Class Politics who wants laser t-shirts?

laserboy4.7

New Member
I know laser has strict rules but i think as a way of expressing our love of laser sailing, we should be able to make t-shirts with some sayings like '' I LOVE MY LASER '' or other sayings. Any ideas on how we could do that? The shirts would be able to be sold at district nationals or even local regattas and would sell greatly.
 
hire someone and have them made... they cant trademark the word laser anymore than KFC can trademark "chicken"... if you start putting sailboats on them or the laser logo you can and likely will get in trubble...
 
Be careful here!

As it turns out, the builders are the trademark owners and, in fact, that does include the rights to sell jackets/hats/shirts/t-shirts/etc with the Laser/starburst insignia. In fact, they have licensed Team One Newport to produce Laser logo gear (see this link) already.

I'm not a trademark attorney, but it is my understanding that the class (and regatta organizers) can use the starburst/Laser insignia for promoting regattas, but not necessarily in the general sense. At least LP have turned down requests for ILCA-NA to do so for the past several years (because of their contract with Team-One Newport).
 
Be careful here!
...

I'm not a trademark attorney, but it is my understanding that the class (and regatta organizers) can use the starburst/Laser insignia for promoting regattas, but not necessarily in the general sense. At least LP have turned down requests for ILCA-NA to do so for the past several years (because of their contract with Team-One Newport).


There you go then. Print up cool regatta shirts.

I'd rather have a shirt about a specific event anyway.
 
Back when we had a positive relationship with the builders and they thought anything the Class did to help sell boats was a great thing, we stocked T shirts, Sweatshirts and Nice thick Twill shirts. I delivered about $3000 worth of those shirts to Annapolis in 2002 and the class has never either marketed them or officially accounted for that Class' property.
As they never were sold and mentioned as sold in any annual ILCA-NA financial statement and we have always had 100% honest people handling, our assets, I am certain somewhere in a bunch of boxes there are still North American Laser Class shirts, sweatshirts and t shirts . Try asking Sherri what stuff the class still has in stock. You and she together may be pleasantly surprised by the wonderful stash of clothing I delivered to James Appel and he sent on to her new office. Or maybe someone else will have a really great explanation.

Here is the old webpage>>>
http://web.archive.org/web/20021004131528/www.laser.org/niceshirt.html

Sorry, The links to the photos don't always work on the Wayback machine.

I will see what I can do about that....
 
OK here is the old website ad for some of the clothing we stocked. As of the end of September in 2002, our Annapolis Laser Class Office had about three dozen of the shirt shown in the photo. and about 100 of the Cheat the Nursing Home T shirts. There were also about three dozen heavy weight all cotton sweatshirts and a couple hundred books none of which have ever been officially written off or sold such that the funds were mentioned in an annual financial statement.
nicesh1.jpg


The information for odering in time for Christmas was always in the ad...Why not??
 
Be careful here!

As it turns out, the builders are the trademark owners and, in fact, that does include the rights to sell jackets/hats/shirts/t-shirts/etc with the Laser/starburst insignia. In fact, they have licensed Team One Newport to produce Laser logo gear (see this link) already.

Better link: http://www.team1newport.com/products.asp?dept=242 The one that you provided takes you to clothing with the orange Laser Performance orange triangle logo. And who would want that unless you worked at Laser Performance?
 
In some ways the broader discussion here relater to what a Class Association is and should do. I did not post on the other thread as it was more concerned with specific (in)actions by the US Class. But ...

To my mind the Class Association is a group of members and the Association's job is to represent the members, to do what the members want, to represent their interests, etc. If the membership wants cheap T-shirts, etc. then that is what the Class Association should do. Of course there are external constraints (laws, money, etc.) so they cannot always do everything. Then consider that there will always be different people wanting different/conflicting things.

It can become confusing (for the Class Association) when the organization starts to get large, starts employing full time people, when budgets start getting loads of zeros. Their responsibility to the membership starts to get forgotten. Sometimes Class Officers can start doing what they want, their personal preferences rather than consulting the membership. A bit like politicians really. Of course every decision cannot be put to the membership or nothing would ever happen. When one elects Association Officers one is to a degree making a statement that you are trusting them to make decisions on your behalf and in your interest. What the elected officers should then be doing is continually asking themselves "is this in the interest of the membership ?". Not always a "right answer" and often the answer might depend on the direction the individual officer thinks the Class should be moving in.

Often change is difficult. When elections are not inundated with candidates often the same people will be re-elected uncontested. The Association can then gradually become more and more of a private domain for the Committee - things gradually getting more and more separate from the membership. Members gradually get more and more fed-up, more and more comments on places like here. more and more people don't bother joining. More and more clubs recognize this and stop requiring membership (as is happening already in places). Eventually things change. The Officers can at any point "stop the rot" by remembering what they are there for - but often this does not happen.

(I appreciate this is not really answering the originally asked question in this thread but I sort of thought the question had been answered so I took the liberty of going off on a bit of a tangent ... Sorry).

Ian
 
i understand i just wondered what my legal terms were of what i can and cant do.so am i correct at this?i am not allowed 2 show the laser trademark or the boat
 
The Laser logo is actually lifted from the international symbol to warn when a laser is being used in the vicinity..See this site for a good example http://www.ce-mag.com/archive/02/03/peckham.html It seems to me that you could print the "laser" symbol as much as you wanted just like you could print the symbol for a Men's bathroom on your t-shirt , unless the people that invented all of the symbols we see around us exercise a copyright on these images..The problem might come when you tie the symbol to sailing..
 
I believe that the owner of the rights to make the boat also has purchased the right to use the symbol in relation to sailing. I think that if you make T-shirts using the symbol or pictures of Laser boats to sell on a limited basis as a souvenir for your regatta, you won't hear about it. It's not a good idea to try to make a business with it.
 
Host a regatta once a year and design killer t-shirts that are included in the registration package. Sell any left overs for $10.00 ea.
 
i understand i just wondered what my legal terms were of what i can and cant do.so am i correct at this?i am not allowed 2 show the laser trademark or the boat

I echo merrily's sentiment... if you want to make a shirt for yourself that has the laser logo, sailboat and such, I doubt you would hear about it... to a certain extent a plaintiff has to show that they were damaged somehow in your unauthorized use of their copyright... I'd prolly take a free speech defense...

If you put up a website selling laser gear... its a completely different story.
 

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