Movember

brandonwheller · Post by **brandonwheller** » Mon Sep 10, 2012 10:12 pm

I print T-shirts as a hobby and have been thinking of ways to help a charity while doing it. I have two close friends fighting cancer and my sister-in-law beat cancer just last year.

So I started thinking about printing tees with a moustache design and donating part of the money raised to cancer research or to Movember. I would probably set up a small website and sell the tees online. I could afford to give 25-30% of the money I raise to Movember or Cancer Research UK.

I guess that I am using the organisation's image to sell T-shirts but not with malicious intent. How much of the moustache/prostate cancer idea can I use before infringing?

Thanks in advance.

AndyJ · Post by **AndyJ** » Mon Sep 10, 2012 10:52 pm

Hi Brandon,
Despite your worthy intentions, I think you need to go carefully here. Both charities will want to protect their good names, and this includes how their branding and trade marks are used.
I would contact the charities and get permission for any specific logo or symbol you want to use. The Movember website seems to indicate in their terms and conditions that this may be simple to arrange, according to the following wording, with emphasis on the bit in red, although they don't actually have a downloads page at present:

1 Content created by Movember - Movember owns or licences from third parties all of the trademarks, copyright and other intellectual property that exists in our website. You must not copy or reproduce in any form any of the graphics, logos or other material on our website unless you have our specific permission. For the avoidance of doubt, you have our permission to download material from the Downloads page on our website.

2 Content posted by you - Any content that you post to our website (eg photos and videos) is your responsibility, and you must make sure that you have the necessary rights to post that content (eg by obtaining permission of copyright owners if necessary). By posting any content, you also give Movember a non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free worldwide right to use and reproduce that content.

Cancer Research UK has 7 registered trade marks and Movember has 2, one of which is a stylised moustache, although I'm not sure if it the one you were referring to. Any use of these on clothing, without permission, would be trademark infringement, so I don't think copyright is really the main issue here.
Good luck with your project.