Re: Libraries & cartoon characters

From: Joseph Pietro Riolo <josephpietrojeungriolo[_at_]gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 17:40:01 -0400


On 10/4/05, Mary-Carol Lindbloom <mclindbloom[_at_]alliancelibrarysystem.com> wrote: 

>

> One of the copyright/trademark questions floating around here lately is
> this: If a library displays a local artist's collection of shirts containing
> copyrighted/trademarked cartoon characters, is the library liable if those
> shirts are found to be in violation of copyright or trademark laws? Could a
> library director ask the artist to remove the collection?

I know that this is somewhat old (in Internet, anything that is older than two days is considered too old :-).

Whether library is liable greatly depends on how much involvement the library has in copyright infringement. I am not qualified to comment on it. You may want to research on contributory infringement.

Certainly, library director should tell the artist to remove the collection pronto if he determines that the collection will infringe someone else's copyright. However, it is best that library director should not report to the copyright holders that their copyrights are infringed by the artist, to protect library from being exposed to vicious litigation.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<josephpietrojeungriolo[_at_]gmail.com>
<riolo[_at_]voicenet.com>

Number of days left until 1-1-2019 when all knowledge of 1923 in the land of the U.S.A. will be freed from their copyright owners' prisons: 4,824

Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this post in the public domain. Received on Tue Oct 18 2005 - 01:40:01 GMT

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