I Designed Some Pinball T-Shirts!

So I want to pre-order a CPR playfield but don't have the scratch! Rather than sell my body (who would want it?), I decided to throw together a few t-shirt designs. I don't have the means to mass produce these things myself so I've put them up on the shirt site Redbubble. My wife was kind enough to point out that you can opt to have the image on the back of the shirt, so folks can see it while you play.

You can find a link to them here: http://www.redbubble.com/people/pinmatt

I've also added "pinside" and "pinball" to the tags to make searching easier.

I figure I'll do them as a limited run. I'll leave them up for a bit and once I cover the rest of my PF dough I'll take them down. People like limited editions right? I have a couple other ideas floating around for other designs and I'm open to suggestions although I try to stick to comedy/parody. Anyway, here's a few pics.

*note, deleted some stuff on advice from fellow pinsiders*

Rubber_small.jpg

#2 10 years ago

JIM

Captive_Ball

Pinside+ Frequent

Cypress, TX

11y 128K 7,186 17 86

Rubbers shirt is awesome!

#3 10 years ago

CRG

Toasterdog

Pinside member

Clearwater, FL

11y 95,550 3,646 2 46

I think your designs look great. I like the CFTBL the best.

#4 10 years ago

GHL

Garrett

Pinside+ Frequent

Pinckney, MI

11y 92,300 3,249 3 45

Rubbers shirt is very cool.

#5 10 years ago

YZF

yzfguy

Pinside+ Frequent

12y 146K 11,174 7

creature one is cute

#6 10 years ago

TOY

mario_1_up

Pinside member

Fairbank, IA

11y 80,800 2,350 24 8

Mm looks to be about right.

#7 10 years ago

COS

cosmokramer

Pinside member

11y 120K 8,453

Lol at mm
Rubbers is great
Nice work

#8 10 years ago

ROB

Guinnesstime

Pinside+ Frequent

11y 133K 5,876 20 1

I dig Pinbot. I played the hell out of that as a teen.

#9 10 years ago

SEF

practicalsteve

GoldenStatePin

El Cerrito, CA

12y 104K 7,623 5

nice stuff!

#10 10 years ago

ZPY

zippydapinhead

Inactive member

Albany, OR

12y 78,450 3,484 12 32

Just ordered.

#11 10 years ago

AAA

Pinballgeek

Inactive member

11y 80,650 2,224

I like the bk2k,Pinbot and mm styled t shirts

#12 10 years ago

GON

Stu

Inactive member

11y 1,250 2,264

dont get caught for not Licensing some of this artwork

#13 10 years ago

BOY

vid1900

Pinside member

Sana'a

12y 164K 40,199 18

Quoted from Stu:
dont get caught for not Licensing some of this artwork

Yeah, very cool designs, but you are going to get a Cease and Desist letter within a week.

#14 10 years ago

MAT

MattG

I guess I'll take it down then and just order them for myself. I'll put new stuff up tonight.

#15 10 years ago

MAT

MattG

I took them down except for the rubbers one. I'm not trying to get in trouble. Thanks for the advice, sometimes I don't think before I act.

#16 10 years ago

ABB

Aurich

Mods and Opinions

Torrance, CA

11y 144K 23,395 3

You might have been too hasty, not all of them were going to run into license problems. The Merlin MM one, the creature hand, all I can remember off the top of my head from seeing before, but those shouldn't have any issues. The hand wasn't enough to be a problem with Universal, too generic, and anyone is allowed to draw a wizard, you weren't treading on a specific trademark there. The trolls joke was an obvious MM reference, but nothing wrong with that.

#17 10 years ago

DJP

Chitownpinball

Pinside member

Aurora, IL

11y 102K 7,312 5

Shoot me a pm, would like to see the options.

#18 10 years ago

BOB

beatmaster

Mods for your pinballs

Beauharnois

12y 102K 7,387 7 17

funny thing is nobody makes pinball t-shirts anymore (i mean nice ones), even the ones who holds the rights don't, and there is always someone (friend) who will report to them, for what? 50 cent a t-shirt... lolll

your t-shirts are fine, just to make sure nobody cries or report, come up with your own designs.

#19 10 years ago

MAT

MattG

Quoted from beatmaster:
funny thing is nobody makes pinball t-shirts anymore (i mean nice ones), even the ones who holds the rights don't, and there is always someone (friend) who will report to them, for what? 50 cent a t-shirt... lolll
your t-shirts are fine, just to make sure nobody cries or report, come up with your own designs.

I agree. To be honest, I would put them out there for no-profit if I could, but I don't want to risk it.

Anybody have the phone number or email of WMS/Bally licensing? It never hurts to ask.

#20 10 years ago

GON

Stu

Inactive member

11y 1,250 2,264

Rick at Planetary Pinball....
planetarypinball.com

OP
Quoted from MattG:
number or email of WMS/Bally licensing? It never hurts to ask

#21 10 years ago

NEO

CaptainNeo

Playfield restorations

Burlington, WI

11y 148K 22,438 37 77 1

Rick is easy to work with. He probably isn't going to care about a couple of Tshirts. It's not like your a big business. But maybe you could work out a deal and they would carry them on their website. Could turn into a side business for you.

#22 10 years ago

MAT

MattG

http://arcadenovelties.com

Email sent! Lets see how it goes!

Also, thanks for all the advice and encouragement folks!

#23 10 years ago

Pinwizkid

Pinside member

Patchogue, NY

12y 65,550 966 31

Sometimes just getting a written letter of permission is all you would need. No money involved (if agreed upon) -no fancy pants license contracts. Also, there is a legal grey area in regards to "parody" works that protect an artist's right to use copyrighted material in a derivative work that is a parody of the original piece. Some of these may fall under that category.

Safest thing to do is just contact Rick - it's not like you are repro'ing big-money parts.

Good luck

-BB

#24 10 years ago

ACE

mrpostman

Inactive member

Florence, KY

11y 30,150 387 47

I say get the permission and set-up at the big shows. You can run those off locally, sell them cheaper, sell more of them, and make a greater margin, plus you are pretty well located for some big pin events! Good luck!

#25 10 years ago

ASW

awarner

Pinside member

Cumming, GA

11y 79,550 2,050 19 37

Speaking as a 1/2 owner in a Pinball Shirt company I don't think that all of your designs needed licensing. The Bad Cats one was perfectly fine since you never mentioned "Bad Cats". We've (pinballshirts.com) been doing things that are not licensed or that the original art is still owned by the artist. What we did find was that getting access to the rights for B/W logos and Art owned by the company was next to impossible. There's something about T-Shirts that they wanted to avoid. I don't remember thinking your designs would get you in trouble. I was a little jealous actually - I thought they were nice. PM me...

#26 10 years ago

EMS

arcadenovelties

Inactive member

Toronto, ON

13y 12,650 20 3

Quoted from beatmaster:
funny thing is nobody makes pinball t-shirts anymore

Not true...

#27 10 years ago

MAT

MattG

Hey thanks for the input guys. I sent Rick an email who informed me that it would be a licensing/royalty situation to sell those shirts and while it isn;t out of the question, he was too busy setting up for show season to go into at the moment.

I've gone ahead and designed a few generic shirts if anyone is interested in them. They are non-game specific and related to the hobby in general. I've attached images below. A few designs are available in different colors. My online shop is currently located here http://www.redbubble.com/people/pinmatt/collections/210501-pinball

OMT_small.jpg brick_small.jpg flippers_small.jpg freeplay_small.jpg L1_small.jpg

#28 10 years ago

???

Ballypinball

Pinside member

Melbourne

19y 77,550 2,205 43

The only person who can help you is Steven Macaluso at WMS Gaming
be prepared to pay 100k, they own the trademarks and copyrights and are the rights owners, everyone else is just a pinball or pinball parts only licensee.

WMS have licensed out Phone games and xbox type of games, artwork and many other products
remember even if you get a WMS license to make tshirts, none of the licensed themes can be done without seperate licenses from each 3rd party as all of those licenses have expired.

#29 10 years ago

NAM

kwiKimart

Inactive member

San Diego, CA

12y 90,650 10,693 3 71

I like the I love Pinball shirt. No wait, I LOVE IT!!!!

#30 10 years ago

NEO

CaptainNeo

Playfield restorations

Burlington, WI

11y 148K 22,438 37 77 1

the Free Play press start shirt, should be really long and have the start button on the crotch.

I'd buy one in a second if that was the case.

#31 10 years ago

NIL

Nilroc

Pinside member

Vancouver, BC

11y 80,900 2,562 3

Cool Shirt!

#32 10 years ago

JGI

John_I

Space Coast Pinball

19y 179K 9,072

How about something with a small logo on the front and the large design on the back?

#33 10 years ago

ZPY

zippydapinhead

Inactive member

Albany, OR

12y 78,450 3,484 12 32

Just got my ultra limited edition PinBot Shirt. (Ordered before they were pulled)
Very nice!!!

shirt.jpg

#34 10 years ago

MAT

MattG