How do you know if you need to seek permission to use something (i.e. a copyrighted image or slogan)

Here is a list of reasons why you would need to seek permission from the original owner:

If you intend to use the material for commercial purposes, you must seek permission from the original owner if that material is copyrighted or is a registered trademark

Or if you want to use the material repeatedly- for example if you are writing a book and you want to include a specific image several times, once again you need to seek the permission to use it from it's original owner

Trademark...What is it?

Nowadays we regularly see the letters "TM" in text, but what does TM (Trademark) actually mean? A trademark is something that a company/business creates for their products or things associated with their company or products. Trademarking their product means that no other businesses have the right to copy the name/design of their trademark and, if they do the company with the official product have the right to take the other company to court. Some common examples of Trademark being used are with Coke or Diet Coke, these are both products created and owned by the Coca-Cola Company and, because they are Trademarked, the names cannot be copied. Companies can also trademark things such as logos or slogans, for example the Nike tick, or swoosh, is trademarked by Nike meaning that no other companies can copy that logo.
The TM logo isn't actually used that frequently, we normally see the letter R encased in a circle (see below) which means that the product or logo's trademark has been officially registered.

Facebook timeline

Recently Facebook introduced a new feature to their social networking site: called Facebook timeline. This feature turns what used to be someone's 'wall' to a timeline, it gathers all the information from your profile and puts it onto your timeline. Facebook timeline has had mixed reactions among the critics, some are saying that it is a great way to look at what you did years ago and what you used to be interested in, however other critics say that the layout is much to complicated for some people and although reasonably easy to navigate, can be confusing. Facebook also allows you to add life events to your timeline, for example, first driving lesson or graduated from high school, it then adds these events to specific dates on your timeline so you can see what you did and when. Personally, I think that the new layout is actually quite good as, for me, it is easy to navigate and use.