Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I didn`t see a question like this posted yet, so my apologies if I missed it. My question is pretty specific, and I`m hoping that someone knows the answer and can save me some legal fees :)

If I`d like to take some artwork that was created for the 1964 Olympics (or 1968, or 1972, etc.) and put it on a shirt and sell it, can I do it without paying a royalty, or without tracking down the owner? Assuming that artwork like this was trademarked or copyrighted in some way, at what point does it become part of the public domain? Trying to read about this, I see that 1978 was a key date in copyright law, but I cannot decipher the details enough to get an answer for this.

Thanks for any information or pointers.


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Brian O`Keefe
Web Designer & Writer @ YiNZCO
Athlete & T-Shirt Guy @ STR!VE NATiON

You may try searching or posting your question here.  http://www.intelproplaw.com/Forum/Forum.cgi

Not to minimize the value of the SuN network at all.  This forum specializes in IP law.

 

Thanks for the pointer, drvag. I`ve posted my question there too. But just to be clear for anyone else reading this, I`m hoping that someone could simply tell me if I could freely use artwork from an event that happened 30 or 40 years ago. It would be, I think, a similar idea as using the 1967 Super Bowl sign to sell merchandise in 2007. I`m sure that the NFL owned the rights to this, but at what point does it fall into the public domain?

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Brian O`Keefe
Web Designer & Writer @ YiNZCO
Athlete & T-Shirt Guy @ STR!VE NATiON