She wants to make t-shirts for the kids to wear on the trip. Their event guide says they cannot use the Disney name in any promotional materials or ad for the band. Does anyone know if having Disney's name on a t-shirt would be acceptable?
The problem is that she wants to make the T-shirts. Most people know that if one takes another person's words and uses it as their own, it's plagiarism. And to not even put it into one's own works, even if properly credited, without getting proper permission. Yet, many people don't seem to be taught that IMAGES/photographs/drawings/artwork, intellectual property, and trademarked logos are also wrong and illegal. One cannot take someone else's images & trademarks and put it on their own piece. Especially Walt Disney's.
Even if the person has no intention of representing the images/logos as one's own, (as in this case.) Disney wants you to buy one of their t-shirts with their copyrighted/trademarked images & logos already on them and pay for them.
The few exceptions are when people buy Disney T-shirt transfers or their fabrics with Disney images and make their family's T-shirts with them. Part of the fine print of buying Disney t-shirt transfers and their fabrics is the stipulation that the images/logos are for
personal use only. Another exception might be that the images are drawn/painted so poorly, that it's obviously not a real copy or representation by Disney, and the family member made it for the family, didn't sell the T-shirts to anyone else.
A company or organization which uses the images/logos is not
personal use. Disney already is associated with other companies it has bought the licensing and rights to: Marvel & Star Wars. It does not want to be associated with entities it did not grant permission to. And if the band is trying to do fundraising for the trip, that's even worse. They are taking Intellectual Property that belongs to someone else and piggybacking their own organization onto Disney and making money. (Even if it's to go to Disney. Because, at the last minute, the trip could be cancelled and the funds do not go to Disney. Or a million other things could happen.
And the band keeps that money. Bottom line: they profited off of the Disney association. I'm NOT saying that is what your friend is doing, just that it happens.)
I DO know of a company which was going down to Disney, in which the owner did not want to buy the 100 Disney T-shirts for his employees, but made their own. Disney got wind and confiscated the T-shirts. To Disney, that's $20 per T-shirt x 100 = $2000 profit that should have gone to Disney. Disney likes to keep what's rightfully theirs. And the owner was out that money for the bootleg T-shirts. Not sure if he then bought new, authentic Disney T-shirts for his employees to wear.
What I do not know is if the band or that company had bought the authentic Disney T-shirts and put their own name & logo on the back of the T-shirts, whether Disney will allow it. Probably not. It may have seemed the company appeared to be trying to associate themselves and advertise/promote themselves with Disney in a way they do not allow.
Maybe, if the band buys the authentic, licensed Disney T-Shirts, (all the same for a cohesive look,) and just puts on the back, "Going to the Mouse on (date,)" that is acceptable. No band name. And the band can wear it together, as long as they aren't marching, or performing, or fundraising, or in any way that might be misconstrued that they are using Disney to advertise/promote themselves. If they are performing at Disney, there probably are definite rules about what they do and do not allow.
Your friend will have to write the attorneys at Disney for clarification as to what they allow. Then they will have it in official writing what is and isn't allowed. It's the cost of a stamp for clarification. Disney has a whole team that does nothing else but successfully goes after and wins against copyright & trademark infringers. I've heard stories of that for decades and know people who actually do know someone who got caught. Disney pays people all around the country to be spies. And with social media now and everyone taking innocuous pics of themselves, it's even easier to find the infringers in the background of a photo. It is a "small, small world," after all.
I know a crafter who had warned a fellow crafter last year not to copy Disney images onto her crafts and what would happen. That fellow crafter didn't listen. She thought she lived in a small enough town and that they'd never find her doing small fairs. She didn't even get a "courtesy" cease & desist order. They just went right after her. She barely had the money to get a lawyer to try to bargain down the amount Disney wanted in damages.
