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Comment by not2b | Hacker News Reader

For a well-known cartoon figure, the issue isn't copyright, it's trademark. If someone types "Mickey Mouse" and this site has Stable Diffusion design a Mickey Mouse shirt and sell it, they are infringing Disney's trademark: they are selling a Mickey Mouse shirt without Disney's permission. It's the same if they hire an artist to do an original Mickey Mouse design.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I think it's much more likely that trademark issues will bring the hammer down on some of these projects than copyright issues, because I think it will be easier to persuade a judge: they let people type "Calvin and Hobbes" and make and sell a "Calvin and Hobbes" shirt to them, and we don't have a license to do that.

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I see it this way: I provide a means for users to generate what they like, but I'm not mass selling those designs. If a single person uses tshirt pens to paint mickey mouse on their shirt, Disney would probably not sue them. Also there is no way knowing whether I sold any mickey mouse shirts.

If you allowed users to upload their own images, and those images were of Mickey Mouse, and you printed them and sold them, Disney would have a pretty easy claim against you.

You're not just selling a neutral tool here, you're actually printing the potentially infringing art.

> Also there is no way knowing whether I sold any mickey mouse shirts.

Think this statement through. I can come up with a couple of ways for a rights-holder to figure out if you're selling merchandise that infringes on their marks. They can attempt to order one themselves. They can see a tweet where someone shares the cool t-shirt they bought from you.

You're probably not actually in much danger here, but I would still take the hazard seriously if I were you. Be careful.

Indeed. Here is an example of a company ordering trademark-infringing goods directly from a vendor, then successfully pursuing legal action against that vendor:

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/13/1122820376/the-good-the-bad-a...

Yep, that's correct. Thanks for the hints!

Currently, I review all created designs before printing, so that would be a way of not infringing, I. E. Cancel orders which are potentially infringing

That should be enough. A block list of prominent trademarked characters might also be possible. That would still leave a huge space of possible ideas.

I mean, how is that any different than what we have now?

I guess the ability to feign ignorance that a certain work is trademarked? I mean, what happens if you have a program that draws random shapes and 3 circles line up in a way that looks like a disney logo?

I get what you're saying, just sorta thinking out loud, lol

I would think what we have now already covers everything. Doesn't matter _how_ you produced an infringement, if you make something too closely to Mickey and sell it, you're infringing _(i'm speaking loosely, ofc)_.

Is it also illegal for me to upload an image of the mouse and get it printed on a t-shirt ?

Technically, yep

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