fishing for server parts

How about a Rubberslug mouse pad?

Mice are small and can sleep on nearly anything, and if you sell really nice ones, then they won't nibble on the corners of your cels so often.

I also like the coffee mug idea. I'm still using my "alt.folklore.urban" mug that was a fundraiser for this MB.

Actually, I got several compliments on the T-shirt I wore to Otakon, which said "I Saw The Light (at Sensei's CCS Cel Gallery)" So if you got a decent wholesaler, that would be a reasonable fundraiser. (Use of copyright images might be a problem, though.)

Or you could just go upscale and brazen and say, "Yeah, an official Rubberslug T-shirt costs $30. Your point?" Lots of brand names with less behind them are already doing the same.

We'll look into the swag. Need to finalize a logo first. I'd prefer to find a printer who can print on black. A lot of places seem to use cheap digital presses that are basically not much more sophisticated than a high-end inkjet. I don't want sucky iron-on transfer shirts, because I'm going to be wearing these too.

[quote]Or you could just go upscale and brazen and say, "Yeah, an official Rubberslug T-shirt costs $30. Your point?" Lots of brand names with less behind them are already doing the same.[/quote]

Yeah, customizing would be fun but we can't put cels on shirts because of the horrible pack of angry (American) lawyers that would likely come after us for selling images of other people's characters.

I... uh... dunno about the $30 shirts. The last shirt I paid $30 for was probably back in high school, when I still thought I was cool.

In any case, shirts and such might be good side income, but I really doubt we could sell more than 50 of anything.

"Yeah, customizing would be fun but we can't put cels on shirts because of the horrible pack of angry (American) lawyers that would likely come after us for selling images of other people's characters."

No lawyers would go psycho. First off, the person owns the cel, so they themselves have rights. As far as copy writed characters, either put a lile copywrite thingy in a corner if it really bugs you, or nicely tell anyone who flaps about it, to F off. Why? Your not selling them, or marketing them. We are buying them ourselves. I could simply go out and make one myself, and no one would bug about it. I mean, its a one of kind shirt, I think it only matters if you start making more of just one. Plus, might as well get rid of half the websites out there due images ect being used.

On a side note, though a T-shirt would be awsome, I think Id want a large coffee mug, lasts longer!

Actually, I'm sure that someone has tried to print their own Dragonball shirts in the past. I'm sure Funimation's lawyers jumped on them. I didn't research this, but I'd bet on it without hesitation. If they wanted to sue us for selling shirts with their characters on them, proving actual damage would be trivial (even though damages wouldn't be worth suing over).

I'm no copyright lawyer, but I do have some basic knowledge of the topic.

Copyright by definition is the right to reproduce an existing work. All the anime pencil boards and trading card games are reproduced under direct authority of the copyright owner. You may have heard about something called "fair use" but this only applies to things like parodies, editorial use, and other very limited venues. A shirt with a Dragonball cel would easily be mistaken for a Funimation licensed product.

Putting a copyright symbol after 1972 (or close to that) is no longer required by law to declare a copyright. Copyright is created the moment an intangible idea is rendered into something tangible. We're allowed to talk about our cels and show pictures that represent that tangible object. You could even sell your commentary about a cel. Laws after that are case by case.

Yes, I paid a lot of money for my cels, but I pretty much have just that cel, not the permission to reproduce the character.

You may be thinking, "Museums make posters, why can't we?" The answer is that museums own every aspect of that piece of art. The buck stops with them. With cels, the buck doesn't stop at the owner of that cel. Bucks stops at the owner of the character(s) represented in that cel.

Fan art, fan cels, fan fiction, and fan subbing are all technically illegal in the US if there is an American license holder for that piece of art. Why doesn't Gene Rodenberry lay the smack down for the annals of bad Star Trek fan fiction written every hour across the Internet? Well, that's like scolding diners in your restaurant for taking too many napkins. Or to bring back my museum example, it's like Campbell's Soup suing whichever art gallery is in charge of making reproductions of that Andy Warhol illustration from the 60s. It's bad business.

As long as no money is being traded by the rest of us non-owners, then most corporate types usually shrug it off.

Random googling for some fascinating reading:
On degenerate art from preexisting copyright:
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,55592,00.html
Copyrights on art restoration: (google cache link because page is dead)
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:pFLGXMefraMJ:palimpsest.stanford.edu/waac/wn/wn03/wn03-3/wn03-302.html+art+restoration+copyright+law&hl=en&start=3&ie=UTF-8

Oh, and about the server status.

Funny thing. It'll work indefinitely (I think) if I don't do a certain set of database actions to it.

I'm going to be spending most of Saturday on the phone trying to fix this machine remotely and see if I really, really, really have to buy a new computer.

Found a good source for shirts. Gotta buy some up front. First print run will be very small, so when we have those available don't miss your chance to say that you've got a first edition shirt. I'll make sure there's some indicator on the thing to prove you were there back in the day.