AMA: I make 500/m from POD

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I've read of people banned because of a "Harry Potter" tag.
I'm actually looking at a lot of Harry Potter, Star Wars, Game Of Thrones etc T-Shirts on Etsy.
All of these shirts have the name in the title without any problems. I'm wondering why they didn't get banned?

I can't understand how this copyright thing works :(
 
anifreddi said:
I've read of people banned because of a "Harry Potter" tag.
I'm actually looking at a lot of Harry Potter, Star Wars, Game Of Thrones etc T-Shirts on Etsy.
All of these shirts have the name in the title without any problems. I'm wondering why they didn't get banned?

I can't understand how this copyright thing works :(
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probably because no1 reported them yet.. i see al-ot of blatant copyrighted images being used on these tshirts .. its obvious they will be banned eventually or when someone reports them. That or they make a bunch of accounts
 
So MBA is where copyright enforcement is at it's strictest. And it's not worth it to risk your account. In my experience Redbubble will let anything be uploaded unless someone reports it and takes it down. So there's this opportunity where you can churn and burn copyrighted designs on redbubble. It's easy to make a new account and evade their bans if it comes to that.
 
Notadouche said:
Just to answer a few of the questions because I do the same as OP but I`m a bit further down the road at $XXXX per month, my suggestion is to get your designs on as many platforms as you can. Amazon will always bring you the majority of your sales because of the traffic but getting a few hundred bucks per month from Redbubble, Teepublic and Etsy is nothing to spit on considering you are just copying over your designs and keywords. Making your own site sounds great and that's what I'm working on now because any platform can ban you and it's all over. The problem is that having your site costs money for SEO while the others do it for you. If you are on a hot trend and you get your design out first, you have good chances of ranking on the first page when it takes off and then it's money in the bank for years in most cases. So here is what I keep in mind when uploading to platforms:

Amazon: Do not mess with copyright/trademark. No matter how much you make, Amazon will shut off your lights because you are irrelevant. Also, be ready for chinese copycats to undercut all your listings and fighting them nonstop. Pain in the ass but most profitable. XXXX/month from this one and XX,XXX during Q4.

Etsy: Not as bad as Amazon but be careful for trademark. I just had my account banned, which was making 1000$ per month, for putting harry potter in my hidden keywords for a parody piece that didn't have anything else owned by Harry Potter but was clear to fans what it meant. I suggest customizable designs for this platform.

Redbubble: So this is where I put the stuff that I know won't fly on Amazon and Etsy. Be smart about the copyrighted stuff so that people can't specifically write the keyword but will immediately connect your design to what they are searching. For example, if you want to sell something from Michael Jordan, if you write Michael Jordan in your keywords or title, expect it to get rejected or taken down quickly. If you write Jordan Basketball, you'll get through and designs will stay on there muchhhh longer. Eventually they will remove the design once you've make a little fortune with it and tell you not to reupload it. Just move on to your next grey zone niche. I make around 300$ per month off this and it has about 20% of my designs on it.

Teepublic: This one is pretty much like Redbubble but a bit more strict in my case. Some things they seem to catch right away when I submit it. I make about 150$ from this but I only have about 10% of my designs on it.

Some pointers to those who may try this:

  1. If you treat it like a hobby, which I do, expect hobby money. If you treat it as a business, you can scale it much higher than I have.
  2. It's better to make 10 Good designs than 1 great design. It's usually a numbers game on Amazon.
  3. Just because you think your design in amazing doesn't mean you'll sell any. I've made many garbage designs that I wanted to delete but put it up anyway and sold from time to time. Not my best sellers but money anyway.
  4. You need to be good at finding trends and upcoming events.
  5. If you make a design in a untapped niche and it sells, make 100-200 more to discourage other designers like me from finding it and stealing your customers. Discourage us by showing you own that market.
  6. Apply for MerchByAmazon NOW, it can take months to get accepted and some people get rejected for no reason. If you are reading this, apply now, you might thank me in a few months when it randomly comes in.
  7. If you are only on Merch, you're missing out. You should also be selling on Amazon Central through Shopify or another platform.

If you put in 40+ hours a week for 2-3 months, you could be living off this passively for years. This is what I did and now I only put in 5 mins per day to see if customers wrote me and I have been pulling in 3k+ for the last 4 years and only add up to 10 designs per year when I'm bored or if there's an obvious new trend about to hit the market. If I took this more seriously, I'd be able to quit my six figure job but I'm not wired that way lol. It pays my bills and I am satisfied with that.

Good luck and sorry to hijack your thread OP.
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Thank you for posting learned a lot from you and the OP as well.
 
Archer99 said:
I was at Tier 100, uploading semi-actively.

Believe it was something to do with copyright violation though, they unfortunately, didn't explicitly state what exactly triggered the ban. I've since quit as they said it's permanent.

Oh well.
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I heard of people getting unbanned but it's meant to take like 6 months to make it happen you would probably better of buying a new account instead of wait 6 months or so.
 
anifreddi said:
I've read of people banned because of a "Harry Potter" tag.
I'm actually looking at a lot of Harry Potter, Star Wars, Game Of Thrones etc T-Shirts on Etsy.
All of these shirts have the name in the title without any problems. I'm wondering why they didn't get banned?

I can't understand how this copyright thing works :(
Click to expand...

I can possibly explain why some people get on with this sometimes.

Some people setup like say 50 accounts each will be in theory a different person or business but owned by the same person or business when one or so accounts get banned for say selling something copyright the other other 48 or so still sell the same sort of products then they will open a new account and start it all over again if they all get shutdown.
 
I was the one who got banned for the harry potter tag. You will see TONS of designs on Etsy for Harry Potter and other big brands but they are ticking time bombs. Etsy doesn't block much and will allow you to put pretty much anything but if they receive trademark complaints, they will take your design down and give you a warning. At the time, I remember reading that Etsy was a lot like Redbubble where they gave you a ton of warnings but never banned you and to simply not put back up the image and move on, which is what I was doing. In my case, I had put on a ton of Harry Potter designs that didn't have copyrighted or trademark terms in them but had Harry Potter in the keywords. Eventually, Etsy received a ton of complaints from Warner Bros and shut me down.

The issue is that playing in this zone is super profitable if you stumble on the right design seeing as the following is huge but you will get caught eventually. If you're in it for a quick buck, give it a shot and put all the trademark stuff up before Christmas, make a killing and delete all your listings... If you want to turn this into a long-term passive income, don't aim for that quick payday, find your evergreen niches and be prepared to make 100 designs and have only 2 of them sell on a regular basis. Discouraging at first but you get used to it, it's just how the game works. Once you hit a good design, you can start getting a small following and then you can get some better quality stuff to really dominate that market.

Be smarter than I was on Etsy and play by the rules, you'll be glad you did once it's making your mortgage payments for you.
 
so i got my ass rejected by MBA .. 6 days after applying.. i'll tell you what not to write.. > ur an online marketer > u know seo > u know photoshop > illustrator > seo > will not infringe on any designs > also have red bubble > teespring..

i'm guessing the people who sit behind the desk are regular joe blows who do not like to be one upped or maybe it depends on the persons mood or they are looking for regular folks.. i dont know but i know i should be qualified for it. so now u know what not to write all in 1 application.. time to buy an account.
 
anonapersons said:
so i got my ass rejected by MBA .. 6 days after applying.. i'll tell you what not to write.. > ur an online marketer > u know seo > u know photoshop > illustrator > seo > will not infringe on any designs > also have red bubble > teespring..

i'm guessing the people who sit behind the desk are regular joe blows who do not like to be one upped or maybe it depends on the persons mood or they are looking for regular folks.. i dont know but i know i should be qualified for it. so now u know what not to write all in 1 application.. time to buy an account.
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Thanks for the tip I am going to apply for it next week but I will take your advice before I apply for it.
 
polecat said:
Thanks for the tip I am going to apply for it next week but I will take your advice before I apply for it.
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np , let us know how it goes. im going to reapply using my gfs name =p

btw does anyone know where i can purchase a legit non scammer mba account? thanks
 
anonapersons said:
np , let us know how it goes. im going to reapply using my gfs name =p

btw does anyone know where i can purchase a legit non scammer mba account? thanks
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Thanks will do. For the other part not sure but you can maybe find one on say Fiverr or Guru.com
 
I see some sellers on Fiverr but I don't trust the reviews.

I helped a work colleague start up a PoD business and before applying for MBA, he opened a small website with a bunch of vacation pictures with quotes on them. He applied as a photographer and put down this site as his even though all the pictures were ripped off the web. He got approved within a week.

Keep in mind, it could be completely random and you could end up losing money and time if you do the same, I'm just letting you know what he did and he got in.
 
For those who aren't able to get in MBA. I recommend focusing on other POD sites as they aren't bad to getting revenue. Past few days my redbubble sales have been picking up.
 
Comrade Luigi said:
For those who aren't able to get in MBA. I recommend focusing on other POD sites as they aren't bad to getting revenue. Past few days my redbubble sales have been picking up.
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do you need to do promotion on redbubble_?
 
redbubble lists my designs not only for tshirts but pillows , stickers , hoodies and others.. should i leave that option there *assuming that it looks and is cropped fine* or should i uncheck those and make it list strictly tshirts? i feel like it doesn't really hurt
 
List on all the available product categories. I often get sales on blankets, pillows, and all sorts of random products.
 
Thanks for the details so far. I was just wondering if the usual image format to upload is png and what resolution to use? I understand the higher the better but I'm not the best at Photoshop/Illustrator, etc. Thanks.
 
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