouble. I think if we merely distribute the shirt discretely in the Fawcett Center parking lot (which is way away from the stadium) we'll be fine.

The other discussion will be whether we make extra shirts to sell, or whether we take orders from people. We can have them register for t-shirts there, and/or give them flyers with buckeyplanet.com and how to find the BP T-Shirt thread.
 
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I would definitely bring some along. You will be able to sell some at the game and plus with the exposure the website will be getting I am sure there will be new members wanting to order as well. You will definitely be able to get rid of all you make. I thank a good number might be 50 more than what you have confirmed orders for.

BuckeyeFROMscUM said:
I agree that they were simply replying with a generic message.

I think if we sell these shirts on this site, hand out the shirt orders that were ordered online, and then maybe discretely sell a few more we should be fine.

The more we try to comply with this rule, the more attention we are going to draw and the more chance of getting in trouble. I think if we merely distribute the shirt discretely in the Fawcett Center parking lot (which is way away from the stadium) we'll be fine.

The other discussion will be whether we make extra shirts to sell, or whether we take orders from people. We can have them register for t-shirts there, and/or give them flyers with buckeyplanet.com and how to find the BP T-Shirt thread.
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I think we'll be fine. We will have to figure out what we're gonna do exactly (like set up at these legal locations, like across the street), but we should be fine. Here is the latest intel I have received.

actually know a little bit about OSU's policy on this from a case I am working on.

OSU takes a hard line approach, but reality is, there is little they can do about it. Suppose you wanted to sell T-Shirts without a vendors license to OSU game goers. All you do, is step off of OSU property (ie the north side of Lane Ave. across from St. Johns.) Nothing OSU can do about it. In fact, if you are 'caught' vending on OSU prop. by the "vendor detail" they will actually tell you, "Hey, just go across the street" or whatever. They don't just lock you up and throw away the key, if you have no history of selling on OSU prop. before. They'll typically give you a warning first, is what I'm saying. Setting up shop with banners and such will probably draw quick attention from the detail, and you'll be asked to move from the fawcett center, is my thinking.

There has been some kind of problem (in OSU's eyes) in the recent past. That being the case, I have little doubt that the answer you guys recieved was a "stock" answer. They tell everyone, "no" is my thinking.

I'd have to see the shirt design, but my guess is it is much like the logo for BP and contains no copywritten stuff. There is an Ohio Revised Code section which address all these issues, but the section escapes me at the moment. It's been a while since I researched this law, but I do recall there being some stuff about "Handy work" or something. Like if you make necklaces off of fallen nuts from a tree, you don't need a license to sell them, so long as this isn't how you make a living, that is - you aren't running a business of selling necklaces or shirts, or whatever you're selling.. My gut tells me, if you are making these T's by hand and do not run a business you can sell the T's (Or collect a donation to BP, as the case may be). But, until I can research the specific law(s) it's just my gut, and not any kind of legal analysis.
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I think you should just proceed with selling them at the game. How can you trademark a Buckeye and a Planet. These have nothing to do with Ohio State. The shirts I see on campus being sold by street peddlers are funny awful looking. (most of them) :biggrin:. The stuff that is trademarked is (The Ohio State University) Or (Ohio State). You cant trademark a color or colors. I dont have to be a lawyer to know this. I see people selling those buckeye necklaces every game. This is a harmless gesture to try and boost this site. If we do get sued we can call 6 on your side. They got some lady off for selling those Buckeye beaded necklaces. She was only arrested becuase she failed to stop selling those necklaces after she was asked more than 5 times.

I think Mr Cleveland from TOSU is full of shit and just doens not want to be bothered .

You guys think about getting the Ts to us before the game so we know who is a bper and who isnt. I live in Reynoldsburg and wouldnt mind dropping off shirts to people on the east side.
 
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Thanks for the offer, but I think we will be fine if we require people to tell us their handle before giving them a shirt (and it wouldn't be a checklist... so they couldn't just find one and be that person). We'd require money before giving them a shirt... so even if they faked who they are we'd merely end up with an extra shirt order (and we could just go grab one from the seller at #2 for the real person).

I agree with the sentiment that we will be fine. Here is the current plan, tho I think we can change it if necessary:

1. Have a BP Shirt pickup table in Fawcett where we are tailgating (refer new customers to #2)
2. Sell t-shirts at one of those non-OSU locations described earlier (i.e. N Lane ave across from St. Johns).
 
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You would be surprised at what all the university has been able to trademark. The letter O is on thing that I can think of right away. When I was in school I was in a campus organization and We were making tshirts for the group nad we had to jump through all sorts of hoops to get them made

Trslfan said:
I think you should just proceed with selling them at the game. How can you trademark a Buckeye and a Planet. These have nothing to do with Ohio State. The shirts I see on campus being sold by street peddlers are funny awful looking. (most of them) :biggrin:. The stuff that is trademarked is (The Ohio State University) Or (Ohio State). You cant trademark a color or colors. I dont have to be a lawyer to know this. I see people selling those buckeye necklaces every game. This is a harmless gesture to try and boost this site. If we do get sued we can call 6 on your side. They got some lady off for selling those Buckeye beaded necklaces. She was only arrested becuase she failed to stop selling those necklaces after she was asked more than 5 times.

I think Mr Cleveland from TOSU is full of shit and just doens not want to be bothered .

You guys think about getting the Ts to us before the game so we know who is a bper and who isnt. I live in Reynoldsburg and wouldnt mind dropping off shirts to people on the east side.
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BuckeyeFROMscUM said:
Thanks for the offer, but I think we will be fine if we require people to tell us their handle before giving them a shirt (and it wouldn't be a checklist... so they couldn't just find one and be that person). We'd require money before giving them a shirt... so even if they faked who they are we'd merely end up with an extra shirt order (and we could just go grab one from the seller at #2 for the real person).

I agree with the sentiment that we will be fine. Here is the current plan, tho I think we can change it if necessary:

1. Have a BP Shirt pickup table in Fawcett where we are tailgating (refer new customers to #2)
2. Sell t-shirts at one of those non-OSU locations described earlier (i.e. N Lane ave across from St. Johns).
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I would hope the shirts would of been paid for before anybody got them. I might be a retard, but not retarded enough to give someone a t-shirt who has not paid for it.
 
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Legal/non-legal perspective: I agree with much of what everyone is saying, but there are some issues that it doesn't sound like have been considered. To my knowledge, BP is not a 501c3 organization for federal tax purposes and is probably not a non-profit and/or charity under any state's law. As such there's no tax benefit to anyone and possibly (technically) some liability from taking donations, etc. We should look at the tax issue a little harder. I would hate to see a great idea wind up being counter-productive and costing BP/Clarity money or generating crap that must then be handled.

As to the trademark issue, I think you're right. The logo is generic enough in the sense that it shouldn't infringe on tOSU and unique enough to stand alone. The problem with any of this is that the School has the resources to give you guys and the Planet a hard time. Also, let's face it, while the shirts are meant to support/advertise BP, the primary reason for BP's existence has been support of and interest in tOSU and the Buckeyes (primarily the football Buckeyes), so, while Ohio is obviously the Buckeye state, etc., the term "Buckeye Planet" isn't really a reflection of state/historical pride. I think if we keep things in the spirit of the original idea and not make it too much of a vendor fest, everything will be cool and BP will benefit. To me the point of this, and why I'm coming up from ATL, is to meet and hang out with some of the guys from the board. A BP tailgate for the spring game is a tremendous idea. If we stay focused on that and everyone has a good time, it will benefit BP and should help with recruiting new members/acquiring more $ for servers, etc. My take would be that we should focus on getting as many of the 3000 or so BP members as possible to show up, rather than spending too much effort on marketing/recruiting. If we got 500 BP members to come hang out and watch the game, we would get plenty of ROI and publicity for it.
 
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Well put. We could even decide to stick to just selling the shirts to bp members... and then anyone else that wants one can register online for a t-shirt (to avoid most selling violations).

If these are as popular as we think, we can reconsider selling them in the fall if we do not run into much trouble for these shirts (these will obviously be visible when we are all wearing them, tho it will be much better than being visible sellign them). By next fall we can determine whether we have grounds for selling these shirts.

Also, for those of you who can afford to do so, please give generously for these t-shirts. The original total for a new server was astronomical ($10K), tho there were some that thought we could do it for a cheaper total. Either way, any money you can spare when you make your payment will help our cause to moving towards a new server.

Also know that having a new server will allow us to consider some higher end features, one of which is as an advanced picture forum to archive all game photos, wallpapers, humorous farks, etc. For now we cannot explore that option because our server is working too hard as it is. So until we get a new server, we could not even consider any of these neat features that would generate more traffic, especially during the extremely busy fall-winter seasons.

The best way to generate money, especially for those who don't have much to pay extra for t-shirts, is to convince other BP members to buy these t-shirts, or even people who aren't members but just like the t-shirts as buck fans.
 
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