Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by thenextcorner 4761 days ago
Are you a lawyer? I hope this is not legal advice you're giving, because the general best practices I've always learned using pictures in marketing material: "Never show brands or products names"
2 comments

"because the general best practices"

It's important to know and understand the reasons behind advice like that. It totally depends on the circumstances, who is doing it and a host of other factors. Best practice? Get a government job with a pension and you won't have to worry about anything. Work for a corporation where they have departments that tell you what you can and should do and worry about all sorts of minutia.

I've used Apple logos in the past frequently as well as other things similar. Large companies don't expend energy and legal time doing anything nasty to small companies without a compelling reason (of course you could show me outliers obviously but you can't make money in business worrying about those outliers). Worse case scenario is normally a nasty letter asking you to stop, if that. The chance of an actual legal claim and money damages (once again in most cases) is minute. You might have to pay a lawyer to write something in reply. So what?

(And yes I've gone up against the NCAA and AMX with nasty letters and made them go away so I've pushed the envelope at least that far..I've also gotten approval in advance from the IRS as well for a project using their logo.)

Perhaps you're conflating - the reality is that it's much more akin to "in a manner that implies a relationship, endorsement by the manufacturer that doesn't exist", and similar.