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Originally Posted by Beth Sweet
With the new logo, it's one step further.
The new logo is copyrighted. That means that you may only use it in the versions provided by FIRST. Even stricter than Ken's old, out of date stuff (  )
Please be respectful of the copyright guys. It's legal, they went to the extent to get it that way for a reason... |
This seems to come up every two or three months...
It is NOT copyrighted. It IS trademarked. In fact, it has been a federally registered trademark since 2001. I'm not sure what the "new logo" is, but I can't find it on the USPTO database. The new FRC version of the logo has not been posted to TESS yet, if FIRST has even filed for registration.
I encourage participants on CD to stop giving instructions on the use of trademarks if you don't really know what you are talking about. The rules are simple, specific and well-understood, but are not usually taught in high school or college. The instructions for use of the FIRST mark are typical of what all companies request. It's pretty much a cut-and-paste of about 10,000 other mark-usage instructions. If you are using the mark on promotional material, shirts, signs, robots, your Website or any other "official" use, I strongly suggest you follow FIRST's guidelines. It's their mark.
If you want to Photoshop it and share it with your friends and post silly pictures to CD, I certainly don't see any harm, and, generally speaking, if you change the mark enough that it has obviously been altered (like using different colors, changing the shapes and altering the text to "TEAM XYZ") I don't think they would even have a legal right to ask you to change it. The world is full of Coke mark parodies that have not been banned (as hard as Coca-Cola has tried). The key thing is that I suggest that GP would require you to only mess with the mark in respectful ways. If you just want to use the word "FIRST" -- go ahead and have fun. US FIRST does not have a trademark on the word "FIRST," just on the complete logo with the geometric symbols.