That’s really our standard for ethical behavior? Really really?

It’s apparent that the great majority of the commenters had either not even bothered to read the MeFi thread or have completely missed the point of the discussion because of they’re JoCo fans who now feel threatened.

The gripes that were being made was with the Pixish site itself, NOT JONATHAN COULTON, nor his fans or even this particular contest.

Certainly we all think that fan t-shirt contests like these are fine, but the complaint that I had with Pixish as a whole was that it, for intents and purposes, removes the context of a fan base and just operates as a buffet of cheap/free artwork to whomever makes a request for it. The point was that it removes the community spirit from the work — that it reduces simple requests for artwork designed in good faith into a low-balling eBay for for cheap work without the inherit love or respect that Jon has no doubt earned from his internet presence. Another complaint was that it there didn’t seem to be much protection from artists getting ripped off (like those who rip photos off of Flickr, without paying or crediting the photographers).

Anyway, please don’t let the nay-sayers get you down, Jon. You’ve already given a lot of great stuff to the Web, and you actually deserve something back. It’s the Pixish site that raises our hackles, not you.

If anything, you’re cheapening the value of awesome music, by fucking giving it away to bastards like us who should be paying through the nose for every creative note that comes out of your mouth.

I say Cheapen Away, JC. I’m enjoying every minute of it.

Oh, and I brought cookies.

I think it’s a way to tie your music back in with the fans more, which is what makes you really different from the others. We’re all having fun and it’s supposed to be all about the music right? The tshirts are just occular real estate designed to give fans a public way to declare their affection for you, what better way to do this than to let the fans themselves create it?

Ignore the nay sayers.

PS, I nice initials.

Oh, the irony. The haters need to STFU.

Their absolute nonsense response to your (fun, nifty, how damn cool is that some fan is going to get their t-shirt design printed on an actual official JoCo shirt OMG OMG!!!) contest is utterly pinning my irony-meter.

Jonathan, YOU GIVE AWAY YOUR MUSIC TO US FOR FREE!!!!

Let me say that again:

YOU GIVE AWAY YOUR MUSIC TO US FOR FREE!!!!!!!!

You’re about as far from a “web 2.0 plantation owner” as I can imagine an artist getting. Your work brings so much happiness to so many people, and you just put it out there on the web for everyone to enjoy and delight in.

Thank you for everything you do–for your musical genius, your wonderfully friendly interactions with your fans, the time and heart you put into holding contests like this, the traveling you do to bring your live shows virtually to our doorsteps.

And please, please, ignore the bitter, angry, selfish people who flame you for offering your fans this nifty opportunity.

*hugs*,

Mickey.

The going rate for a design like this is usually 2 copies of the printed t-shirt. If you’re lucky. The Nano and other stuff is more than generous.

Anyone complaining about spec work or pro-bono work is either an idiot, or has no actual experience as a designer. If you want to reach a point where you’re actually doing cool work you *have* to do spec and pro-bono work.

Here’s how it works. You graduate from school and start shopping yourself around. You’ve got a portfolio full of all the stuff that got you an A+ on in your classes. For bonus points you’ve thrown in a couple logos you “designed” by following an online tutorial. It’s all shiny and chrome and really, really exciting to someone who’s never seen Photoshop before.You’re showing this off to art directors who are unimpressed because they did the same exercises when they were in college, and your Photoshop tricks are pure cheese to them.

They want to know what you’ve actually done. As in real work, for real clients. They don’t care where you went to school or what you got for grades.

Maybe if your work is truly outstanding, they’ll try you out in an entry level position, where the most exiting thing you’ll be designing is classified ads for the local used car dealership.

The catch is, this entry level work only proves that you’re qualified to do more of the same work. If you want to move beyond this, you’re going to have go do work above and beyond what you’re getting paid for. Very few people are going to pay for work from someone who isn’t a proven commodity, so that means you’ll have to work on spec, or for free.

The thing is not to be stupid about it. Just because you’re not getting paid for it doesn’t mean your work isn’t valuable. Make sure it’s going to something worthwhile, like a non-profit org you believe in. Or make sure it’s work where you can show off your skills and call all the shots.

Do enough of this work and you’ll have a portfolio full of real work for real clients, and you can get a better job at a better agency, or get better freelance jobs.

Honestly, the opportunities to do really creative work that will be published, even for free, are very rare. So, Jonathan, even if you were giving nothing in return besides publishing their work on t-shirts, your contest is still worth entering just to get a portfolio piece. Aspiring artists and designers should look for every opportunity like this.

As far as Pixish being “evil,” there’s a lot of artists and designers out there who are crap, but successful because their clients don’t know any better, or don’t know how to find anyone else. These are the people who should worry about Pixish. People who are successful because they’re good have nothing to worry about.

I’m not submitting anything, but only because it’s not really my area of expertise, and I’m hella busy right now.

And ya know, it’s not like Joco makes us buy everything either. I think he gives quite a lot. And a lot of his fan base likes to give back. That relationship is no one else’s business frankly.

Besides, if someone wants to NOT do free design work for you then by all means let them sit there and NOT do it. (I haven’t read the 70-some comments above but i’m pretty sure some of them are similar to mine)

Songs that I wrote are licensed Creative Commons by-nc (covers and other stuff I don’t own are not).

So… it’s okay for you to put out your music for us to listen to on your website (and in a few cases, download and keep) for free, but it’s not okay for people to voluntarily do the same thing when entering your contest?

I think these people have no perception of who you are as a person and an artist, and they can take a flying leap.

Yeah the whole ownership and free artwork issues are kind of rocky, but the alternative to that is no design contest at all, which sucks. I wouldn’t stress over it.

First, Metafilter folks snark because they don’t have anything better to do. Like so many other people through history, they think this makes them cool. Feh.

JoCo rocks. Anyone who doesn’t like the contest might just as well go download their music illegally and play with their toes because it’s free.

Now back to Photoshop.

Personally, I’m going to be pointing out this contest to my girlfriend. She loves your music, is an aspiring graphic designer. and could really use a new iPod. Everybody wins!

(Sorry for probably repeating something that has already been said above, but I wanted to add my opinion to the throng.)

Only the winning design may be printed.

Personally, I’m planning on submitting a design and I’d be honored if I didn’t win and you used it anyway. You’re one of my favorite musicians and it would be wonderful to be able to continue to support you, especially with art rather than money since I’m poor.

Seriously, I’ll sign a waiver if you want. I just want to be able to point to one of your shirts and say “I fucking designed that.”

First of all, the people bitching about the contest just need to get a life. The contest is voluntary. If you’re going to submit a design, you agree to the rules, if you don’t agree to the rules… you don’t submit a design.

Second,

Someone who has some extra expendable income should make a t-shirt for the submitters that says, “I submitted a design for JoCo’s t-shirt design contest and all I got was this lousy t-shirt! (Stupid Internets!)” and donate them to JoCo to send out to the ppl who submit an entry.

…and then Joco can write “SlAvE” on all of the submitters cheeks and give them new names that are unpronouncable glyphs……

Maybe they should consider how much music YOU have given THEM for free.

from tkchrist:
“Anybody here an architect or contractor. Hey how about you all build me three houses each and I will pick witch one I will buy. The best one. No I wont pay you for materials or time. If your good let the market decide. Fuck the rest of you that suck so say I.”

Um… that’s called a spec house and it happens all the freakin’ time.

“if anybody’s an exception to the rule, it’d be Jonathan Coulton: he gives away most of his own work for free online, so if he wants to ask for people to design him t-shirts for free, I say more power to him, he’s earned it.”

There, now I feel like a suckup, but the whole Pixish flap really wasn’t about you, and I’m sorry people dragged you in there as an example.

I will, however, admit to feeling guilty for taking jobs away from professional forum administrators.

What you do is one of those great examples of the good things of the Internet. And this site certainly enforces that. The pictures, videos and fan content all having their own personal idea of your music is really quite refreshing. And winning a contest such as this one would be really cool. All said and done, if someone doesn’t feel comfortable with not making a profit from this, they don’t have to enter.

Now then, I am all in favor of collaboration - it levels the playing field, which is great, because you get the best of all worlds.

Anyway, we’re all in support of you. There are a lot of assholes on the internet that will criticize a good person they know nothing about just because they have a stance on an issue that doesn’t really have anything to do with the case at hand.

You are extremely loyal to your fans, and because of that, we are all loyal to you. There’s a difference between respect and loyalty versus slavery. I submitted a design, which although it probably won’t be picked, I would be extremely happy to give to you for free. Although if it does win, toss me the iPod, I don’t have one yet for some reason

What kind of games do you do? I was listening to SkullCrusher Mountain and got obsessed with how he eats and breathes and other science facts… I’m building a (moderately to very, depending on my free time) detailed 3D layout of the “SkullCrusher Mountain Complex”. I have a plug-in that lets me output swf files from the 3D scene. I would love to make it available as an interactive “tour”. But, I don’t do interactivity.

Don’t you think just as many people would submit designs if the only reward would be the opportunity to have your design on a Jonathan Coulton t-shirt?

I can understand the bigger issue of things like Pixish hurting full-time graphics designers, but you’ve really got to pick your battles here.

It’s like saying that American Idol is unfair to those hardworking individuals who slept their way to the top.

Well said by many folks here…I agree.
Capitalism did not eat our brains.

Onward Masta J!

Keep The Sassy and continue to experiment while maintaining faith in humanity!
You will be rewarded in more ways than you can dream of…

Ignore The Negs!

So this isn’t slave labor at all, it’s collaboration, which Thomas Friedman (”The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century”) says is REALLY GREAT.

As far as the contest goes, it looks to me like you’re providing a service to your fans. Fans love to be included in the works of their idols. You’re providing this service for the low, low price of using the design. If that price is too high, people just won’t participate.

Besides, an artist that gives away his work shouldn’t feel guilty for accepting other works given to him, it’d be hypocritical.

I’ve done some CAD classes, and unless something is changed, you still put together a professional portfolio for graduation, and I know you would take a portfolio of your work with you to a potential client. Wouldn’t having something like this, your design on a professionally marketed product, a T-shirt sure to gross 4 trillion dollars, be beneficial as a student just out of school trying to get work?

Lets remember, the internet is just a series of tubes on trucks driving down the highway with a bunch of stuff dumped inside, just ask Senator Stevens. Scott is probably just worried us JoCo fans are going to break the internet with all our stuff.