help and advice

[Dave Harrison]

Anyone reproducing unauthorised registered trademarks is breaking the law !
So I don’t think your boss is being over cautious at all. While you may not get sued over a couple of decals for your mates, technically you could.

As for P-cuts I can’t really comment because I don’t own one, but at the end of the day you only get what you pay for.

[George Kern]

In response to your first question on reproducing trademarked / copyrighted material it is very illegal without proper permissions or paying royalties. On top of that; most large companies have Logo Guidelines or Acceptable Use Policies that have strict guidelines on how you can and cannot use their logos, what colors they can be reproduced in, what background colors they can be applied to etc. It seems to be that most race teams/aftermarket car parts companies really dont mind to have their logos printed/cut because it is exposure for them, but keep in mind, if they do want to pursue a lawsuit and you do not have proper credentials to reproduce their logos, you can be sued.

[Martin Pearson]

As Dave has said anyone reproducing Trademark logos without authorisation is breaking the law and could be sued for it, if a customer had a race team then I am sure they would only want to put sponsors logos on their bikes and the sponsors are always happy to provide these to the teams they sponsor.

As for P-cuts I have no experience myself so wouldn’t recommend them to anyone but if you are looking to buy one I would suggest you buy from a UK supplier so at least you have some sort of support should you have problems. I’m not just talking about set up problems either, any machine can develop problems at any time and saving yourself a few bob buying a cheap Chinese plotter could cost you a lot more in the long run if the supplier doesn’t offer any support for the machine.

[Matt Faulks]

quote martin:

and the sponsors are always happy to provide these to the teams they sponsor.

No they’re not! It usually goes that the sponsorship deal will be done and it’s the teams responsibility to attach and maintain the sponsors logo as per the agreement and whilst keeping within their usage guidelines. It’s a pain in the arse for the most part and actually being supplied with graphics by the sponsor is a pretty rare thing, unless it’s a little standard size logo for the fronts of the mirrors or similar.

As for P-Cuts – done a load of work on one this weekend and it’s cut everything spot on first time with no problems.

Cheers
M

[Shane Drew]

As has been said. Don’t assume anything when it comes to reproduction of Logos’

Most major corporations have style guides that must be adhered to. Team owners will usually take responsibility for placement, but that said, they’ll usually have to run the placement by the sponsor/company first.

The big V8 teams that I’ve done work for actually sell space on the car, so logo placement is critical to the overall ‘cost’ of the sponsorship.

Smaller teams will often just slap them on anywhere, but end of the day, if the corporate logo is not in a place that the logo owner likes, he can be pleasant and ask that it be removed/moved, or he can be unpleasant and threaten to sue.

Always get signed artwork for this sort of thing, then you are covered to a point.

I have no idea on P-Cuts unfortunately

.

[James Paul Jones]

Many thanks to one and all, and comments have been taken on board.

it was just a feeler as to what other people do, with regards to reproduction, and as for the Pcut, still unsure as to what cutter to buy 😕

As a newbie, no doubt there will be countless more head scratchers to come! thanks again.

[Paul Leicester]

Setting up a PCut shouldn’t be any different than most other USB/Serial type machines. If you can manage to check the com port setting in Windows Device Manager ie USB SERIAL COM* and select this com number in your cutting software, change the flow control option to match (HARDWARE is normally the default) you should be cutting fairly quickly.

Sometimes we find that the lowest available port is using a very high com number com 11-16 isn’t unheard of! you may need to lower this option by removing the hardware that Windows is still allocating resources for.

Most issues are not caused by the cutter or software…the problem usually lies elsewhere.

Paul

quote James Paul Jones:

Can i put a few questions to the board? i am just about to embark on the sign writing trip, but before i do, can someone please help with the following:

1. where does the “trade” stand on reproducing trademark/copyrighted material, eg, if a customer had a race team and wanted to have things like Shell Oil or Yamaha graphics on their motorcycles?where i work now, we always ask for written permission to reproduce graphics and artwork. is it just my boss being over cautious?

2. has anyone got good reason NOT to buy a Creation cutter? i have studied the boards and there does appear to be issues with the set up, but once that is sorted, is it ok?

i thank you all in advance of any replies i may receive……

😀