My parents went to metafilter.com and all I got was this lousy post
May 6, 2017 4:56 PM   Subscribe

But how exactly can a shirt with Link cycling next to Batman and Harley Quinn exist in a world of DMCA takedowns, cease-and-desist letters, and stringent IP enforcement? Where do these designs come from and how can the sheer mass of these T-shirt sites all successfully operate? When it comes to the Internet-based economy of pop culture T-shirts, it turns out a few loose threads are holding the whole landscape together. -- Hanging by a thread: How the online nerdy T-shirt economy exists in an IP world
posted by Room 641-A (30 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
Generally, these aim for any RIPT design to be covered under parody and fair use guidelines.

just that
posted by sammyo at 5:31 PM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


I went looking for a Steven Universe shirt, and I was interested in one or two until I realized the designs weren't legal. It isn't that I am so precious, but the website itself (I forget which) skeeved me out. The top designs were by excellent fan artists, professional in quality, but once you browsed past the first couple of pages, you found designs that obviously originated in high school binder margins. It made me feel a bit ill for the young artists involved, the way those old "Best American Poetry" volumes did (see your poem published in this handsome volume for just $49.95!).
posted by Countess Elena at 5:41 PM on May 6, 2017


I do not generally give life advice to teenagers, having made a hash of it myself, but one thing I would unhesitatingly tell them is please do not wear a T-shirt proclaiming your side in a shipping war
posted by Countess Elena at 5:42 PM on May 6, 2017 [10 favorites]


The article misses some of the major "nerdy T-shirt" merchants, including the two I get most of my CHEAP shirts from, woot.com (I'm currently wearing their recent Red Shirt Special) and 6DollarShirts (home of my significant otter). Then there is that source of more expensive shirts (and posters and mugs and stickers and books and-etc...) from actual independent creators using their own intellectual property (mostly webcomickers but also some Metafilter) at Topatoco. (Which reminds me, when are MetaFilter and Topatoco going to put out a "This will not Wendell" shirt?)
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:52 PM on May 6, 2017 [6 favorites]


please do not wear a T-shirt proclaiming your side in a shipping war

Sorry, I'm gonna keep wearing my TEAM EDWARD shirt.
posted by Shmuel510 at 6:06 PM on May 6, 2017 [4 favorites]


I'm still on this Team Edward.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:11 PM on May 6, 2017 [5 favorites]


As someone who once ran an extremely small t-shirt operation and found himself on the receiving end of a terrifying legal assault over a design that had netted me less than fifty dollars (Canadian) total, I have to confess a little professional jealousy.
posted by rodlymight at 6:29 PM on May 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


So underlying the Just Two Things economy is.... inventory management + shaky legality.
posted by Spacelegoman at 6:40 PM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


woot.com (I'm currently wearing their recent Red Shirt Special) and 6DollarShirts (home of my significant otter

I am right now wearing a woot shirt and also own the Significant Otter shirt. Are you me?
posted by uncleozzy at 6:47 PM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


No, Wild Bunch is one I don't have. But I do have Mr. Spork, Pun Intended, Lets All Go To The Lobby (which they had to be very careful to clear), other otters, various veggies and some of the best "just two things" concepts. And this.
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:02 PM on May 6, 2017 [3 favorites]


I think basically all my t-shirts are from Topatoco. I've never really liked Two Things shirt design and I appreciate a shirt that other people can also appreciate without sharing my interests.
posted by Merus at 7:12 PM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


Perhaps it's the circles I frequent, but I was also expecting Woot and Threadless to be mentioned, with Topatoco for the more artist-focused venue. Maybe it was just the three who were first to comment?

Even though the majority of my t-shirts are from Threadless, I'm another in this thread who is wearing a Woot shirt at the moment -- Wizard of "Aw"s, a Miyazaki/Wizard of Oz mashup, so I'm clearly the target audience for some of this in-crowd fandom market. For those who didn't know, Woot is another hybrid "shirt of the day" + print-to-order outfit, but they were bought by Amazon in 2010, at which point some of their marketing changed, but not significantly on the shirt-side.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:15 PM on May 6, 2017


Man, I had a sweet design that was a mashup of the ritual Finn does to open a portal to the Nightosphere and the Nirvava logo and the bastards TOOK ME DOWN years ago.

Now I see kids wearing the design all around town without so much as a fodilah.

This is why I stick to medieval woodcuts as base images for my work. Outside of the Catholic Church, not so many folks eager to defend image rights on a weird looking boat next to what might be a stag or a king or something.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:15 PM on May 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


I tend to think that's an overly broad application of parody -- parody should comment in some significant way not just rehash existing IP in a fun way -- but I also recognize that judicial application of parody is all over the damned map, so they're as likely as not to win an actual case on those grounds if one ever went to court.

Still, I think the article hits on the actual main thing allowing these sites to exist -- IP owner forbearance. In so far as it isn't impacting their market for real merchandise and is probably actually helping their properties remain profitable, they aren't going to sue.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:33 PM on May 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


With great resignation: shut up and take my money.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:38 PM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


How far would I get it I submitted a design with an approximation of Belle, wearing a toque, dancing with a baguette, with the words "Beauty and the Yeast" across the top? I think not far.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:42 PM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


If the art were good enough, it might bring in some bread.
posted by Shmuel510 at 7:44 PM on May 6, 2017 [5 favorites]


Just thismorning I ordered my wife a custom T-shirt for mother's day from the Marvel Store. It set me back ~$34, shipping included. But, it will make her smile because - like these non-licensed T-shirt vendors... she's made workouts named after various super heroes...

So.

Marvel Custom printed an 'unofficial' Marvel workout on an 'official' Marvel T-shirt. For 6 bucks more than list cost.

I bet I could have gotten this down to like... $18 if I had sought totally unorthodox channels, but - there's something to be said to likely weaken trademarks while shopping.
posted by Nanukthedog at 9:46 PM on May 6, 2017


The thing about these copyright-shitting shirt companies, redbubble and the like ... okay, someone uploads an image and starts selling merch with that image on it, they certainly don't do any checks on whether that image violates any copyright. Not just whether the contents belong to a protected IP, but you have no assurances that the person selling the merch created the image or has any rights to use it. It's an economy entirely built for people to find someone else's art and merchandise it.

Not a fan.
posted by kafziel at 12:20 AM on May 7, 2017 [3 favorites]


What I really want to know is: who is making all those NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A [X] BORN IN [MONTH] WHO LISTENS TO [Z] shirts. I have seen such oddly specific interations of these shirts that I think they must be custom made, but then why and how do they get advertised?
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 1:38 AM on May 7, 2017 [1 favorite]


I have very little sympathy for rights owners that could easily print this stuff and don't.

For example, my daughter loves Star Wars, for Christmas I wanted to get her a t-shirt wih Rey on it. No problems! You would think, given Star Wars merch is every AND SHE'S THE MAIN FUCKING CHARACTER OF THE MOVIE GODDAMNITALL TO HELL.

No dice. Kylo Ren? Yes? Darth fucking Vader (This was pre-Rogue 1, btw) - Sure there's heaps! I could get a t-shirt with a fucking wookie on it, but try finding one of a woman, let alone one made for kids, too bad.

Fifteen minutes' googling gave me literally dozens of designs to choose from and some of them were bloody excellent.

I don't care who I'm giving my money to, Disney or someone else. But I'm not losing sleep over Disney's toes getting nibbled at by these minnows because they don't see any money in young girls wanting to emulate their hero.
posted by smoke at 4:02 AM on May 7, 2017 [23 favorites]


I buy from a lot of the different sites that do these shirts, and most of them have better quality than the official stuff I get in malls, and are usually cheaper. The last Hot Topic shirt I got shrunk so fast I think I got one wear out of it before it was a hand me down to my son. I visit Day of the Shirt to keep track of all the one day sites.
posted by inthe80s at 6:36 AM on May 7, 2017 [1 favorite]


Interesting article! I do love these intellectual property debates.

kafziel and anyone else whose got a problem with this, can you articulate it further?

but you have no assurances that the person selling the merch created the image or has any rights to use it. It's an economy entirely built for people to find someone else's art and merchandise it

One of the central problems of the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, right?
posted by aspersioncast at 8:09 PM on May 7, 2017 [1 favorite]


One of the central problems of the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, right?

Well, not a problem if you're buying something linked by the artist in the artist's social media. Or from the artist's own storefront. Or with a reputable collective storefront like TopatoCo or WhatPumpkin. You have a reason to believe that the artist is the one selling merchandise with their art on it. That, to me, matters a lot more than the IP nonsense.

With these shirt-of-the-day things, like from inthe80s's link? You don't have any of that. You're lucky if they have records of what shirt they were selling yesterday. If they put up a violating shirt, there's a pretty short window for the actual artist to find out and even get a complaint to them, let alone hope that complaint gets heard - if the site is even interested in listening to such complaints.
posted by kafziel at 9:43 PM on May 7, 2017


Gotta give a shout-out to TeeMagnet for aggregating these sites, and to sciencegeek for telling me about the place.
posted by Apocryphon at 11:36 PM on May 7, 2017


Still my favorite woot shirt, which I think they brought back for at least a second Hanukah. Can't believe it's almost 10 years old.
posted by Room 641-A at 12:34 AM on May 8, 2017


What I really want to know is: who is making all those NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A [X] BORN IN [MONTH] WHO LISTENS TO [Z] shirts. I have seen such oddly specific interations of these shirts that I think they must be custom made, but then why and how do they get advertised?

I finally worked this out yesterday: Facebook sells undifferentiated demographic data to advertisers, and they apparently also sell sanitized user data for live sessions. So last night, a Facebook ad served me up a "NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A [keyword I once used in a post] BORN IN [actual month of birth]" shirt ad, which felt gross and intrusive in a way I did not know it was possible to feel.

And yet, now I know that someone, somewhere, looked at that procedurally-generated abomination and thought "Sweet, this shirt exactly captures my inner multitudes."
posted by Mayor West at 6:03 AM on May 8, 2017 [2 favorites]


Thanks, Mayor West, I had no idea what that was about.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:52 AM on May 8, 2017


You have a reason to believe that the artist is the one selling merchandise with their art on it. That, to me, matters a lot more than the IP nonsense.

Got it, that seems reasonable. I wasn't sure if you were pushing back against the whole concept or that specific injudicious and ethically sorta-shitty aspect of it.

Incidentally this is the fourth or fifth article I've read about some aspect of the on-demand t-shirt economy, and one thing missing from all of them is an exploration of where the shirts themselves are manufactured (as opposed to printed). I mean, NoLogo cannot have been the last time anyone dug into that, right?

RIPT says all their garments are Tultex, whose marketing copy says their garments are made from 100% US cotton, then flatly contradicts that all over the site. Many of the others say next to nothing about where the actual shirts are coming from.

I can care about both things at once, but on the face of it I'm more concerned about sweat shops in Bangladesh and microplastic pollution from poorly-regulated polyester plants than first world artists getting their designs stolen.

At some point in the late 90s I decided I wasn't ever going to wear anything with an exposed brand/label until the company paid me to wear it. Sadly, still no endorsements. #hypocriticallysmug
posted by aspersioncast at 7:48 AM on May 8, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'd started to get sick of Crisis of Infinite Pop Culture Mash-up T-Shirts, but then I saw this one and thought, well, maybe one more. (I also have this one.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:05 AM on May 8, 2017


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