The New York Times has reported on the troubles of a sports artist down ‘bama way. (That’s Alabama, btw.) It seems our esteemed artist has made a bit of a career painting scenes of “The Crimson Tide” university football team. He’s an alumni, he has several kids that attend the school, and now he can’t even attend the games anymore. So what’s the problem? His paintings are certainly good. But the school is claiming trademark infringement because he includes the football players in uniform playing the game, and that the crimson and white uniform is “off-limits”.
You may need to login to an account at the NYT site, but it’s free to set up an account to access reports. The story page also contains an A/V version that includes some of the art in question.
While the University addresses trademark issues with him, I must admit my first thought was that the paintings seem so realistic, that they must have been copied from photos. I can only hope (or trust) that they were his photos – if made from some other reference than pure memory and imagination. I’d hate to see him slapped with a copyright action from another third party while fighting a trademark action against the school.
