T-shirt Prints and Copyright Laws: Allowed vs Not Allowed

If you've ever been to a tourist trap town, you've probably seen shops and booths with t-shirts and other apparel covered in some mixture of original artwork, parodical art of well-known characters (often smoking weed), or even just known characters.

So, when it comes time to print your own shirts, whether it's for a trade show, for a company store, for team-building hand-outs, or just for fun, you might think anything goes. After all, if these stores can sell them, you can too, right?

Wrong.

The world of printed apparel is very widely abused, and while a lot of merchandise exists, there's a lot out there that is technically in violation of copyright or trademark laws. Trying to make your own can leave you in hot legal water, and copyright law doesn't mess around.

What's allowed, what's not allowed, and why do some vendors seem able to skirt the law? Let's talk about it.

How Copyright Works

First, let's very briefly cover what copyright law is and how it works.

Whenever someone creates something – whether it's a writer writing a novel, an artist drawing a character, or a musician creating a song – they automatically have copyright over that piece of intellectual property.

There are a few exceptions to this, and they almost all have to do with contracts. If an artist draws Mickey Mouse for Disney, Disney probably owns the copyright to that piece of work. Disney owns the copyright of Mickey Mouse in general, and any use of Mickey Mouse by other creators falls into one of three categories.

• Licensed. When Disney pays an artist to draw Mickey, they're paying that artist for the rights to that specific piece of art; in exchange, the artist gets the ability to use the character for that art piece and, of course, the money.
• Fair Use. If someone uses Mickey Mouse in a specific way, such as drawing fan art of the character, they're often protected from retaliation from Disney, as long as they follow the rules. More on that later because it's critical to today's discussion.
• Unlicensed and Unauthorized. If someone replicates Mickey Mouse in a way that violates fair use tenets, such as by taking his likeness, putting it on a shirt, and selling that shirt, they are in violation of copyright law.
• Public Domain. This is the fourth category and applies to works older than a certain age or deliberately released into the public domain. Public domain works are free for anyone to use as they desire. Certain depictions of Mickey Mouse – specifically, Steamboat Willie – have entered the public domain this year.

The third category – and some amount of the second – are kinds of uses that the copyright holder can challenge. Disney owns Mickey Mouse and can defend that ownership in court. The fair use defense is an important defense, but it's not a perfect shield.

Copyright can apply to all manner of creations. It includes writing, music, art, and so on, of course, but it can also cover architecture, sculpture, and even choreography. There's very little it doesn't cover, though some kinds of works, like recipes, aren't copyrightable. That's why so many food blogs include all those massive personal stories; to stand out.

We're mostly just mentioning this in passing. Since we're concerned with printed shirts, we're pretty much only concerned with the graphical work today.

Fair Use and Shirts

Fair Use is a doctrine written into the copyright laws to allow people to use copyrighted material in their own works without the copyright holder being able to suppress it. Fair Use is at once both broad and narrow; it can cover a surprising amount of different uses, but when you step an inch outside of those borders, the company in charge of the copyright can crack down hard.

Fair use requires that you use the copyrighted material in a transformative way. You can't just reproduce it; you need to alter it in some way for some tangible purpose. Flipping an image of Mickey upside down probably isn't transformative enough to pass. Making Mickey Mouse smoke weed probably is.

Fair Use also has to have a purpose to it. Fair Use is meant to protect things like criticism, comment, news reporting, and teaching. Disney can't punish a teacher for showing examples of Mickey Mouse in an art class, for example.

One of the biggest, though, is that fair use requires that the use be noncommercial. That's why all of those people selling reproduction unlicensed merchandise are violating the law.

If it's illegal, why does it happen? In large part, it's because the people selling the merchandise aren't a big enough deal to go after. Disney isn't going to go after some individual shirt seller in Arkansas; they want to go after the company printing the shirts. Often, that's a company in China, and pursuing a copyright case in China is notoriously difficult. They do it, though, and more than a few printing companies have been shut down because of it. More spring up, though, so it's an endless game of whack-a-mole.

To bring things back to shirts, simply taking a copyrighted piece of art and printing it on a shirt isn't fair use. Making a parody version of it probably is, but if you then go to sell that shirt, you may no longer receive protection because that becomes commercial use.

Where does AI-generated art fall in the spectrum?

AI generation is a very new technology, and the exact laws and precedent have not yet been set. There are a lot of ongoing legal challenges, primarily related to how the AI creators used massive amounts of artwork without the permission of the creators of that artwork in order to train their AI in the first place.

It's possible that, in the future, even the use of these AI generation tools may be illegal. At best, they would have to be recreated from scratch using only art they have permission to use.

One precedent that has been set so far is that because no human is working to create the art (and no, being a "prompt artist" doesn't count), the works produced by generative AI are themselves not copyrightable. This is noteworthy because it means you technically can use AI-generated art on your own shirts, but if someone else chooses to copy that art exactly as it is, you can't defend it.

What Can You Print on a Shirt?

If you're just here because you want to know what you're allowed to print on a shirt – and what you aren't – welcome. Here's a simplified rundown.

Art you own the copyright to. The first and simplest option is to use something you create or that you pay to have created for you. Paying a freelance graphic designer to create a piece of artwork to print on a shirt is simple, easy, and effective, and you own the copyright once you've paid for the right to that piece of art. Even some print-to-order companies like ourselves offer design services you can hire as well.

Art in the public domain. For example, Van Gogh's works are old enough to be in the public domain. You could, if you wanted, print Starry Night on a shirt, and you'd be perfectly within your rights to use and sell that shirt. It wouldn't necessarily be an effective piece of merchandise for your brand (and you can't claim you created Starry Night yourself), but it's still allowed.

One thing to watch out for is that the public domain covers copyright issues but does not necessarily cover trademark or patent issues. It's a very tricky situation, and unlike copyright, trademarks need to be defended if the company that owns them wants to keep them, so they tend to pursue them more aggressively.

Art available royalty-free. Buying graphic design from a stock photo site or another site with royalty-free images can – but doesn't always – allow you to use it on a shirt. Often, these kinds of royalty-free images stipulate that they can only be used for noncommercial purposes, so you may be able to print them on a shirt but not sell that shirt, but this can vary depending on the license you're using.

Design elements composing something unique. Small individual design elements can't generally be copyrighted. Facts, concepts, principles, short slogans, national symbols, common properties like calendar dates, utilitarian symbols like a stop sign, and so on are all free to use. Be cautious with slogans and the like, though; something like Nike's "Just Do It" slogan is too short to be copyrighted, but they did trademark it.

Parody art that suitably transforms the original. Parodies are usually protected, though every few years, there's a moderately high-profile case where someone gets mad about the parodical use of their intellectual property and tries to challenge it. It's also tricky in that what is and isn't a parody can be difficult to define. Still, it's a possibility.

Art that you gain permission to use. One of the most often overlooked avenues to using something copyrighted on a shirt is simply asking for permission from whoever owns the copyright. That might be the original artist, the company they made the art for, or the estate of the original artist if that artist has passed.

If you get permission, you'll generally need to have a contract, which outlines how long you have use of the work, what you can use it for, how long you can use it, and so on. There's often a licensing fee to pay, possibly per-shirt, as well. This can be very different depending on whether you're looking to print a few dozen shirts for your employees, or put a shirt on indefinite sale in your store, as well.

What Not to Do

When it comes to printing something on a shirt, it's almost easier to list the things not to do – the rules not to break – than it is to list what you can do.

Don't use brand logos other than your own. Brand logos are always trademarked, copyrighted, and more, and are some of the most well-defended icons in the world. Even major brands have occasionally been forced to change when a previous trademark is found and defended. Simple changes like mirroring, distorting, changing the colors, or otherwise manipulating a logo don't make it usable, either. A suitable parody might pass, but if it doesn't, are you prepared for the consequences?

Be careful with the fonts you use. Many people don't realize it, but the typeface/font you use for the text on your shirt may be copyrighted as well. Things like the Star Wars title scroll or the Disney font aren't usable without permission.

Just don't use anything you didn't make on your own. The easiest way to ensure you have permission to use a piece of artwork is to make or commission that artwork on your own. You avoid a lot of problems from rights holders when you're the rights holder, after all.

Talk to Us

We can make mock-ups and test prints, and when you work with us, you know you're getting the most ethically produced shirts it's possible to find. We pride ourselves on ensuring ethical and humane production, from dirt to shirt and all the way to where you wear them.

We'd love to hear from you, so browse our store or reach out today!