Well, not ACTUALLY a quandary, as Tanja and I talked it out, but here goes:
Tanja and I were wandering Newtown after lunch and looked in at a store called Made590 (http://www.made590.com.au/), which does all sorts of interesting stuff. I was looking through there shirts and I spotted this one. I went "hey! I know that shirt! That's from Threadless!" I was outraged that this store had stolen the design. Then I looked at the tag, and lo! It was a Threadless tag.
So my quandary compounded. Threadless is a retail site, not a wholesale site. THey sell their shirts for $10-$20 dollars. If this store purchases them, and pays shipping, is it okay for them to mark the price up to $45 and sell the shirt on?
Tanja and I talked it out (see?) and she said that Threadless pays the artist for the design, then makes the shirt at their cost. Once they sell the shirt, what the buyer does with it is their business, as long as they don't claim it for themselves. This made sense to me. I then brought up that I'd seen Jinx WoW shirts being sold at Minotaur in Melbourne for exhorbitant prices, so it's not just these guys.
My main thought was that the shirt was being sold twice, but the artist was only paid once. The other reason that this was on my mind is that I've been communicated (well, sort of) with Ian Leino (www.ianleino.com), an artist from the states, whose shirts I've bought several times from TeeFury and whose work I admire. My first (admittedly selfish) thought, upon viewing his store was "Wow! I'd love to make shirts with these designs!" which I instantly chided myself for. That thought's now developed to "Well, if I do go to the markets with my shirts, I might buy some of his from TeeFury or something and sell them on. Or maybe inquire as to how much he's paid by TeeFury for his designs."
So yeah.
3 comments:
Depending ont he setup the artist usually gets paid by one of these two:
1. Commission-style. He gets a cut of each shirt sold with his design.
2. Pay-per-art. Basically, he gets a one-off for the piece. Potentially riskier, as the design may end up being MASSIVE, but it's steady and there's no gamble.
As for the markup? Yes, it's fine. It's a 'buyer beware' market for the most part, so if you pay $45 for a shirt you COULD get for $20, then that's your problem. Good luck to you if you think you can convince people to rip themselves off like that.
As for your market idea? Yeah, you'd need to get the artists permission to use the artwork if you wanted to print them yourself (although, he'd have to find out about a guy on the other side of the world selling his stuff unauthorised, work out who you are and how to contact you if he wanted to sue). As for buying them from teefury, then you'd have to talk to them (And they'd probably refer you back to the artist)
Ell if I'm buying from teefury and selling them on with the teefury label, then I'm just a customer.
As for "convincing people to rip themselves off", there are people who pay $40-70 for a tshirt all the time. That's how places like fcuk and Lucky and American Apparel stay open. Sure they could get it from a website, but they'd have to know the site, pay shipping, convert currency, etc. There are people who wouldn't go through all that.
Yeah, but Teefury may get the shits if you're making a profit off their back (from a legal perspective, justifiably so if memory serves). If you approach them about it though, they may go as far as to cut you in for a deal of some kind.
Also, it was just a random example. What I was getting at is basically if you sell the exact same product that your (Business) neighbour does, but at double his price and people still buy from you, the laws position is basically 'Good for you, if they don't want to find a bargin, go for it dude!' (Though I think you may be hard pressed to find a law with 'Dude' written into it)
Heh heh, verification: 'Tedis' He's what? WHAT?!
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