May 10, 1965 Krist Novoselic is born. February 20, 1967 Kurt Cobain is born. January 14, 1969 Dave Grohl is born. Fall 1985 Kurt meets Krist. They play in several bands together, including Stiff Woodies. December 1987 Kurt, Krist and drummer Aaron Burckhard form the original lineup of Nirvana in Aberdeen, Washington. January 23, 1988 Nirvana records a 10-song demo with the “Godfather of Grunge,” legendary Seattle producer Jack Endino. Sub Pop co-honcho Jonathan Poneman hears the tape and offers to put out a Nirvana single. October 30, 1988 Kurt smashes his first guitar. June 1989 Bleach is released on Sub Pop. Nirvana embarks on a month-long U.S. tour. September 25, 1990 Dave Grohl, former drummer for Washinton, D.C.’s Scream, joins Nirvana. October 1990 Nirvana briefly tours England with L7. Winter 1991 Nirvana signs with DGC Records. August 1991 Nirvana opens for Sonic Youth on a European festival tour, which includes a landmark performance at the Reading Festival.

The tour is documented in the film 1991: The Year Punk Broke. September 24, 1991 Nevermind is released. October 12, 1991 Nevermind is certified a gold album. November 1991 The band starts a six-week European tour as Nirvanamania sweeps the United States. MTV airs “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video constantly; the song is hailed as an anthem for a generation. January 11, 1992 Nevermind hits No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. January/February 1992 Nirvana tours Australia, Japan and Hawaii. April 1992 Nirvana appears on the cover of Rolling Stone. June/July 1992 Nirvana tours Europe. December 15, 1992 Incesticide, a collection of B-sides and rarities, is released. It goes gold the following spring. April 9, 1993 Nirvana plays a concert at San Francisco’s Cow Palace to raise awareness of and generate aid for rape survivors in Bosnia-Herzegovina. L7, the Breeders and Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy are also on the bill. September 21, 1993 In Utero is released.

October 18, 1993 Nirvana starts a three-month tour of North America. November 19, 1993 Nirvana tapes an all-acoustic show for “MTV Unplugged” at Sony Studios in New York. Cris and Curt Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets sit in on three Meat Puppets songs. December 16, 1993 MTV airs Nirvana’s “Unplugged” show. January 7, 1994 Nirvana plays the Seattle Arena. It will be the band’s last U.S. show. February 6, 1994 Nirvana embarks on a tour of Europe. British Indian Ocean Territory Cocos ( Keeling ) Islands Côte d ' Ivoire Croatia ( Hrvatska ) Congo ( DRC ) Falkland Islands ( Islas Malvinas ) French Southern and Antarctic Lands Heard Island and McDonald Islands Macedonia Former Yugoslav Republic of São Tomé and Prìncipe South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands St. Kitts and Nevis St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Svalbard and Jan Mayen United States Minor Outlying Islands

Virgin Islands ( British ) Please also add me to the UMe Mailing List I agree to the Universal Music Group Privacy Policy.Sign-up to the UNIQLO newsletter to be the first to hear about upcoming exclusive UNIQLO UT collections.Click to copy the Promocode The latest from your favorite designers Shop Now What to wear now! Discover More Elevate your look with the season’s latest pumps Shop Now The prim and proper style perennial Shop Now Make an entrance, celebrate in style Women Walk a day in Carrie’s shoes! uab hoodieShop our Selection Delight in our edit Shop Now Take your fitness to the next level Shop our Selection Forever cool for high street and beyond Shop Now Feminine and bold footwear from Brazil Discover Moredopest hoodie everIMPORTANT PREFACE: I am not a lawyer, do not claim to be one, nor do I play one on tv. o2l hoodie

The following article and any advice contained therein is based on my own experience and opinions. Any action you take as a result of this is done so at your own risk. Don’t say I didn’t warn you I know what you’re thinking…you have an awesome idea for a shirt, but it’s using a well known, copyrighted character. “Hmm,” you say, “I could probably get away with it, right? I mean, it’s not like [insert major corporation here] own every aspect of the character. rif hoodieBesides, what I’m really doing is a parody and hardly looks like it…yeah, it’ll be ok…right?”akoo hoodies for sale I get lots of questions from people who want to get into the shirt business asking me about using licensed imagery, sayings, and characters in their designs. costco superhero sweatshirts

They ask me if it’s “ok” because they deviated from the original works by a certain percentage, or because it’s a parody, or some other excuse they claim will allow them to cash in on their design while not getting into trouble. The fact is: If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and even quacks like a duck…it’s copyright infringement. That means that the little “personal flair” you add to the design idea isn’t enough to keep you off the radar of any major company protecting their intellectual property rights. cookie monster hoodie at walmartMake any excuse you want, but you know what? You’ll have to prove it in court…and do you have enough money to do that? That’s what I thought… For those of you who don’t know, I run a t-shirt company called -Rags which sells shirts based on horror movies. I started out much the same as any shirt company…I came up with some cool designs and started selling them online.

As time went on, more were sold, and things picked up quite a bit. Now, I’m happy to say that I do this for a living…but it didn’t come that easily. It took years to build up my business, and lots of trial and error. LOTS of trial and error. I was naive at the beginning and even though I researched as much as I could about copyrights and infringement, I decided to rationalize my personal opinions on the matter and create my designs based on popular horror characters anyway. After all, my designs were different and, therefore, ok…right? Well, that was my first mistake… On a cold December day in 2005, I arrived home from work, checked my inbox, and found an interesting letter. No, it wasn’t from a fan thanking me for the kick ass shirts, or another store that wanted to carry my line. It was from New Line Cinemas…and they wanted me to stop production of several designs I created that they claimed to have been infringing on their copyrights. Failure to do so would mean hauling me into court and suing me for copyright infringement.

I will be blunt and honest here…I just about crapped myself. I had heard of this happening before, and even knew a few people that received the same letter…but it’s nothing like getting it yourself. I immediately responded by taking the designs off the site and writing a letter of compliance back to them so that they knew I had taken action. The last thing I needed was to be sued. Luckily, they accepted my compliance and the case was closed. Yes, I got away relatively unscathed…but I wouldn’t always be that lucky… About 8 months ago, I received a similar letter…this time it was from Universal Studios. One of my older, retired designs had been spotted at a small shop in Hollywood by someone working for Universal. When confronted about the design, the store was required to give up their source or risk being shut down. And of course, the paper trail led back to me. The design in question was a silhouetted image of the Frankenstein monster…one that I designed years ago and had since taken it off my site.

While I thought I had created an original look for this design (omitting any trademarked features), they felt it referenced their version too closely, and they wanted me to pay them for “back licensing” for the prior two years. Just stopping production was not enough…they wanted money. And lots of it. I won’t disclose the actual figure, but let’s just say it was in the five figure range. In the end, I was able to talk them down to a more reasonable (but still substantial) amount and we settled the case out of court. I was not so lucky that time….it cost alot of money and was a major headache. Those are just two of my personal experiences with copyright infringement. There are more, but I felt these illustrated the best and worst case scenarios… So what if you want the licensing to a certain image, character, or property? Well, that’s a different story… Depending on what you are trying to license, prepare to do alot of homework trying to track down who owns the rights to what you want to use.

Let’s say you want to license a well known character from a popular movie. First, you’ll have to find out who owns the rights to this character. It could be the film company itself, or perhaps a company that licensed its use for films. If it’s a specific movie, IMDB can point you in the right direction of who owns the rights, or at least the company responsible for making the film. (Speaking of IMDB, I recommend a Pro account to get access to even more information and contacts). However, if the film is older and more obscure, the company that originally owned the rights may no longer exist, and most likely it has been bought by one of the few main film studios that exist today. I find that looking those older companies up on sites like Wikipedia generally help in finding out where the original company’s library of titles currently resides.There you can find information on new properties to be licensed, as well as whatdeals have just been made in the licensing industry. There is even a magazine and online newsletter you can subscribe to that will help keep you up-to-date with all the latest industry buzz.

Each one of these companies manages various properties, and are the ones you’ll want to contact if you want to license any of the properties they manage. It is common for a company to use a licensing agency to manage their intellectual property. Licensing agencies act as a liaison between the licensor and the licensee, and are the ones that generally negotiate the contracts to ensure the licensor is getting the best possible exposure. They will be your main contact throughout the term of the license and the ones you’ll have to convince to actually get the licensein the first place. No matter what you’re trying to license, you’ll most likely have to submit a proposal for review. A proposal generally consists of your reasons for licensing this property, what products you intend to create with the license, and how you will market them. Agents usually also want trade references of places you have done business with and even bank references to make sure your company is financially stable.

While the exact type of information they desire may vary, all companies want to know one thing: how much money do you intend to make? No company or licensing agent is going to grant you a license without some sort of guarantee. Think of it from their perspective…they have a viable property worth a certain amount of money. It’s in their best interest to license only to companies that can get their products seen by as many people as possible…and bought by as many people as possible. So, one of the things you must submit in your proposal is a guaranteed amount of money that they will make during the course of the license. Plus, they will want a portion of this money upfront, as well asroyalties on any money made over and above the guaranteed amount. Please keep in mind that each situation varies depending on the property your licensing and the agency you’re dealing with. However, in my experience, this best illustrates what you can expect when you embark on obtaining legal use of an intellectual property.