[michael000]

Was reading over at pokerchips.com and while glancing through their FAQ i saw that Elvis' face would not be allowed since it's copy protected (which is totally understandable). So i was curious what's acceptable and what's not. In my particular case i've got an old quiksilver t-shirt around here with a drawing of a hawaiian girl on it that could possibly work with the "theme" of the chip i want to design. Would that be fair game or no? The girl isn't a copyrighted character like say Mickey Mouse but it is quiksilvers design.

Don't want to decide on her or something similar only to find out it's not allowed, especially since i'm set on a name (although i want something catchy for xxxx and casino and not your usual hotel/etc.).

[plz]

It is highly likely that the drawing in your quiksilver t-shirt is copyrighted by some entity - most likely, by quicksilver itself. If you look closely, you may be able to find the universal copyright symbol (a circle with a "c" in the middle) somewhere on the t-shirt, but even if there is no copyright symbol on the t-shirt, the drawing itself is protected by common law copyright.

So the short answer to your question is no, you cannot use that drawing without the owner's permission. That being said, it's equally unlikely that ASM would know about that drawing being someone else's copyright if you were to submit it to them as, say, a JPG file. Unless it's a famous or well known image (like Elvis or the Mona Lisa), ASM isn't going to know the origination of the image.

However, I don't think it's fair or proper to use someone else's artwork without their permission. You can always consider contacting quiksilver, or searching the web for similar images that are available free or for personal (non-commercial) use.