A Distant Soil by Colleen Doran

I in NO WAY give permissions for my artwork to be used as signature tags, tubes, stationary, slight animation, frames, backgrounds, etc. REMOVE IT.

The originating image location.

BMP Logo Copyright Infringement

BMP has reached an out of court settlement with an Australian T-shirt manufacturer that illegally reproduced the image of our Black Mermaid™ logo on some clothing. We were alerted to this breach of copyright by a colleague and his friend (a mutual mermaid lover and frequent visitor to the BMP website whom we had never met) who spotted the image on a t-shirt for sale at a local market. Both people instantly recognised the image as being that of our black mermaid logo, which we matched to the BMP Properties page hostess artwork on our website. The BMP logo has been an identifiable part of our business brand for the last 15 years and has been affectionately embraced by many of our readers. In fact, in our professional publishing circles and networking groups we are known as “the black mermaids” or the “mermaid people”. In accordance to this brand recognition we have never licensed or given permission to any person or organisation to reproduce our BMP business logo (in all her website hostess incarnations) for commercial or non-commercial use. The Australian Copyright Council (ACC) Information Sheet (G28) Logos: legal protection states:
“Unauthorised use of a logo may not only infringe copyright but may also raise issues under other areas of law such as trademark rights, passing off laws and consumer protection laws.”

It further states that:
“Making changes to a logo does not overcome infringement … there is no rule in copyright law that permits reproduction of a logo if a percentage of it is changed, or if a certain number of alterations are made. If you can put the two logos side by side and identify important parts from the original that have been copied, it is likely that an important part of the original has been reproduced.” To download a pdf of this information sheet and other relevant topics on your copyright rights or to purchase ACC publications go to: http://www.copyright.org.au/publications/infosheets.htm. For advice on copyright issues phone the ACC on: (02) 9318 1788 or visit the website on http://www.copyright.org.au. If you believe your copyright has been infringed and you need to take legal action then contact Frankel Lawyers who handled the BMP case on (02) 9318 2900 or www.frankellawwyers.com.au. We would also be very grateful if our BMP readers can keep us posted of any suspected unauthorised use of not only the BMP logo but any other artwork from our website. Please email us on: blackmermaid@blackmermaid.com.
(11 July 2006)

http://www.blackmermaid.com/faq.html

Is the Black Mermaid™ logo available for license or for any other use?
No. The Black Mermaid™ logo is copyright and trademarked to BMP. She has become a strong identifiable part of our business brand for the last 15 years and has been affectionately embraced by our readers. In many publishing circles and networking groups we are in fact known as the “black mermaids” or the “black mermaid people”. In accordance with this brand recognition we have never licensed or given permission to any individual or organisation to reproduce the logo as she appears in our corporate stationery and also in all her website incarnations for commercial or non-commercial use, including tattoos. We have defended legally with success infringements of our logo character.

The content of our site is copyright Black Mermaid Productions™, 1998-2008. The material may not be downloaded, uploaded, altered, reproduced, broadcast, distributed or otherwise used in any way for promotional or commercial use without the prior written consent of BMP.