fine print

小学生の娘が考案したTシャツのデザインを盗用したとして、母親がニューヨークの会社を訴えたというニュースです。


A Manhattan mom says a popular children's clothing chain took advantage of her young daughter by swiping the second-grader's winning T-shirt contest design.

Ellen Solovsky slapped retailer Lit­tle­MissMatched with a Manhattan federal court lawsuit on Tuesday, claiming the company used her daughter's design on a host of its own products after the image won an elementary-school design contest.

（中略）

The suit alleges that the company relied on her daughter's lack of knowledge of copyright laws to cheat her out of profits from the design, which she made in October 2011 as a school project for a ­LittleMissMatched-sponsored contest at PS 116.

Children at the school were asked to sign away their rights, the filing alleges — and all her daughter won was a $100 gift card and five T-shirts.

"[Little]MissMatched knew or should have known that elementary-school students would not understand the meaning of the copyright provision of the submission form," the suit says.

Although Solovsky also signed the submission form, her lawyer, William Dunnegan, said it doesn't matter.

Because it was Solovsky's daughter who designed the catchy logo, the lawyer said, the child "owns its copyright" and it doesn't matter that Solovsky might not have read the fine print.
(Rich Calder. Mom says clothing chain stole her second grader's design. New York Post. September 10, 2014.)


引用が少し長くなってしまいましたが、訴えによると学校のデザイナーコンテストで受賞したデザインを、コンテストのスポンサーである衣料品会社がうまく丸め込んだというのが問題のようです。

どう丸め込んだかですが、著作権やら細かいことが分からない小学生に権利放棄を承諾する書類にサインをさせたということのようです。小学生に著作権はちょっと難しいかも・・・。

今日の表現は、"fine print"ですが、文字通りに訳せば、細かい（fine）印字（print）ということになります。

保険の約款だとか、製品の保証書とか、何でもいいですが、要は素人には分かりにくい難解な用語で、しかも小さな字で書かれているアレのことです。"small print"とも言います。

Merriam-Websterの定義では、


something thoroughly and often deliberately obscure; especially: a part of an agreement or document spelling out restrictions and limitations often in small type or obscure language


となっています。

小さな字というだけではなくて、そもそも専門家ではない人間には分かりにくい、という含意があります。