DSF

Hi guys, hope we are well.
I tried a search but as there are so many posts and replies about copyright I am going mad trying to find an answer.
Is there anyway of finding out if a brand or logo has gone out of copyright. The only example I can think of at the moment is Midland Bank who were bought out by HSBC. Could you use their old griffen logo on a T shirt with the "The listening Bank".
Cheers
Iain

What you have to be careful about old logo's even when the company is no longer around is copyright stands for 100 years if the work was copyrighted! also the copyright may have been bought by new owner or other partie.

I kind of thought that. Am doing some retro looking items at the moment and thought I might try a revive an old logo of some sort. I will try a more detailed search on Google when I have a spare 10 mins.
Thanks

The classic was the old apple logo which you don't see very often at all......oh hang on that's because....

Janners

Just because something is no longer in use doesn't mean that someone still doesn't own it.

pisquee;89169 wrote:Just because something is no longer in use doesn't mean that someone still doesn't own it.

This part I understand and I know there are loads of discussions on here about the ins and outs of copyright.

Does anyone know if there is a central place to find out the copyright details of old logos. Some companies have been bought out by one company which is then bought out by an even bigger one so where do you start?
I know that I should do my own designs and am doing a course on design at the moment but as I said in my first post I am looking at the vintage/retro look, even though that could mean the 80's!!

I'm not aware of a central place to check copywrite and it would be rather hard for such a place to exist as copyright is granted automatically and doesn't require registration, you can check trade marks because they do require registrations. Your best bet is to hunt through public domain site like wiki commons but your going to be looking at logo's from the 1940s and earlier anything more recent will still be under copyright.

After having a rethink about what you were asking about old logo's!

What you are calling logo's would be more like Trade Mark's as in the branding of the product! and this is where you really could fall foul of the law? as the Trade Mark is not like a copyrighted image as in it's the brand which means that it's always held by someone and doesn't expire like copyright does because it can be transfered time & time again from owner to owner.

And something you really need to be careful of is don't take someone's old artwork and rework it because if it implies to be conected you will still be infringing it.

... to add, even if the trade mark is not registered, you will still be in the realms of "passing off"

I understand the the passing off and copyright issues. I was hoping there may have been a central database or starting point bit as this doesn't seem to be the case. I will keep going with my design course and try and design my own vintage logos.
Thank you all for your responses.