Do you just hate it when a person wears band shirts of bands that they don't listen to?
I can recall a time I went into an Urban Outfitters to get a couple of plain t-shirts. When I went up to the checkout counter, the girl who worked there had on a Led Zeppelin shirt. Sweet! I thought. It just so happened that I was deep in my Zeppelin phase at the time and couldn’t stop listening to I, II, and IV.“What’s your favorite album?” I asked.And she said, “Oh, I’m not sure. I don’t really listen to them. My dad just had this shirt, so I took it from him.”You can imagine my disappointment.Another example would be my sister. My older sister enjoys “recreational” activities. Me and her have a good relationship where we text each other often and see each other regularly. One day she texted me,“I’m getting a Jimi Hendrix shirt. Can you help me pick a good one?”Hmm. I thought. “Can you even name a song by Jimi Hendrix?” I asked.“No,” she said. “But he’s a bad-ass guitar player.”“What about all those times I tried to sit you down and get you to actually enjoy his stuff?” I piped back.“I don’t like it. It sounds…old. Everything’s off. The drums sound weird,” she said.Despite that, sure enough, a few weeks later, I see my sister walking around her condo in her Jimi Hendrix shirt. You can imagine how annoyed I was.Long story short, I totally agree that people who wear shirts of bands they don’t know are just doing it for the image that comes with it. It’s annoying, frustrating, and reduces something genuinely meaningful to someone to just an image.What can you do about it? Scold them amicably, and move on. There are enough people out there who’d agree with you and do the same. Eventually, the poser might get the message and play a track or two.
Is designing and selling unofficial band merchandise illegal? Why or why not?
Going anonymous here to protect my husband.My husband owns the copyright to his band’s name and logo. When we were engaged/ first married, I traveled with the band. I sold official band merchandise.One day, we were out on a golf course with one of his best friends. They had been friends for 30 years. He commented about how fun it must be to go on the road, and he wanted to come.He drove in his own car and paid for his own hotels. However, I could never find him during the shows or afterward.One day, a venue that was taking a particularly high cut of the merch sales came up to me to complain that the band was undercutting their percentage by selling t shirts in the parking lot as well.I commented that we were doing no such thing.Turns out, my husband's former friend had made up t shirts of his own and was selling them out of the trunk of his car. He said he had to do it to finance coming on the road with us. We were selling for $20, making $8 per shirt (after materials, printing and shipping costs.) and this venue was taking $4 per shirt (20%). So, we were making just $4 profit per shirt and this guy is selling shirts for $10, undercutting us, and claiming it was official band merchandise. The shirts were ugly and of low quality.I had been wondering why sales were down that tour…So, since he was my husband's friend, they just are not friends anymore. He lost a great friendship.I tell you something else…if that were just some random guy, my husband's lawyer would have sued his ass off, and there would definitely be some sort of cease and desist order.Merch is the band’s profit. Gig fees pay crew, bus, bus driver, hotels, breakfast (if it isnt free in the hotel) and meals on travel (non - gigging) days.So, just DON’T BE THAT GUY.
Is making your own band merchandise illegal?
Personal use is OK. Selling or importing them is illegal.
I want to create my own brand of clothes to sell online. How do I start?
Spend some time creating your game plan first before you even create your online site. Most first time sellers end up quitting after a few months because they don’t see the online sales come in after they build their online site.First of all, find out who you’re going to be up against as in your competitors. This will give you an idea on the amount of work and effort you’ll need to put in to sell your own branded online of clothing.The bulk of it would be on marketing and getting your brand out there via organic search and social media without spending on any ads until you’re making profit.You may only want to hold a certain number of stock for your clothing to test the market as compared to having a lot manufactured and then facing the dilemma that they’re unable to sell. Offer limited quantity first and if response is good, you can notify buyers of incoming stock later for them to purchase.List down all the categories and products that you plan on selling and have good product images with models. Clothing sells best when customers are able to see it being worn in real life by models.Determine who would be your target customers. Wholesalers? End users? Both?Work out your costing in terms of monthly subscription fee for ecommerce service provider. If you’re looking for one that does not charge extra for features that you’ll need, consider InstanteStore.Get a domain name that is short and easy to remember. Bear in mind a lot of shoppers these days prefer to browse, shop and and buy online.Make sure your online purchasing process is easy and straight forward.Pick a good payment gateway and check their transaction fees.Offer free shipping for customers who purchase above a certain amount and pick a sensible courier service.Ask for feedback from family and friends to test out your site before you launch it.Reward customers for giving you positive reviews and feedback.Selling online is a learning journey. Give yourself a year to work on it as there’s plenty to learn and tweak along the way.Hope this helps.
Is making a t-shirt for personal use that uses a copyrighted image legal?
As many others have already made clear, of course this would be illegal. You don’t own the rights to the band’s logo and imagery, so you can’t distribute them without their permission.Don’t even kid yourself with the “personal use” premise. It’s not. You’d have to submit that design to a t-shirt vendor and ask them to reproduce it; that’s distribution. And if you ever wear it in public, that’s distribution, too (which you don’t have the legal right to do). And even if you have your own t-shirt making equipment in your home and you’ll never wear it out in public, there’s still no exception in copyright law for personal use (it’s just that nobody will see or know about the infringement).But why not ASK the band’s promoter? Seriously, if you’re wanting t-shirts, surely you’re not the only one. You could identify a specific logo, image, or album cover you want to use and ask permission to make a t-shirt for yourself with that on it. And if they grant that permission, you don’t have to worry about copyright or trademark infringement.Who knows? It could turn out that they’ve wanted all along to have t-shirt merchandise made and they just didn’t have someone with the time or skills to coordinate getting that done. Perhaps they’ll appreciate the interest and partner with you to produce them. Or maybe they’ve already got shirts in the works. Or maybe they’ll say they have no plans to produce any, but you’re welcome to make one.Every which way I can think of, your situation is enhanced by seeking permission.
Is it pretentious to wear school-branded clothing of a top tier school you did not attend?
It’s sometimes pretentious to wear school-branded clothing of a top tier school you did attend. (There are some exceptions, and I’m not sure I can name all of them.)It’s worse than pretentious to wear such clothing if you didn’t attend. By doing so, you’re being a poseur. To the casual observer — i.e., someone who doesn’t know where you did or didn’t attend school — it might look pretentious for the reason above. But to the informed observer, it’s advertising an insecurity about where you did attend school. (To be sure, it’d advertising that insecurity whether or not that insecurity is really there.)Just as a data point, I went to state schools: UC Santa Barbara for undergrad, Penn State for grad school. I now work as a patent lawyer in Boston. From time to time, I get schwag from clients. Sometimes, that schwag includes t-shirts. I wear that stuff with pride. From failed startups to Google and Square, I cherish each company-branded shirt I have. I feel like I earned them, and I wear them far longer than my wife would prefer I would.At some point I did patent work for MIT. One of the professors I worked with gave me a shirt from some MIT club (maybe an entrepreneur club?). I forget exactly what it said, but it was a generally humorous shirt about innovation, with MIT branding. I didn’t throw it away, but I don’t wear it. Why? Because although in some sense I feel like I earned it, I feel like wearing an MIT-branded shirt is a little misleading because of the pedigree implications.Perhaps it’s irrational. After all, I’ve worn many Google t-shirts over the years. A Google t-shirt might have the same or similar cachet: wearing such a shirt suggests an affiliation or relationship with Google, and Google is definitely a top-tier company every bit as much as MIT is a top-tier school. And my affiliation or relationship with each is the same: it’s just an attorney/client relationship.But for some reason, when it’s an academic institution, the rules are different in my mind.Incidentally, I know an Italian economics professor. We had a similar conversation, and came to similar conclusions, about when one has “earned” the right to wear a shirt from a school. For him, being a visiting scholar for a semester or more was enough, but just going and giving a talk was not.
My older sister keep wearing my underwear?
My older sister who is 16 keeps taking my underwear and wearing them. I'm 13 and she's 16. I tell my parents and they don't do anything about it because my sister is the "gold child." I have 8 pairs of under wear but she keeps wear mine so after 3 days I don't even have 1 left. It's disgusting. I told my mom and she's like "I'll buy you some more underwear" and I told her that I don't need more underwear, My sister does. My sister already has her own underwear but doesn't wear them. The thing I fücking HATE about her wearing my underwear is that she ALWAYS leaves my underwear this yellow stains! She's leaving for a weekend school trip and guess what? She took ALL of my underwear! Now I have none left in my closet because of her. I told her than she took my underwear but she denied it. I know she took it because when I left for school I still had all my underwear in my drawer. A few minutes ago I checked and the place where I put my underwear is empty. What do I do? I can't go the whole weekend wearing only ONE pair of underwear and I sure Aint going to wear her underwear.