Would creating an artist rendering silhouette of a trademarked character be infringement?
Assuming you mean a fictional character, characters are protected by copyright, trademark and unfair competition law. If you appropriate a character that belongs to someone else to create your own commercial product, you’re likely to get sued by the rightsholder, as well as by the artist(s) who created the silhouettes. You can’t create a “derivative” work that substantially copies copyrighted images or that trades on the fame of the character and confuses consumers about the source of your shirts. And if the artist(s) who created the images haven’t assigned their rights to you, you could be infringing on their work, as well. A relatively small amount of infringement is just as wrong as bigger amount, so it doesn’t matter how few shirts you make, although that may limit your damages if you are found liable for infringing the rights of others. See your own IP lawyer to fully disclose what you want to do. Disclaimer: Please note that this answer does not constitute legal advice, and shoul
