John Festa's dashboard

I'd also just like to point out, at least in the case of IllustratorWeb.com, artists retain all rights for artwork, unless further fees are paid. http://www.illustrationweb.com/terms/ – Chappy, on April 22, 2008 23:42

Any "color" you could add to that comment would be helpful...

Would Threadless require repayment of the original costs (basically, $2,500 + $500 per reprint) + some an additional fee of some kind?

It sounds like this situation may not have arisen yet and frankly, it makes artists hesitant about submitting their 'best of the best' design work to Threadless.

This would be an excellent time for this to be resoved internally at Threadless and that decision could be communicated to us as artists involved in the Threadless community.

Coming from a long history of dealing with these exact issues, and it would be a smart move for this to be clarified. It will add value to the bottom line as a company, and it will engender greater clarity of decision-making for the best artists.

Good question. As for a "corporate line", we treat every design and artist on a case by case basis. Our people here strive to maintain strong relationships with our artistic community in addition to protecting their rights - as such we would work with the artist to resolve the situation in everyone's best interests.

Regarding your hypothetical, we would have to look at several factors in making a decision in that situation.

Thanks for the prompt reply, John. Much appreciated.

I have a situation for you to address. Suppose a design is submitted to Threadless, it is picked and printed, and even goes into reprints.

At what point would Threadless be willing to either release, or sell back to the artist the rights to use this design on a shirt (say, again theoretically, the artist gets interest from a national chain store to have shirts printed using the design). Would Threadless release the design after discussion, or would they require payment?

This situation may happen. Please let us know the actual corporate line on this. Thanks. You've been a big help.

Currently, if a submitting artist is selected for print, they receive:
$2000 cash, a $500 Threadless gift certificate, and also receive $500 every time a design is reprinted.

Please note however that Threadless does NOT "acquire all rights" in the design as you stated in your question - Threadless only acquires the right to the design as used on t-shirts/hoodies and wall graphics (i.e. blik vinyl wall adhesives) - All other rights remain with the submitting artists for any other use. Please find the full terms on this page: (http://www.threadless.com/submit/design).