Questions about selling decals for t-shirts

[belledreamer]

Since I love making designs on my computer to be put on t-shirts, I thought I'd combine it and my love of quote shirts to open my own etsy shop where people can purchase my decals and either print them on to iron transfer paper or bring them to a place that does it professionally. I'm hoping to expand to where I'm selling the shirts at some point, but for now, this is a good start.

However, I'm receiving conflicting reports about the use of Disney images and I'm hoping someone can clear it up for me.

On one side, I'm told that as long as you put a disclaimer saying that you're not making any money off the image and that the customer is told that all they're paying for is my time, there shouldn't be any issue with using a character's silhouetted image. (The images were all found online from clipart websites, not from any website sponsored by Disney)

On the other, I was told by my mom who read a report that someone made their own design of a Mickey Mouse head to put on their daughter's handmade dress and that when the child wore the outfit to Disney World, the mother was questioned by Disney where she got the Mickey logo, was she selling the dresses and things of that nature, almost to try to make a claim of copyright infringement.

I'm not looking to get into any kind of legal issues with Disney, nor do I want my customers to run into trouble while wearing my products. This wouldn't make or break me if I couldn't use the silhouette of a Disney character either.

I would just switch my designs from this:



to something more like this:



But I am quite fond of the first one and would love to put it on a t-shirt for myself for my next Disney trip as well as sell the design.

So my question is, does anyone else use Disney character's images in their various products, have you had any issues concerning this, and how far is too far when it comes to the usage of images of Disney characters?

 

[PrincessNancy96]

Hopefully someone with more knowledge than myself in regards to this issue will stop by and give you an informed answer.

Personally, I have made vinyl and iron-on shirts for myself and my family and we have never been stopped and questioned by Disney about it. We have received compliments from other guests and even CMs. However, with that being said, I would not sell the items because I have heard about Disney legal sending cease and desist letters out before.

I do hope someone stops by and answers your question yet today.

 

[Rose77]

I am not an expert on this by any means, but I think the first image with Wendy cannot be sold by you because Wendy is the intellectual property of Disney. I understand that you are charging for your time, but you still can't sell anything with Disney characters on it. It would be a like someone selling a hat they made with the Yankees logo on it and saying they were only charging for their time. Your image of Wendy is a bit different because it is not an official logo, but it is still the intellectual property of Disney, which means you can't sell it.

I say this while realizing that people sell these things ALL the time. Etsy is full of stuff like this. Etsy's policy is basically that they won't do anything about it unless someone reports the items. I do believe that Disney does report items being sold on Etsy and Cease and Desist letters are sent. Of course, Disney can't catch them all, which is why so many still exist on Etsy.

Again, I am not a lawyer and have a very limited knowledge of all this, but that is my understanding.

 

[belledreamer]

Thanks everyone for your responses. I've actually been doing more research since my original post and basically what I've gathered is, if you're doing it for yourself, it's not an issue whereas as soon you point it for sale, it becomes an issue of copyright. And I'm not prepared to receive anything more than a cease and desist from Disney, even if a ton of people are selling items online...

I have seen it suggested that for someone who's wanting to use quotes in their business, the best thing to use is quotes that are in the Public Domain since these are no longer under copyright. So I've decided I'm going to shift gears in that direction instead since my love of classic literature is nearly as big as my love for Disney and I've been able to get a good bit of source material already. I'm just glad I'm early enough along in this to be able to shift without having lost anything.

It's a shame though, since there's several people who have created things that I like much better than the merchandise at Disney...