Picky Woodworkers

[TerryT]

On another note, there were countless violations of the college logo copyright laws. I know a couple of schools for sure that require a sticker fixed to every product, and there were all sorts of products with no sticker in sight. Makes me wonder why I worry about getting licenses when nobody else does and they get away with it. Also makes me feel that I should make mention of it to the company that administers those licenses. Anyway... who else does stuff like this? Or is this my own brand of crazy? HEHE

Google this;
coalition to advance the protection of sports logos

Then take a look at this
http://hamptonroads.com/2013/01/ches...ke-sports-gear

Read some of the other stuff, it's pretty scary. That is why I have resisted the temptation to do sports logos.

[CW-HAL9000]

I do a lot of flea markets, craft shows, and farmers markets. The booth costs me 25 to $50 and in order to make sure I make my booth money I have a lot of little quick to make items, crosses , signs, boxes. These sell for $5 to $15 these pay the booth and get me started. In order to sell for that price they are carved in bulk, designed to carve quick, little sanding, using cheap cull lumber pine from the big box stores and even scrap wood and pallet wood. I apply some quick spray stain, quick spray lacquer ( I spray 10 or more at a time).

Then I have $25 to $100 items that I put more time and attention to details. Box joints, dovetails, nice paint and stain with better lacquer or poly finishes, even spar urethane if it may go outdoors. If you look at my cheap stuff closely you could criticize all day long. I hope my higher end items are better but I still have to keep in mind hours vs what I can get for an item. Family gifts and personal items, commissioned items get even much more attention to details. I have paid for my carvewright a few times over and I make an average of a few hundred on a Saturday or Sunday. If you are doing this part time but to help pay the bills then you have no choice but push the stuff out the door. My big items attract attention and get me more orders for later or commissioned pieces where the work is longer but the profit is larger, while the little quick stuff is the bread and butter. I see pen turners, bowl turners and others who are there weekly and do the same thing and then I see people who only do high end stuff and while there stuff is well worth it they are often disappointed with their sales.I have seen those come and go.

[Ton80]

I look at it this way.. There is always someone that does better work than you so I try to never be critical of others work. I am a professional finish carpenter and I see some real hack jobs out in the field. I always bite my tongue, especially with a homeowner because you never know who you are insulting. Like yer momma used to say, " if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all."


Of more interest to me is the licensing issue. First off, I would never call to report someone. You are talking about local craft people that are probably struggling and while it might be technically illegal to infringe on a registered trademark, is it really your obligation to do report them. And how much harm would you be causing that persons family as opposed to the harm that person is doing to a sports organization.

PLEASE! Don't read anything into my comments because I know there are probably a few people that are going to.

What I would like to know is how do you obtain a license, what would that license cost and is it scaled on how many items you an on producing? I will admit to copying trademarked logos on one-off projects at a customers request. I imagine most woodworkers have done the same Technically illegal. I also imagine that if I paid for a license for that one project the customer would have turned away due to the cost and I would have bills that went unpaid. So, I'm not condoning my actions or others and I would like to learn a bit more about just what it would cost for a very small business to license a trademarked image for extremely low numbers.

[dehrlich]

Ton80... in response to your questions about the licenses, it depends on the school. I have a license for Kansas University, they do their own. It is $50 to get it, plus 10% of your sales with the logo... and the $50 goes towards that so you get your first 500 for free basically. Several others are the same. The problem comes when you have a school that is part of the big College Licensing Group. To get one for one of those schools, you have to first have product licensing insurance.. part of a business policy. Then its $200 application fee, send in a sample, maybe other fees, and then 10% of your sales. I know it sounds like a pain in the a**, but around here this stuff is big money. I'm working on getting Kansas State first because I am an alumni, and because you basically can't have one school without the other. All I was saying is it doesn't seem like it's fair for me to go through all this just because I want to do it right, and I don't want to share a cell with Bubba, when others get by without doing it. And if it was just like something that Grandma sewed I wouldn't care, but it's stones and metal art and others... stuff that requires machines that aren't cheap. I'm sure these people know what they are doing, they just figure they won't worry about it as long as nobody says anything. Just bothers me that people don't have the integrity. Not to mention the more people that do this, and I know there are lots, the harder it makes it for those of us that do bother to get the insurance and license etc. and have to build it into our price. By the way, i'm a disabled veteran and disability doesn't pay very well. Personally it's not worth the risk of a 10K fine or more just to make a few bucks.. that's why I'm doing what I'm supposed to.

Also, don't take what I say to heart, just trying to make my point. Just a friendly discussion here ok guys...

[fwharris]

Darrin,

That is how I took your initial post on this topic, you were just seeing if others do look at and evaluate other peoples work. I think you were just seeing if it was just you or do others do sort of the same thing. I am sure when you did notice the things you spoke about the only one you probably pointed it out to was your wife and then to use when you were ask in for feedback.

[Ton80]

Ton80... in response to your questions about the licenses, it depends on the school. I have a license for Kansas University, they do their own. It is $50 to get it, plus 10% of your sales with the logo... and the $50 goes towards that so you get your first 500 for free basically. Several others are the same. The problem comes when you have a school that is part of the big College Licensing Group. To get one for one of those schools, you have to first have product licensing insurance.. part of a business policy. Then its $200 application fee, send in a sample, maybe other fees, and then 10% of your sales. I know it sounds like a pain in the a**, but around here this stuff is big money. I'm working on getting Kansas State first because I am an alumni, and because you basically can't have one school without the other. All I was saying is it doesn't seem like it's fair for me to go through all this just because I want to do it right, and I don't want to share a cell with Bubba, when others get by without doing it. And if it was just like something that Grandma sewed I wouldn't care, but it's stones and metal art and others... stuff that requires machines that aren't cheap. I'm sure these people know what they are doing, they just figure they won't worry about it as long as nobody says anything. Just bothers me that people don't have the integrity. Not to mention the more people that do this, and I know there are lots, the harder it makes it for those of us that do bother to get the insurance and license etc. and have to build it into our price. By the way, i'm a disabled veteran and disability doesn't pay very well. Personally it's not worth the risk of a 10K fine or more just to make a few bucks.. that's why I'm doing what I'm supposed to.

Also, don't take what I say to heart, just trying to make my point. Just a friendly discussion here ok guys...

OH, yeah I agree.. friendly indeed I understand your thoughts on this, especially being in an area where college sports is basically big business. I surely didn't mean to infer any harshness towards you and I hope it wasn't taken that way. I know that it is difficult to do the right thing and pay all the fees/taxes and then to have to compete against prices that don't have those expenses factored in. In a sense I sometimes feel the blame falls on the licensing expenses being too high as to be seen as acceptable to the woodworker. As an example, like I mentioned, I've built cabinets for people that wanted a college logo or professional team logo across the front. These are one-time purchases and I only build the one ordered. If I was to go through with getting a license that required me to pay $200+, then send a sample and 10% then I just don't see anyway to make that work. It's impossible to make those costs up unless I mass produce an item. Looking at this through my point of view, I want to do the right thing but it just doesn't compute. Am I taking a chance, I suppose I am and when I sit and compare my outlook to yours, mine does feel hard to justify to you. Legally, there probably is no justification for my view but morally, I feel like the big business practices of imposing such high fees across the board, regardless of volume output from the woodworker, are wrong. They hurt the very small business that is commissioned to build one-off projects for an individual and basically tell me they don't want me to be able to exist unless I scale my business up to a level that I can't, or don't want to be at. Regulations like this should have some sort of sliding scale that starts at near zero and only climbs after you are producing a certain number of product.