I have a Logo Contest running in this forums. Never bought a logo from someone on a forum before. What steps do I need to protect myself from any type of wrong doing. Would hate to pay for a logo then have someone send me a cease and desist order or see it being sold or used by others. Any help would be appreciated.
There really isn't a whole lot you can do in this type of situation. You are responsible for content you put on your site. If your design was "stolen" then the owner would go after you, and then you could turn around and go after the person who designed it - hopefully you would have the option of resolving it by just removing it from your site. The person you pay should understand that you own the logo and that it is not to be resold. To be honest, the designer could come up with an "original idea" that still infringes upon an existing trademark/service mark. What you don't want to do is post a public example of someone else's mark and say you want something like it. For a $20 contest, you are going to take some risk. A comprehensive service mark search could easily run over a $1000 and still not be a guarantee - and an intellectual property rights attorney is going to run hundreds of dollars per hour. Are you really going to want to incur the legal fees of suing someone if they resell a $20 logo?
Thanks. So basically I just need to get an email acknowlegement from the creator that they did create this themselves and are selling it and the all rights to me. Then cross my fingers they are honest and my butt is covered well enough. =)