Online T-shirt sites are huge?
 

I remember when T-Shirt Hell was the only one but similar sites are everywhere now. They allow artists to submit designs then they get a % of the sales their designs make. My question is copyright infringement, many of the original designs feature video game, movie, cartoon, celebs - how do they get away with this? If a t-shirt design is a parody of say Mario and Luigi from Mario Brothers that is fair use?

It's a simple biz to get into.

User uploaded bro

So long as no one is using a logo to piss off the owners, where's the problem?

http://i1272.photobucket.com/albums/...psbac5f12d.png

Yes it's huge. Some people are making millions in sales.

Here's my understanding of it.

Parody in theory is okay, but it's a subjective thing and it's on thin ice. It's not endorsed officially.

If you sign up a t-shirt program randomly and start designing such shirts, you'll get banned.

If you're a bro or making lots of money for them, they'll protect you. When they get copyright complaints, they remove your shirt. But they let you continue what you're doing and make new ones...

A bit like the Tube business I guess. :P

I read the FAQ on one of the bigger more professional T-shirt sites and they had a lot of info on copyright/fair use and it was really vague, it was like they were saying 'if it's cool or funny, go ahead', of course they also covered their ass by expressing how serious copyright is. They offered examples of various copyright infringement lawsuits - to further muddy the waters, one judge might see it one way another the other.

You've been involved in the online t-shirt biz?

Only tried it, I did a test campaign with a slogan that was popular at the time. It was successful, but it wasn't big money. :)

I read up on it and got some info, and it really seems like that it's people who violate the sports team copyrights etc and advertise on Facebook, who make the big money.

It's like other verticals, many ppl fail too.

Some random useful links I saved:
Teeview | Teespring campaign viewer - see what's successful and copy them
I Made around $85,000 Profit last month, (March), Promoting shirts/hoodies on teespring. AMA : Entrepreneur
March 2014 Report Month #9 | + $85,301.97 PROFIT – AffEngineer.com
Teespring Case Study 1: Cute Enough to Stop Your Heart – AffEngineer.com
Scale your Teespring Business with Facebook Ads & AdEspresso
http://adespresso.com/academy/blog/f...deadly-errors/

This website is what got me interested, Home of Demotivators® - The World's Best Demotivational Posters - it's funny demotivational stuff including t-shirts, posters, etc. Those demotivational posters are ancient as far as memes go but I guess people still like them, their line of merchandise is broader than that. I always wonder how websites like this do, I've never seen/heard of Despair.com before, they don't have a million followers on social media.

I did click on their Instagram link - they sure look like they must be making plenty with an office and warehouse like this.

https://scontent-ord1-1.cdninstagram...13109276_n.jpg

https://scontent-ord1-1.cdninstagram...23732222_n.jpg

Thanks for the links. Teespring seems very strict when it comes to copyright infringement. Like you can't even make a t-shirt about a sports team you hate - 'Red Sox Suck!' - even if you don't use their logo.

What are some other big ones - I forget the name of the one I was on that had a ton of pop culture video game character stuff on it. It wasn't licensed, when these sites do have licenses they make a big deal about it. Teespring has a licensing deal with the NFL.

Find a niche people are passionate about.
Make a shirt about it, it doesnt have to be anything copyrighted, obviously sports shit comes first to mind, but try going deeper.
Buy ads on social networks
Target, target, target, target.
Profit.

1:10 ratios @ $14 profit per shirt is possible, a click might cost you 50 cents or even more.

There is also ThreadMeUp, that one is nice. If you wanna sign up there, use my link ;)
https://www.threadmeup.com/?r=30490

If you want to design shirts that could lead to complaints, I'd try to find the newest player in town though. They'll probably give you more leeway, and you can create a relationship with the core team, instead of arguing with customer service chumps.

I was told parody, but it's obvious to anyone who checks the sites out that most of them aren't parody...but straight violations or copyrights or trademarks.

I've been on ThreadMeUp for 15 minutes and I can't find wherever they actually sell t-shirts on the site. Where do buyers go to look for t-shirts they might buy?

i assume you have to watch your back a lot i guess.

You need to link straight to your shirt after you creates your "movement". They had a huge issue with getting orders filled in past so they either got their shit together, or lost some huge affiliates. Not nearly the complaints they used to have.

It's your task to generate the traffic, they don't promote the shirts. Facebook Ads is what most affiliates use.

Check the links above, lots of tips in there.

2XXL & 3XXL are huge.

It seems like anti patriot Trump tshirts would be a big money maker. Lets milk those libbies :winkwink:

they might be to the right audience, the "make america great again" are very popular as well, just need to target the right people

Huff shit post ads :thumbsup:1orglaugh

Is there some site that will accept adult designs on t-shirts?

I think riding the election wave could actually work, it's a good idea.

You could do Reddit ads on specific subreddits, target Facebook users based on their interests, or yeah, run ads on websites that are biased towards one side. :-)

Well thanks LOL it doesn't matter. Been doing this for a long time. I keep telling that dumbass who keeps posting his shirt designs on here to stop :1orglaugh:1orglaugh
If you know how to make simple sites or blogs this stuff is so easy to do.
I do it all myself because you pay someone to write for you and they just steal your ideas so fuck it. Takes an hour and you can bang out a shit load in a day. My ratio is not as good as what you quoted but it is free traffic so it doesn't matter.

I have already moved onto bigger items doing the same exact process though. Shirts is a good way to start and get into the groove of making money. After you get good at it look for other ways to do the same but make more money for your time.

Infringement
 

Infringement can get touchy. There was a guy in Lawrence KS (home to Kansas University) that sold satire t-shirts such as "Muck Fizzou." Kansas rival team Missouri, AKA Mizzou. Biggest reason he got in trouble, was he used the exact color of blue KU, uses for "officially" licensed shirts.

I designed a t-shirt for a bar and the owner wouldn?t ever buy my design. 5 years later, he started selling t-shirts with the same idea, different design. So every Christmas I?d give the bartenders a present of my better shirt

Coke is the Ral Thing
 

years ago I had a patch on my jeans with that logo

and Small is well small :2 cents::1orglaugh

I love stupid shirts and this is my most recent t-shirt
Amazon.com: I Have Sex Daily I Mean Dyslexia Adult T-Shirt: Clothing

and yes I grew up with Dyslexia so a funny shirt about it was needed.. For the slow people in the room "I have Sex Daily, I mean Dyslexia" all the letters in dyslexia when moved around could spell sex daily.. I had a cashier that was cute ask me what it meant and she laughed when I told her.

So you build your own "brand" of shirts, and link to the TeeSpring, ThreadMeUp designs? You don't use paid advertising at all?

What I really like about the t-shirt biz is that it's marketing to the core. Absolutely no bullshit, no technical things. No waiting, you can test things quick, and make a lot of money within days, if you've got the advertising budget. If you do it with PPC advertising, it's ONLY your marketing skills that decide if you win or lose.

Ive had a few sales on Uncommon designs by 400k+ independent artists | Redbubble

Affiliates are already turning away from it. There are also way better shops then Teespring around.

Which ones are good these days?

cafepress

still searching around the t-shirt scene - i like retro stuff, this 80s tee shop claims their designs are licensed - i have my doubts about that

https://www.80stees.com

They are run by pretty visible people. Don't know if they started legit, but I believe they authentically want to support what they like, so I'd expect they do license 80sTees.com builds on a simple sales idea - The Business Journals

If its so good, why did T Shirt hell go tits up a few years ago ? :2 cents:

Would this be a copyright issue?

https://67.media.tumblr.com/ae57c349...zrko1_1280.jpg

custom Tshirts are trendy you can get whrite whatevery you need and you get for very low price

Despair has been around for 20 years, I wouldn't lump them in with Teespring etc. I ordered my first demotivator posters for my first desk job in 2001. They built their brand well in the first dotcom wave.

teesping alexa = 2k
despair alexa = 170k

Very different business models.

TeeSpring is affiliate based, thousands of marketers are designing shirts for their niche and spending money on advertising them. They cover every niche you can think of, and they know their market. There are sports fans designing shirts for sport fans, military guys designing shirts for soldiers, rednecks designing shirts for rednecks, and so on.

T-Shirt Hell was focusing on offensive, funny t-shirts as I recall. That's just one niche. And 10 (or 100) guys sitting in an office simply cannot know the taste and humor of all the people in North America.

Some of the people pushing the t-shirt sites are genius marketers too. Someone who can earn tens of thousands per month from home designing & selling t-shirts, won't take a low-paid office job at a t-shirt company. T-Shirt Hell and the like cannot attract such great talent, at least definitely not in big numbers.

These guys have been around for as long as I can remember Deezteez makes funny shirts I'm pretty sure they're members of this board

Found this design on Threadless.com - brilliant

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmRqR44UkAANuuY.jpg

I thought they just did the world's worst April Fools prank, but didn't actually go under? Not sure, but I seem to recall that is what they ultimately claimed anyway.

No way in HELL tshirthell outta biz or going 'tits up' :2 cents:

Yeah man, it's huge. I posted a blog a while ago about starting one Opening a clothing company | Marketing Spot

as long as the brand name is not bashed in any way i think they're allowed to use it

:1orglaugh

I sell a lot of retro t shirts on ebay, but they are typically actually old shirts. Usually old concert tshirts.

Nice :thumbsup