Any legal copyright experts here?

[zappbrannigan]

Hey,

So I have a few designs for t-shirts, and both of them feature the likenesses of dead celebrities. I'm wondering if I can legally sell t-shirts with the designs or will it have to be one of those "Buy this key chain from me and get this shirt for free" situations?

I'd probably just print up a bunch of the shirts and sell them locally, anyway, but I thought I'd ask.

[amyuilani]

It would benefit you to find out if the celebs have estates that still own the likeness rights to the images, like Elvis. Or, the photos you may be using for your art may belong to the photographer who took the image, and you would have to pay him/her for the use of the image. You should do a search for images of your intended celebs that are of free public domain. This might be possible if the images are old enough (certainly pre-Internet). Otherwise you'll likely violate copyright or use an image belonging to an estate.

I hope I helped, even though I am not yet an attorney. Good luck!

[tempfoot]

amyuilani asks some of the right questions. The buy a keychain approach won't make any difference.

[zappbrannigan]

Originally Posted by amyuilani

It would benefit you to find out if the celebs have estates that still own the likeness rights to the images, like Elvis. Or, the photos you may be using for your art may belong to the photographer who took the image, and you would have to pay him/her for the use of the image. You should do a search for images of your intended celebs that are of free public domain. This might be possible if the images are old enough (certainly pre-Internet). Otherwise you'll likely violate copyright or use an image belonging to an estate.

I hope I helped, even though I am not yet an attorney. Good luck!

Thanks for this!

EDIT: Alright, well the two celebrities are Jimi Hendrix and Gregory Peck. I know for certain that Jimi Hendrix has a large estate (he's in the top 10 money-making dead celebrities according to Forbes), and I'd assume G Pex probably does, too. I'll just keep my designs in my portfolio, it's not worth it.

Thanks for the responses, guys.