I’ve found a bunch of T shirts on merchandising sites like Café Press to do with Eve, with quite a few using the Eve logo or things like the factional motifs, the Gurista rabbit death head, the Fly Safe text logo.
I’m pretty certain mostr of this stuff isn’t officially sanctioned CCP output so does anyone know what the general CCP attitude is regarding the use of the Eve logo on things like T shirts is? Or maybe I’m wrong and it is?
My corporation wanted to create a T shirt (to be worn at events and so on, once Covid19 is a distant memory) looking something like this …
Well, you can @ a member of the community team just to be sure, but I’d imagine that they wouldn’t have an issue as long as you weren’t trying to sell them for profit.
While we have no issue with our fans creating merchandise for personal use, creation of any merchandise for commercial purposes that will generate revenue is prohibited and infringes on our copyright. You can find a full offering of official EVE related merchandise over at the EVE Store.
In other words, if nobody is making money off these shirts, it is probably OK. If anyone is collecting more money from the sale of the shirts than they are spending at any point in the chain, then it is not OK.
You can pay someone the going rate to make one or more shirts of a design you specify with EVE branding on it, and they can give you that shirt, and you can wear it, or give it away for free to someone else to wear, but not to sell.
The community team would be, I believe, CCP_Aurora and CCP_Convict. There may be others I don’t know about, too, but I obviously would not be able to tell you who they were, or if they actually exist.
I was asked privately what I think is going on in the case of 3rd party sites that seem to be selling Eve branded items for profit. I’m addressing the question publicly because I don’t have easy access to Eve-mail and perhaps the public could benefit from the answer, though it may be long enough that nobody reads it. Anyways, first the disclaimer:
First, I am not a representative of CCP, so what I say is purely my interpretation of the same webpage that I linked above combined with my personal philosophy on the matter. It is not authoritative.
There are two possible situations for 3rd parties who seem to be selling Eve merchandise for profit. The first being that they’ve contacted CCP and acquired permission or a license to use the branding. There is no way to know if that is the case for certain, however, as this agreement or licence is between CCP and that 3rd party and neither is obligated to give any indication of that, though they may to clear confusion or offer proof their sales are legitimate. Either way, though, is legit.
The second possibility is that the seller is violating the terms of use for that branding, and is committing a crime to some degree. Whether CCP can or will prosecute the infraction is irrelevant. A crime is a crime whether a person is punished or not. Seeing someone do wrong and using that as an excuse to mimic their behavior is also wrong, at least in my opinion. Also, people who abuse leniency (such as giving the benefit of the doubt and letting people use your branding) are liable to cause such leniency to be withdrawn or additional restrictions levied. This serves no one and I think people should take steps to avoid enabling behaviors that could negatively affect all of us.
If anyone is going to make Eve merchandise, it should either follow the spirit of the publicly outlined permissions and be not for profit entirely, or they should acquire proper permission to do otherwise, else they should abandon the manufacture of that merchandise.
I’m not an enforcer. I won’t be spearheading a charge to hold violators of CCP’s IP rights accountable, but it remains a thing I don’t think anyone should be doing and if anyone annoyed me directly by offering to sell me unlicensed merchandise, they may find themselves in some hot water.
