So, is this like a thinly-veiled hint that maybe some of your more vociferous commentard^H^H^Hers aren’t the brightest bulbs in the chandelier?

How much of that comes from music related shirts?

If somebody is making official fan t shirts (they paid for the rights, or they created the content), is it okay for me to copy the design and sell it? If yes, then why pay for the rights?

Tell me great hero (Mike), but please make it brief 🙂

Anon2 – Mike will criticize figures from the BSA (and rightly so), but will swallow without blinking rather large figures that support his general overview.

Mike, nowhere in this post do you say that. You make a general statement that you “still don’t think its the best business model out there.” Not only didn’t you qualify that statement to say it probably wouldn’t work for “most musicians,” but you placed that statement in a paragraph touting huge numbers re: decorated apparel and expressly tying that to “content providers who are providing content for free and making money off t-shirts.”

If you were not using these figures as a way of touting some alternative business model for working musicians — specifically leveraging the distribution of free content to enhance sales of other products (in this case t-shirts) — then I don’t see the point of your posting in the first place. Or at least not the way you chose to word it.

Last, my comments were as much directed to everyone else who comments on and reads this blog as they were to your original post. On the one hand, lots of lazy thinkers love all the talk about how the current copyright system is broken, that all the new technologies are leading (or have already led) to a point where it no longer makes sense to for artists to be so proprietary about their recorded music, and consistently cheer you on as you tout various business models that are based on giving away content. For them, vague notions of artists figuring out other ways to make money are sufficient, without thinking through what the implications of that might be for many of them. T-shirt sales just isn’t even a realistic part of that equation, at least for the vast majority of musicians who do not have tens or hundreds of thousands of fans yet.

On the other hand, artists too often expect t-shirts to be a way to make money, and it’s an unrealistic expectation. You can upload all the recorded music you want, but unless there are at least thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people digging it enough to download it on a regular basis and take the time to visit your website, you won’t sell enough t-shirts in a year to buy much more than a few happy meals. Cafe Press is one of several awesome intermediate solutions insofar as they don’t require you to make a huge up front investment to carry the necessary inventory, but nothing replaces volume when it comes to low-margin goods, which t-shirts and other merch items are unless you are a Carlos Santana or Madonna.

As both a fan and an industry “insider,” for years I’ve found it frustrating that artists don’t realize how much exposure they get by simply giving away certain goods. Bumper stickers for example, there’s no excuse whatsoever for any small or mid-sized band to charge for stickers. They are free advertising and it’s stupid not to give them out to people who are going to slap them all over the world. T-shirts, however, can and should be sold, but at the lowest margins you can justify. You’ll sell more shirts, and that means more people wearing them and again advertising your “brand.” Same with music, as you say all the time, though I part ways with you on being so absolute about the notion of recorded music being an “infinite good” that should always be given away for free. I know loads of bands that actually cover a good amount of their road expenses, and some that bring home some extra bucks, because in addition to the t-shirts and their cuts of ticket sales, they are selling CDs of their music for $5, $10, whatever price point in their market allows them to maximize sales without gouging people. Many, if not most, of these artists give away loads of music as well, but they reserve to themselves the right to decide what is free and what people should pay for. There’s no one size fits all.

But to circle back — yes, it’s obvious that t-shirts are a nice chunk of a very sizeable segment of the apparel industry. Everybody, or almost everybody, has t-shirts; many have drawers full of them. I’ve probably got over 200 myself. But most of the ones I’ve got, were either given to me, or were nicely made, nicely designed and reasonably priced, which meant they were being sold at relatively low margins. You take an American Apparel blank, take a design that you probably had to pay someone to do (or have to share your revenues with them for the license), have it screened by a good quality screener or maybe even batiked or whatever, and suddenly even $20 or so a piece is not putting a load of money in your pocket, and if you’re playing small to mid-sized clubs, your fans probably can’t afford much more than that (and most probably can’t even afford that except once in a while).

Selling t-shirts is not only by profit it is by something new & unique to the people so creativity played a big rule in this game, customers will always remember your shop/online store if you sell something different.

Its true you can make loads from t-shirts. I make it from peoples businesses or a spin off by selling current news but make provocative with a twist.

It grabs attention.