Knock off site turns my concept into reality without my permission.

[Guest]

What if you saw this somewhere (but forgot about it), either in person or read it via the forums, and the subconsciously copied the concept and put pen to paper? It's how artists create songs that sounds just like other songs, but they swear that they didn't knowingly copy said song/chords/et cetera. Also, just like in science, it's possible for two scientists to come up with the same theory/creation independently of each other. Happens in Hollywood all the time when it comes to scripts, and while anyone could file a lawsuit against major movie studios and said that they came up with the idea first, many times, I believe that the studio is out there to get something (a killer idea for a movie) for nothing and screw the artists and writers.

Yeah, if you alter something that already has a trademark or copyright, you might not be sued by the team as long as you don't try to make money by selling your creation with their elements, but we'll leave that up to the lawyers and a jury to decide. (But knowing that you must pay someone every time you sing "Happy Birthday" makes me hate lawyers and corporations--those specific ones, I mean.)

In your opinion, if I were to sell t-shirts with my Michigan State logo, would I have a leg to stand on if MSU sued me? Or if Nike made a t-shirt with it, could I sue Nike? Or could MSU sue Nike?

[TheRicSlick]

Sorry if i'm not answering your question, but seeing that logo makes me happy Michigan State didn't force an "MSU" into the spartan head.

[(probably)notabandwagonfan]

I actually saw someone walking around in Robinsons mall over Christmas in the gold knockoff knockoff.