Your question falls within the intersection of both copyright and
trademark law. Let's assume you want to reproduce the Mercedes Benz
logo. If Mercedes Benz claims a copyright in the logo itself, the
mere act of reproducing it without their permission is copyright
infringement. If they do not claim a copyright and instead only rely
on trademark rights, the mere act of reproduction is not actionable,
but you could not lawfully sell the reproduced logos for money. That
would be trademark infringement.
Since in your question you state that you are opening a business, I
assume you are going to reproduce the logos as decals and sell the
decals, presumably for a profit. Despite what you have seen elsewhere
on the web and on eBay, you cannot lawfully do this without the logo
owners' permission, UNLESS the logo owners claim no copyright in the
logo designs (very doubtful) and you do not sell the reproductions
(doubtful).
I will wager that the large car compnaies have one or more full-time
lawyers whose job it is to police how their logos/trademarks are used
on the web and to send cease and desit letters to companies using the
marks without a license (permission). |
