3 December 2008
New Stuff for Boy Scouts
Posted by admin under: Equipment .
That should be what’s coming down the pike according to Scoutingnews.org. Dan shared the announcement that American Klassic Designs, Inc. in Alabama has joined the list of licensed producers of Boy Scout stuff. I checked out the page of licensees the BSA shows here and it’s gigantic! Clothes, patches, coins, pins, chemical light sticks, and more. If you want to know who the BSA says is a legitimate supplier of Scout stuff, go to that link. Then you can feel secure in ordering that custom patch with the BSA logo on it.
By the way, this is also the web site where you can report illegal use of Boy Scout logos and terms.
Want to become an official supplier of Boy Scout stuff like AKD? Click here to find the details.
Neat! The FAQ on site also says that if your business is in a council’s service area (and I guess that means everywhere in the USA) you are allowed to make and sell stuff to your local council without having to get a standard license; you just have to get the okay of your local council’s Scout Executive. You can’t make stuff to sell to the public, though. This would be if the council wanted to buy staff t-shirts or printed materials. You could make and sell the stuff to the council without any royalties or an official license. The one loophole appears to be that you could make stuff that would be sold at your local council’s summer camp. You sell to the council; the council sells the stuff at summer camp. You just can’t sell stuff to the council that they would turn around and sell in their day-to-day Scout shop. With this local council agreement you’re allowed to use all the BSA logos and stuff. If you care about that sort of thing, like maybe the family in my troop that owns a print shop, you can get more details on this local council thing here at the licensing FAQ.
I need to stop. I’m like an info junkie on this subject now. I was wondering, what is a protected item according to the BSA? Obviously any of the logos, but what about terms like “Boy Scouts of America”? The web site give this helpful, and very extensive list.
| • 50 Miler® • 100 Years of Scouting: When Tradition Meets Tomorrow™ • Arrow of Light® • Ax-in-log (Wood Badge design with and without Wood Badge beads) • Be Prepared® • Be Prepared. For Adventure. For Life.™ • Black Bull® • Boy Scout™ • Boy Scouts of America® • Boy Scouts of America Trademark (red, white and blue fleur-de-lis) • Boy Scouts of America Universal Emblem (fleur-de-lis with eagle) • Boys’ Life® • BSA® • Character Connections® • Character Counts® • Character Quest® • Codemaster® • Cub Scout™ • Cub Scouts® • Cub World® • Do Your Best™ |
• Drugs: A Deadly Game® • Eagle Scout® • Emergency Preparedness, BSA® • Good Turn for America® • Jamboree® • Merit Badge™ • National Eagle Scout Association® • National Scouting Museum® • On My Honor Timeless Values® • Order of the Arrow® • Pedro Burro® • Pee Wee Harris® • Philmont® (including bull design and arrowhead design) • Pinewood Derby® • Raingutter Regatta® • Scoutfitter® • Scout Gear™ • Scouting® • Scouting USA® • Scoutmaster® • Scoutnet® • Scout Shop® • Scout Stuff® • Search, Discover, Share® • Sea Scouts® • Space Derby® |
• Strong Values Strong Leaders® • Take a Stand Against Drugs® • Tenderfoot® • Varsity Scout® • Venture® • Venturing® • When Tradition Meets Tomorrow™ • Wood Badge®• Boy Scout, Cub Scout and Venturing mottoes and phrases • Boy Scout uniform, insignia and emblems • Cub Scout uniform, insignia and emblems • Joseph Csatari scout paintings • Merit Badge™ designs • Norman Rockwell scout paintings • Venturing uniform, insignia and emblems • Fleur-de-lis (when used in conjunction with a Scouting activity) |
Whew! As the web site says, “In effect, just about any mark that reasonably relates to BSA or its program is protected. Accordingly, anyone seeking to use any marks, words, or phrases, which may reasonably be related to BSA and its programs should contact the BSA Legal Department at 972-580-2000 to obtain permission in advance for such use”. Ahem. There is a spot on the site that says informational materials are exempt. Thought I was going to have to get a license for my blog there for a second.
Okay. I’m done. I need to stop playing with that site and move on.
Update: All right I said I was going to stop, but I couldn’t help myself. Get this: official caskets.
UPD has the only licensed Memorial Line with the BSA®. Caskets and headstones are coming soon.
They’ve got a bunch of wooden urns for your ashes. So, if you don’t prefer cremation, you’ve got to wait to die until they get the headstones done.
- BSA Subscriptions and New Stuff
- Licensing Info For Boy Scout Stuff
- BSA Licensing News
- Pinewood Derby Sans Wood
- Boy Scouts of America©
5 Comments so far...
Dan - Scouting News Says:
3 December 2008 at 1:56 pm.
The federal charter provides protection over any term that the BSA uses whether they have copyrighted it or not. There have been big debates over some of them like “Scouts” and “Scouting”.
Back when I ran a Scouting Forum I contacted them in regards to the website url I was using, as it was stated that you would need a license to use terms in urls, however there was no info on the procedures for a website. I was told they were looking into a couple of possibilities but in the mean time I was fine. I have yet to hear anything different so I’m still working under that statement. If I were to have to license the use for my domain, I’d have to close shop…
admin Says:
3 December 2008 at 6:27 pm.
So you’re the guy who got scouter.com started. Did you know Bill? You know, I never knew about that site until about a month ago. How clueless am I?
I forgot where I saw it, but somewhere on the licensing page it says educational materials are exempt, which seems weird because you could do a lot of damage putting out the wrong information as an educational material. I always looked at my site as a newspaper opinion column distributing information. Newspapers sell ads, too, so I figured it was okay that I was talking about Scouting and putting ads up at the same time.
All right I rationalized my way to that point, but it still seems okay to me. The only one I worry about is Girl Scouts because I’ve actually been more critical of them and they might get ticked off and try to lean on me. Given that I don’t have any ads at the current time, though, I figure I’m in the clear.
I agree with your license issue. If I had to pay the $250 or whatever the licensing fee is, plus some unmentioned royalty amount every time I used a Scouting term I’d be thousands of dollars in debt by the end of the first day.
Dan - Scouting News Says:
4 December 2008 at 12:36 am.
No, I am not associated with Scouter.com at all…
I ran a different Scouting Forums website until I got tired of dealing with the childish behavior of some of the adults who were members. Threatening each other, me, lawsuit threats, letters from lawyers, very unscoutlike behavior…
Looking back I should have kept it going and just been a heavy handed moderator… oh well.
Randy Spencer Says:
15 January 2009 at 2:32 pm.
Just wondering if this is the correct plance to post this request.
Does any one have any information on how I might become a supplier of walking sticks for the Boy Scouts?
Any help would be appreciated.
admin Says:
15 January 2009 at 9:25 pm.
Yup. Follow this link: http://www.bsalicensing.org/obtain_license.htm
