Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Today I received my first notice of copyright infringement from the DMCA department, which is something I was never expecting to see. After I swallowed that "wtf!?" moment, it actually wasn't so bad. Apparently even Frank Sinatra's name is licensed, and so my naming a fedora after him was in violation of Warner Music's copyright. So from now on the "Sinatra" fedora is going to be the "Corleone" fedora, something I'm updating even as I type this.

It's no biggie, so I won't bother making a fuss. What's in a name, after all? But I wanted to make a notice here so that there was no confusion, and also satisfy curiosities (maybe serve as a little warning to anyone else wanting to dedicate anything to the Chairman of the Board).


Also, update on current projects... I'm working on a few things that are ending up bigger than I initially thought, which makes me think I should release another smaller project while I'm working on these. Unfortunately, that's exactly how a few of these started, so I don't want to place myself in the way of temptation and end up with even more enormous projects O.o

5 comments:

Pandora Wrigglesworth said...

Yup, you have to be careful about trademarks. Some of my products are reminiscent of things in the real world but I am always careful to come up with a name that sounds nothing like it. It's unfortunate for me since it means that people searching for something related to that real world product won't find my product in a search.

Besides, you should have known better than to name your hat after Sinatra. After all, it's Frank's world; we just live in it.

Siyu said...

*Shakes a fist*

I had one of those name blanks, like hair makers do, where you have a bunch of variations of something incredibly similar and you're desperate to find something unique about each one to label. Famous fedora wearers was perfect... I really didn't think they could claim a last name as intellectual property.


Normally I think up brilliant and original names that no one could possibly have issues with, gems of greatness like "Silk Blindfold" and "Green Man Mask". But I guess my muse just left me :)~

ZE design Zigadena Gabardini-Emarald Harvey said...

love your things! And if u ever wants to make something custom, I would love a sculpted rose from you to use with my creations..
All ive seen before are too clumpsy for a dress ..
/Zig ZE deign

Candy Flanagan said...

The people at Warner Brothers just have too much time on their hands.

Vanessa Tanith VanAlstyne said...

I wonder what all those poor people with the last name Sinatra do. I mean... they can't even use there last names!