As noted earlier today, at some time during WrestleMania week, WWE reportedly sent a cease and desist letter to ProWrestlingTees.com to have specific Steve Austin shirts taken down. In examining an archived copy of ProWrestlingTees' Steve Austin store from a month ago, we can get a better idea of what's missing and try to infer why (and as you might expect, ProWrestlingTees is not able to comment at this time).
When Austin told a fan two days ago that the "316 Gimmick Street" shirt would be back, he wasn't messing around, because it's for sale right now, seemingly unchanged. It also doesn't appear to have had anything resembling WWE-owned content in the first place.
The two shirts still missing are "BSR New World," which is a Broken Skull Ranch shirt done in the style of the classic "spraypainted" New World Order logo shirt, and "Austin Era,"which features a photo of Austin doing his pre-match hands up pose on the second turnbuckle. There seem to be specific reasons for why these would be targeted:
For the "BSR New World" shirt, if WWE feels that it doesn't rise to the level of fair use, then doing a shirt in the style of the NWO logo, which they own, that would be a reason to take action. Per Stanford University's copyright and fair use library, the primary transformative uses that qualify for fair use are criticism/commentary and parody. The shirt argument would presumably be that the shirt doesn't criticize, comment on, or ridicule the NWO the the way that, for example, ECW's Blue World Order stable and shirts did.
The "Austin Era" shirt uses a photo licensed by Getty Images and credited as "Getty Images / Stringer." If you attempt to order a license for the photo, you get a notice that third party permission may be required. According to Getty Images customer service, that permission would come from the subject of the photo (Austin, who they're working with) and WWE. If WWE sent a cease and desist letter to have that shirt taken down, then that would seem like a firm statement that they never gave permission.
Steve Austin - WWE Dispute Update: Which Austin T-Shirts Are Missing
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