EGS Shop, *very* important

Okay, I posted this on the Yahoo Group, but only one person seemed to notice it, and he said I should post it here where more people will see it.

http://www.giveneyestosee.com/say-no-to-cafepress/

So unless you want Grace and everyone to become copyright of Cafepress, I suggest you move the shop, pronto.

I have no clue what the language used in the revised TOS means. And it's a little confusing what has been changed because it was changed more than once according to that site.

I doubt that the final version will worded like that or intended like that but this is troubling if its correct but it occurred a while ago (June 5th).

In that time Dan probaby got the same notice from Cafe Express (hopefully). In short, I really have no idea what to make of it but its probably best that Dan knows before the First of July. If it's just crying wolf when there's no wolf then at least we were cautious. Thanks for posting this Ketsuban. Artists should always stand up for their intellectual rights. A company like Cafe Express has no right to grab hold of them.

With reference to that, I feel that this rant from Inktank (www.inktank.com) may or may not be a helpful contribution...

"CafeDe-pressed
Well, is my timing perfect or what? I finally get a store up and running and I'll most likely just close it down.
Grab a snack folks … this is a LONG one.

In recent news, it has hit the web that Cafepress will be changing thier TOS on July 1st. Basically folks are up in arms over the idea that the new TOS seems to indicate that Cafepress will get ownership and copyright rights over any and all artwork submitted to them. I myself disagree. I think people are getting worked up over some VERY POORLY written legal speak. I break down the potentially offending segments in this thread on the message board (you might have to scroll a bit, but it's there).

But that’s not the reason I am wanting to leave Cafepress. My reason is the price gouging.

Starting July 1st (along with lots of new reasons they have come up with to keep your money that I won’t get into here), I’ve always had a BIG problem with the pricing structure. You may think that $12.99 (plus S&H) is a lot to pay for a mug. Heck, one guy even mentioned how I must be getting rich off selling stuff. I’ll tell you what. Last month I made $251.85 on store purchases. Guess how much I got to keep?

$30

Yep, I made myself the tidy sum of $30 whole dollars while the rest ($221.85) goes in CafePress pockets. How? Well they charge a base rate per item and you get to keep what’s over that. Let’s take the mug for example. They charge an initial $10.99 for the mug. I add $2 to that to give myself $2 per mug sold. So for every $12.99 mug sold, $2 goes to me. That is roughly a 85% to 15% split to me. And that’s with charging the exorbitant amount of $12.99 for the mug. If I lower myself to $1 profit, that’s a 92% to 8% split.

But wait, it gets better. Starting July 1st, Cafeepress will now start taking a percentage of my $2 profit! Yes, that’s right. 85% just don’t cut it in the Cafepress world. They will now take 5% of my profits (.5 cents per dollar) as well. So now I will get $1.90 profit for the overpriced mug.

This is definitely going the eZboard route. And hell, I was even more loyal to eZboard. This is just too much.

But I’m not done yet (man, I should have made this a rant). I decided to look into what it would cost to make mugs on my own. The thing about Cafepress is … they prey on the lazy artist. I admit, I used Cafepress because I wanted to leave the production, mailing, etc. hassles up to them. Plus I don’t have to worry about keeping inventory, the right size shirts on stock, etc. Plus with one-offs, you don’t need to worry about the upfront money involved with getting stuff printed.

But what if I did?

Again, I’ll use the mugs as an example. How much do you think those white, ceramic mugs they offer cost? $3? $4 perhaps?

Try .95 cents.

Yep, in bulk those types of mugs cost .95 cents. Even not in bulk they go for around a $1.31. I did a quick Google search on “Promotional Materials” (you know, all those pens and buttons and tote bags they give out at trade shows) and went with the first site I saw. They have TONS of crap to put your images on. And not all in white either.

So I checked the mugs. The smallest run they would do was 72 (meaning you need to buy a case of 72 printed mugs minimum). I figure I can sell 72 mugs over my lifetime so I agree and go to the next step. Now printing one color is cheap, and gets more expensive as you add more colors. But you know what? Money is no object. This is InkTank after all. I for myself $30 whopping Cafepress dollars to go hog wild with. In any case, I could always just use some of my Kings of Chaos gold.

I opt for the most expensive print job I can find. Three color, wrap around (all the way around the cup), on an 11oz cup (like the biggest ones Cafepress offers).

What is the grand total?

Quantity 72 (mugs)
UnitPrice $1.31 (per mug)


SubTotal $94.32 (for all the plain white mugs)

+ Setup Charge $6.25 (to set up the screens)

PRIMARY IMPRINT
(Wraparound)
+ Screen Charge
(1. color) $50.00 (one time charge, not per cup)
+ Screen Charge
(2. color) $50.00 (one time charge, not per cup)
+ Screen Charge
(3. color) $50.00 (one time charge, not per cup)
+ 2 additional colors
Unit (0*$0.80) $57.60


Total $308.17 (for one box of printed mugs, not including S/H to my house)

So that is $308.17 I have to put out of pocket up front to get all my mugs. So that is a total of $4.20 per cup, all printed up with the best design options (I could have gone the cheap route of one color, front only and the mugs would have been half the cost, or about $2.09 a cup). Well below the $11.99 Cafepress charges for their 11 oz. mugs.

But what about overhead?

Ok, let’s say I will handle the shipping from my house. I have asked around and researched and without going into all the nitty gritty of the postal/UPS services it’s about $2 to ship the mugs (including postage, a box and some packing material). So the mugs are about $6.20 each now, (this is also with single shipping rates, not bulk shipping, which is cheaper still. Remember that money is no object). But generally the customer pays S/H, so I’ll leave that out of the equation. But at least the numbers are there if you are of the mind to include S/H in the purchase price.

So I want to sell the mugs for the base rate Cafepress charges (aww hell, let’s go cheaper). I’ll charge a straight $9. That’s three dollars less than Cafepress’ base rate. That means that for every mug sold, I get back $4.80 per mug (almost $5). So if I sell all the mugs on line (this isn’t even counting mugs sold at conventions where I can sell them for even cheaper and not worry about S/H) this is my breakdown:

72 mugs X $9.00 = $648 total

After taking out the $308.17 for the initial purchase, that leaves me with $339.83. That’s a 52% profit margin for me. So more than half of the money goes back into my pocket. And that is with using the most expensive printing options, keeping the sale price relatively low, not buying in bulk, and not even looking for any special deals.

52% vs. 15%

Gee….which would you choose?
posted by Barry Smith"

If you read that site you'll notice they ARE changing it, and are going "crap, we worded it poorly" Regardless, this stuff goes into effect July 1st so time is really winding down for them to actually update it.

I've got some logos and such of my own on there which I'll be taking down if I don't see anything shortly, just to be safe as legally it IS confusing.

One thing I absolutely cannot stand though, is people automatically going "they're stealing the property!" Cafepress has be in operation for 2 or 3 years now and are a quality product, but the automatic assumption over this is "they're stealing!" when it could just merely be "oops, bad wording."

I think its sad that people automatically assume the worst... but regardless of that, the point of copyrights being in jeopardy is valid merely for the legality that's implied in the new TOS.

Basically trying to say "good call in pointing this out to Dan, etc." but also "don't assume Cafepress is evil over it automatically"

I PMed ol' Dan Shive about this. He's on top of it, it seems, so he knows the score. He knows it better than I do, anyhoo.

Dunno what's happening, but I know one thing; Dan can deal with it.

Is he removing stuff or staying with it?

Still, even if it isn't their intention to grab copyright in a devious fashion, it's good that people are speaking out. As I said before remember the creator has all rights and should stand up against attempted claims otherwise.

Oh by all means! Even if they aren't out to steal copyrights and it is just a mix up, bottom line is that the copyrights could switch ownership with this... not good.

Hello, first post since getting back. I have it in writing from an official at the cafe Press forums (one of the cafe press employees, not a cafe press user) that the original creators maintain all of their copyrights, even with the new agreement, and that it was simply worded poorly. I have it printed out, saved, locked in a safe... long story short, I would slaughter them in a legal battle for my copyrights, for that and other reasons. In any case, I'm keeping the shops, as my copyrights aren't at risk.

Yay! Great to hear :)
And welcome back, Dan. I hope you had a great weekend.

All good :)

Second that. But what about non american shops? Makes you wonder what's going to happen to www.rathergood.com

I wonder what happened to Joel Veitch, did channel four give him lots of money for use of his stuff in born sloppy? Or did they kill him after he took them to court.

Either way after the gay bar song it hasn' been updated.

Yay! Now I don't have to worry about not being able to buy shirts! Let the procrastinating resume!

Hurray! ^_^ Happy happy... so I still can buy a Grace shirt!

...once I get money, so "yeah right."