trademark

Don’t sell photos with “I LOVE NY” logo in them or New York state will sue you

Apr 23, 2021 by Dunja Djudjic 4 Comments

Even if you don’t live in New York, even in the USA, you’ve seen the iconic “I ❤ NY” logo on various objects. And if you take a photo of it and want to sell it, beware – the state of New York might sue you.

You may get sued big time if you aren’t careful with what you upload to Unsplash

Feb 12, 2020 by Ole Henrik Skjelstad 10 Comments

Unsplash has in a short time become a major player in the photo-sharing industry. 174,000 photographers have uploaded images to the site. The platform this month boasts 5,000 views and 27 downloads per second. (PER SECOND!) People download images for blogs, classes, and other purposes, but also for commercial use. There is a big debate in the industry asking if Unsplash is good or bad, but it is not what I want to talk about today. Today I want to talk about the legal risks you face when you upload work to Unsplash. Not as the end-user, but as the photographer.

Photographers use Unsplash for exposure because of the enormous traffic the site generates. A company may hire a photographer for commercial assignments or simply want to license a high-resolution version of an image it found on Unsplash.

New “NOCT” trademark hints at upcoming Nikon mirrorless low light performance

Jun 4, 2018 by John Aldred 1 Comment

It seems like Nikon might actually be making an effort with their new mirrorless offering, after all. A derivative of Nox, Latin for “night”, NOCT is Nikon’s latest trademark. And while the registration doesn’t specifically state that it is for a mirrorless system, its uses include cameras, lenses and “mount adapters for lenses”.

Filed on May 18th, the trademark application is currently under examination. As well as the nocturnal nature of the new trademark, you might remember that Nikon filed patents for 52mm f/0.9 and 36mm f/1.2 full frame mirrorless lenses last year. And the last time the “Noct” name was used was for Nikon’s Noct-Nikkor 58mm f/1.2 Ai-S.

Uploading Videos To YouTube? You May Be Shut Down for Title Trademark Infringement

Jan 19, 2016 by Udi Tirosh 19 Comments

Here is something that should concern all creatives, and it is the bad side of intellectual property. Apparently, you are allowed to trademark just about any phrase you can think of. In turn, this means that if someone else is using that phrase in their video (or even video title), it can be shut down.

This happened to Devin SuperTramp (previously) when he uploaded his yearly show-reel titled “People Are Awesome 2015 – ULTIMATE DevinSuperTramp Edition in 4K“. The video gathered a massive 28,000 likes and over 400,000 views in the first 36 hours. Then it was gone.