Brawl+ T-shirts

[JCaesar]

I just wanted to bounce this idea off the other WBR members.

I don't think we should try to make a profit off of Brawl+, but we do have expenses such as the website, and the tools that our hackers use. What do you guys think of selling T-shirts to help cover these expenses, and just to promote Brawl+?

My friend Red Bandit has made and sold T-shirts before, and can get us high-quality screen-prints for ~$10-12 per shirt, depending on things like number of colors and color of shirt and size of order, but the details aren't important right now.

I talked to Jiang and he said he could help us with the design. So now my issues are mostly with the legality of this, keeping in mind that the intent is to sell the T-shirts.
-I'm assuming we can't use the original Brawl logo on a T-shirt, but can we make a new Brawl+ logo with a completely new design in a new font?
-Can we use characters from the game if they are hand-drawn by Jiang?

If you guys are interested, we can gauge interest in the community and take a look at some shirt designs. I'm willing to take care of all of this.

 

[Shell]

Yeah, legality sounds tricky. I think it would technically be illegal to sell shirts for any price (even if not for profit) that had Nintendo's trademarked characters on it, hand-drawn or otherwise. Will they care? Probably not.

A custom Brawl+ logo and motto (Brawl+: We smash what we like!) could be fine. Throw in a multi-stage hologram that progresses through a raep combo depending on the viewer's angle and it'd sell like mad.

Seriously, though, custom logo ftw.

If we're really concerned about money for website and hackers and buying Magus a Wii, we could just set up a donation fund ala paypal.

 

[JCaesar]

I definitely feel like a custom logo and motto is the way to go. I just wanted to know if anyone knew if using handdrawn characters would be legal. And I don't know about you, but I'd be a lot more like to donate to Brawl+ if I was getting a T-shirt in return. Plus it has the added benefit of self-promotion. People are gonna see a cool shirt and think, "Man, that's cool!"

We still need a decent motto though. A lot of people think the "Fun speed activate!" one is kinda dumb. Maybe we could make a contest out of it and have the community submit suggestions. And the winner would get a free shirt and maybe their name in small print below the motto or something.

 

[GHNeko]

This would be something better posted on Brawlplus.net so we could get public opinion. :V

 

[JCaesar]

Yeah I understand, I just wanted to bring it up in here first. If you guys were completely against the idea, then I was gonna just drop it.

 

[leafgreen386]

1) Using the brawl logo in any form would be illegal. It would need to be a completely custom logo.
2) Using nintendo's characters in any form would be illegal. The same goes for stages.
3) Selling brawl+ t-shirts for a profit even when in the clear for the previous two conditions is still very iffy. A derivative work is legit until it's sold for profit. Considering that the brawl+ t-shirts would be franchising this derivative work, it may be crossing the line.
4) Therefore, you cannot advertise this as "selling." You may be able to get away with calling it a "free gift" given to people who donate a certain amount, but you'd still have to be careful.
5) I don't have a legal degree.

 

[JCaesar]

The plan wasn't to make a profit on it, just use the revenues to pay for the website and hacker tools and whatever other expenses we may have. If we have extra, maybe we could save it up and use it to host a large Brawl+ tourney.

 

[GHNeko]

Well I pay 30$ for hosting every quarter. Having that pay for itself would save me 120$ a year, which would be nice.