[Dragaera] Attribution on swag items... things to consider

[Elizabeth Dalton]

I'm of a somewhat mixed opinion on this myself. I want to do right by 
Steve, and I want to keep the fans happy (without which, of course, the 
items won't sell and he still gets nothing). I'm hoping with some 
thought, we can do both.

I have, in fact, seen many shirts with copyright and trademark notices, 
including a series of shirts with Zelazny quotes from Ambercon a number 
of years back. One reason I've been so adamant about including a 
copyright or trademark notice on these shirts and other items is because 
there are items being sold out there with no attribution, which Steve 
gets nothing from. Some just use words like "klava" and "Adrilankha," or 
use the word "Jhereg" in the item title, but one has the full "subtle 
wizard" quote with no attribution (and an absurd illustration of an 
entirely unsubtle wizard with no knife in sight). I think it's important 
to differentiate the items Steve does get compensated for from the 
knock-offs, and it can also be important from a legal sense to protect 
his ideas, if he ends up having to ask someone to remove items from sale 
that are using his words or characters without any credit or 
compensation whatsoever. If you don't protect trademarks, you lose them.

That being said, I can appreciate the point about the notices being 
distracting. Let's continue to brainstorm.

CafePress doesn't offer printing on the back of dark shirts, and charges 
extra for printing on the back of other shirts. They don't offer 
printing on the sleeves at all, but if they ever do, I'm sure there will 
be a surcharge.

I could certainly make the text of the copyright notices smaller. I'd 
like them to be legible, but they needn't be legible from much distance, 
I suppose. Most of them are at 24pt type now on shirts. I could try 
reducing to 18pt or 16pt. I'd like to avoid having to order several test 
items to check for legibility, as that costs me money out of pocket (and 
I don't get paid for any of this, remember). Would someone care to offer 
a comment about legibility and size based on shirts so far?

On the other hand, let's suppose someone isn't currently a Brust fan, 
and sees a really cool quote on a shirt or button. Wouldn't it be nice 
for them to know where to get more of the same? Steve doesn't get a ton 
of money from these items, due to the nature of print-on-demand swag. A 
lot of the benefit to him is likely the power they have to help spread 
the word about his books.

What about printing the notices in smaller text, sideways on the edge of 
the design? Would that be more or less distracting? (I think it might 
depend on the design...)

Another thought is that for actual quotes, it may be more important and 
less distracting to include the attribution visibly than for "gag" items 
like "got klava?" and "What would Sethra do?" Again, if you don't 
protect trademarks, you lose them, so I think some kind of notice is 
appropriate, but it could be much smaller and integrated visually into 
the design more.

Naturally, if Steve himself wants to weigh in here, I'll do whatever he 
prefers, but in the absence of his input, let's see if we can come up 
with a good solution (or set of solutions) to meet everyone's needs.

--
Elizabeth Dalton
Support Steven Brust!
Adrilankha Gift Shop: http://www.cafepress.com/dragaera
Adrilankha Book Shop: http://astore.amazon.com/dragaera-20
Donations: http://dreamcafe.com/donate.html

Alain Feeny wrote:
> I'd have to agree with this.
> 
> Perhaps a compromise would be to separate the credit from the quote.   
> putting the credit on the back below the collar line, or perhaps on  
> the right shoulder, or similar.
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> AMF
> 
> On 4-Jan-08, at 10:50 AM, Scott Schultz wrote:
> 
> 
>>>General query: do folks prefer quotes with an
>>>illustration, or without?
>>
>>Depends on the visual effect of the text, and the proposed art.
>>
>>On a similar note, while I'm all in favor of giving Steve all due  
>>credit, it
>>strikes me as a bit odd to see "(c) Steven Brust" at the end of  
>>every quote.
>>Either you know the source or you don't. A copyright statement isn't  
>>going
>>to offer any kind of context to people who don't know it. Maybe I've  
>>just
>>never seen a shirt that quoted a book before. I can't recall ever  
>>seeing a
>>T-shirt that put a copyright or trademark or whatever mark on their
>>graphics. For lack of a better way to describe it, I find it non- 
>>immersive
>>when the gag comes with a legal disclaimer. Maybe that's just me.
>>