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Legality of creating replicas or artistic reproductions of vintage cards.

bziddybziddy Posts: 710 ✭✭✭
in Trading Cards & Memorabilia Forum
Silly question...

What sort of legal trouble/issues could someone get into creating non-card replicas, representations, etc of vintage cards.

For example -- what if someone wanted to do an oil painting rendition of the '52 Mantle, or the T206 Wagner and sell for gain? Or produce an image of those cards on t-shirts? posters?

Comments

  • MeteoriteGuyMeteoriteGuy Posts: 7,140 ✭✭
    An oil painting would not be a big deal. If you were making replics of say the 1953 Topps Mantle, Topps would send you a legal notice to stop doing it or you will be sued. With an oil painting they are not going to have a history/pattern to have an issue to deal with. If Topps could show you made X amount, it would have to be a pretty good figure to make it worth's Topps time.

    I don't imagine you are really asking is it legal to make t-shirts or posters for sale, the answer should be obviously no it is not.

    I am not sure the copyright length on things like trading cards, for different things it is different. Most things considered a piece of work like a writing or photograph is 70 years...or maybe it is 75...can't remember off hand now. One of the other. There are several ways to renew a copyright...and with all the reproduction sets the last decade I would assume everything from the major guys has been recopyrighted.

    The main Supreme Court cases dealing with this would likely be the VHS suit and then the more recent New York Times vs people over internet use. Google can help you break down the ruling and non-ruling on these issues and what all that means. Not sure how far you want me to go with this.
    Collecting PSA graded Steve Young, Marcus Allen, Bret Saberhagen and 1980s Topps Cards.
    Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
  • bziddybziddy Posts: 710 ✭✭✭
    Appreciate the answer -- I think that's enough for what I was looking for.
  • MeteoriteGuyMeteoriteGuy Posts: 7,140 ✭✭
    The New York Times case might actually mean that say "Bowman" now Topps, does not actually have right to some of the cards, but rather the artist. It depends on how the contract was worded back then....I imagine they are iron clad now to protect Topps. But even if say, the artist of an earlier Bowman had some legal rights over Topps (Bowman), that would not give you legal rights over Topps.
    Collecting PSA graded Steve Young, Marcus Allen, Bret Saberhagen and 1980s Topps Cards.
    Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
  • TabeTabe Posts: 6,228 ✭✭✭✭✭
    It's not just the image of the card - it's the likeness of the player, the logos of the teams, etc.

    Tabe
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