ostan goodies

Fedora-Tan · October 28, 2012, 05:19:31 PM

Quick survey, if anyone(s) would be interested if we would organize some ostan goodies for sale - could be a way to bring a bit of money in the site, and produce something useful.
Would need people willing to produce some not copyrighted material (like, personal work), which could be put on a shirt, a mug, a mousepas or whatever.

That's just a concept for now, so please just state if you're interested and if it's worth that i dig the idea, or if it sucks :p

% for the designers, ofc.

Nichi · October 28, 2012, 05:25:53 PM

That would be a cool idea. I'm sure our resident artists wouldn't mind pitching in some of their original artwork for this, either; because who wouldn't want an ME-tan coffee mug? ^_^

Bella · October 28, 2012, 05:34:27 PM

I'd be willing to help with art.

Bella · October 28, 2012, 06:00:50 PM

That's a really good point I hadn't thought of. :/

There's also the copyright issues, which would probably limit the sale of any sort of merchandise depicting OS-tans based on systems that are current and copyrighted (Windows and Mac related stuff comes to mind particularly). I'm not sure how it would work if you tried to sell merch relating to FOSS or defunct systems - it would probably be less risky, but a legal gray-area nonetheless.

I imagine the only way to get around these issues entirely would be to market OS-tan Collections merchandise, with no references to any OS-tans in particular. Or using OS-tans that are relatively safe from a copyright perspective.

Nichi · October 28, 2012, 06:05:45 PM

Well, if I could get a t-shirt with the blue triangle question mark on it, that'd still be cool :3

Chocofreak13 · October 29, 2012, 12:29:47 AM

i've been wanting a shirt with the error icon above the chest like a logo for years. ><;

having the characters isn't copyright issue. futaba probably wouldn't even notice since the netrunner and deja vu scandal went down about 6 years ago, when the -tans were still pretty fresh. we're the only english site left, so as long as we don't get UBER popular i doubt japan will notice. and if we use all our artwork, none of the japanese artists can complain. after all, are they going to complain when i (eventually) start my os-tan comic? >>;
(as for microsoft, the only "official" microsoft-licensed characters are claudia and the silverlight girls. all the others are fanmade, and they can't call copyright since we're not profiting off the OS, just the CHARACTER. :\

we planning on opening a cafepress account and using that?

Fedora-Tan · October 29, 2012, 02:35:13 AM

Copyright problems -->
Limited editions, just to cover maintenance cost, & transparence. Means that we make an objective, and when it's reached, we stop (for the year).
or
Totally original designs.

Have to check still what's doable or not.

Chocofreak13 · October 29, 2012, 02:24:27 PM

i'd say the original artwork thing. no one can really argue about the characters themselves since there is little to no way to claim their origins, outside of the website. even nanami is public domain, provided we make our own art of her. and it feels weird to have the selling of goods cut off randomly when we reach our quota. if we can make a little extra money for the site (or ourselves), why not?

Fedora-Tan · November 04, 2012, 03:45:15 PM

This project is suspended until i decide persons here deserve any further efforts from my side.