#Corporate Logo T Shirts

[personalizedtshirts]

With our quality uniform t shirts, which combine comfort and style, you can elevate the look of your squad. Our t shirts are made of premium, breathable cotton that guarantees all day comfort, making them ideal for any sector. They can be personalized with your colors and brand to create a cohesive, businesslike look. Get today to take advantage of affordable prices and quick delivery!

[t-shirts-printing]

https://teelabs.in/

Top custom t shirts sprinting in Chennai with premium quality and quick turnaround. TeeLabs offers high-quality, personalized designs for businesses, corporate, events, and more. Contact TeeLabs today!

[yntstore]

Quick &Efficient 48-Hour T-Shirt Service: From Enquiry to Delivery

In today’s fast-paced world, businesses need quick solutions, especially when preparing for corporate events or promotional activities. Our 48-hour T-shirt Printing Service is tailored to meet such urgent requirements, offering high-quality customised t-shirts in a streamlined and efficient manner. Whether you’re looking for corporate event t-shirts, customised t-shirts for your team, or just want to showcase your brand with style, our service is designed to deliver.

Step 1: Initial Enquiry The process begins when a customer enquiries. We require a few essential details to ensure we meet your needs precisely. These include the number of t-shirts, the company logo or design you wish to print, and the preferred t-shirt colour. Additionally, we need instructions on the placement of the logo, whether on the front, sleeve, or back, and the size of the logo. This information helps us understand your vision and allows us to create a mock-up that aligns with your expectations.

Step 2: Mock-up Creation and Approval Once we have your details, our design team creates a t-shirt mock-up with your logo. This mock-up gives you a clear visual of the final product, ensuring there are no surprises. Along with the mock-up, we provide a price quote for the entire order. We understand that sometimes changes are necessary, so we’re more than happy to make adjustments based on your feedback. After you’re satisfied with the mock-up, we move to the next step. At this stage, we require a size breakdown, specifying the quantity needed for each size. We also ask for a 50% advance payment and your company’s GST details for billing purposes. This information allows us to proceed with your order smoothly.

Step 3: Production Process With everything in place, we begin the production process. First, we procure the required t-shirts. Our product of choice is a high-quality cotton polo t-shirt with 210 gsm, known for its durability and comfort. This ensures that your customised t-shirts not only look great but also feel great to wear. The design is then printed using our state-of-the-art in-house DTF (direct-to-film) machine. This method ensures that the prints are vibrant, long-lasting, and resistant to wear. After printing, we use a heat press to transfer the designs onto the t-shirts, ensuring a flawless finish. Every t-shirt undergoes a rigorous quality control check to ensure it meets our standards.

Step 4: Packing and Dispatch Once the t-shirts pass QC, they are carefully packed and prepared for dispatch. Given the urgency of our 48-hour service, we use a porter for quick delivery, ensuring your t-shirts reach you right on time. Finally, we request the remaining payment from the customer.

Why Choose Us? Our 48-hour T-shirt Printing Service in Mumbai is perfect for businesses needing quick turnaround times without compromising quality. Whether it’s for a corporate event or promotional giveaway, our customised t-shirts are made to leave a lasting impression. Our cotton polo t-shirts offer comfort and style, making them an ideal choice for any occasion. With a seamless process, from initial enquiry to delivery, we ensure your experience is as smooth as possible, allowing you to focus on what matters most – your business.

[corporatediwaligifts]

How Custom Corporate T-shirts Can Enhance Employee Engagement in the Workplace

Employee engagement has become a crucial metric for organizational success in today's competitive business environment. Companies continually seek innovative ways to foster a positive work culture and enhance employee morale. One surprisingly effective strategy is the use of custom corporate T-shirts. Personalized corporate T-shirts for employees can significantly impact the workplace environment, leading to higher levels of engagement, a sense of belonging, and a stronger corporate identity.

The Role of Custom Corporate T-shirts in Modern Workplaces

Custom corporate T-shirts are more than just casual wear; they are a powerful tool for building unity and a sense of belonging among employees. When employees wear T-shirts emblazoned with the company logo, colors, and possibly their names, it fosters a collective identity. This can be particularly effective in creating a cohesive culture in both large corporations and smaller companies.

1. Building Team Spirit and Unity

One of the primary benefits of custom corporate T-shirts is their ability to build team spirit. When everyone wears the same branded attire, it breaks down barriers and encourages a sense of equality and camaraderie. This uniformity helps employees feel part of a bigger picture, fostering unity and teamwork.

For instance, during corporate events, team-building exercises, or even regular workdays, wearing personalized corporate T-shirts can remind employees that they are all working towards common goals. This visual representation of unity can enhance cooperation and collaboration among team members, leading to more effective teamwork and productivity.

2. Enhancing Corporate Identity and Brand Loyalty

Custom corporate T-shirts are a walking advertisement for your brand. When employees wear these T-shirts outside of work, they act as brand ambassadors, promoting the company wherever they go. This not only enhances brand visibility but also instills a sense of pride in employees.

For the employees they, wearing corporate-branded clothing can strengthen their connection to the company. It makes them feel valued and integral to the organization's success. This can translate into increased loyalty and a desire to contribute positively to the company's goals.

Personalized Corporate T-shirts for Employees: A Boost to Morale

Personalized corporate T-shirts for employees take the concept a step further by adding an element of individuality to the corporate attire. Adding employees' names, roles, or unique designs tailored to their preferences can significantly boost morale.

1. Recognition and Appreciation

Personalized T-shirts can be used as a form of recognition. Awarding custom T-shirts for achieving certain milestones, completing projects, or demonstrating outstanding performance can make employees feel appreciated and recognized for their hard work. This form of recognition can motivate employees to maintain high performance and strive for further achievements.

2. Fostering a Sense of Belonging

When employees see their names or personal identifiers on their corporate T-shirts, it reinforces their sense of belonging to the organization. It signals that the company values them as individuals, not just as part of the workforce. This personalized touch can be especially meaningful in large organizations where employees might sometimes feel like just another number.

Corporate T-shirts for Men: Gender-Specific Designs and Comfort

When considering custom corporate T-shirts, it’s essential to cater to the specific needs and preferences of different employee demographics, including gender-specific designs.

1. Comfort and Fit

Men often have different preferences when it comes to clothing styles and fits. Offering corporate T-shirts for men that cater to these preferences can ensure that the attire is comfortable and well-received. This might include considerations such as fit (slim, regular, or relaxed), fabric type (cotton, polyester blends), and design elements that resonate more with male employees.

2. Style and Professionalism

Ensuring that corporate T-shirts for men align with the professional image of the company is crucial. While comfort is important, the style should also reflect the company’s brand. A well-designed T-shirt that men can wear both in and out of the office can enhance the professional image of the company and make employees feel confident and proud to wear their corporate attire.

Implementing Custom Corporate T-shirts in Your Workplace

To effectively implement custom corporate T-shirts and maximize their benefits, consider the following steps:

1. Involve Employees in the Design Process

Engaging employees in the design process can increase their enthusiasm for the final product. Consider conducting surveys or focus groups to gather input on preferred styles, colors, and features. This not only ensures that the T-shirts will be well-received but also demonstrates that the company values employee opinions.

2. Ensure Quality and Comfort

The quality of the T-shirts is paramount. Invest in high-quality materials that are comfortable and durable. Employees are more likely to wear and appreciate T-shirts that feel good and last long. Additionally, ensure that the printing quality is high so that logos and designs do not fade quickly.

3. Distribute Thoughtfully

The distribution of custom corporate T-shirts should be strategic. Consider presenting them during on boarding to new employees, at team-building events, or as rewards for achievements. This thoughtful distribution can enhance the perceived value of the T-shirts and make them a cherished part of the employee experience.

Measuring the Impact of Custom Corporate T-shirts

To gauge the effectiveness of custom corporate T-shirts in enhancing employee engagement, consider the following metrics:

1. Employee Feedback and Satisfaction

Gather feedback from employees about their satisfaction with the T-shirts and how they feel it impacts their work experience. Surveys and informal feedback sessions can provide valuable insights.

2. Observing Workplace Dynamics

Monitor changes in workplace dynamics after introducing custom T-shirts. Look for increased collaboration, improved team morale, and higher participation in team events.

3. Brand Visibility and Perception

Track the external impact by observing how often employees wear the T-shirts outside of work and the feedback from clients or partners. Enhanced brand visibility and positive perceptions can indicate a successful implementation.

Conclusion

Custom corporate T-shirts, particularly personalized ones, offer a unique and effective way to enhance employee engagement in the workplace. By fostering a sense of unity, recognizing individual contributions, and boosting morale, these T-shirts can play a significant role in building a positive work culture. For men, ensuring that the designs are comfortable and stylish adds an extra layer of appeal, making the T-shirts a favored part of their wardrobe.

Investing in custom corporate T-shirts is more than just a branding exercise; it's a strategic move to cultivate a cohesive, motivated, and loyal workforce. By thoughtfully implementing and continually assessing the impact of these T-shirts, companies can harness their full potential to create a more engaged and productive workplace.

[ajnaclothings-blog]

Best Corporate T shirts in Tirupur

Ajna clothings is the leading corporate t-shirt manufacturer in Tirupur setting standard excellence in industry experience. we have best quality t shirts with customization.

[ggracemanufacturerofcorporate]

Top Manufacturer of Polo T Shirts and Shirts with Company logo Ggrace in India(https://www.ggrace.co/polo-t-shirts-and-shirts-with-company-logo-manufacturer-delhi-india)

[brijmerchandise]

Manufacturers of Customized Corporate T-shirts With Logo

Manufacturers of Customized Corporate T-shirts With Logo Unveil your brand's identity through our customized corporate T-shirt manufacturing! We specialise in producing top-tier corporate tees adorned with your logo or branding. Our expertise lies in delivering logo-printed T-shirts that make a statement, perfect for corporate uniforms, promotional giveaways, or event merchandise. With a keen eye on design precision, our manufacturing process ensures high-quality logo integration using advanced printing techniques and durable materials. 

Visit us:- https://www.brij.com/product-category/t-shirts

[allthingscustomized]

Discover the pinnacle of personalized branding at AllThingsCustomized. Elevate your company's identity with our exclusive collection of polo t-shirts with company logo. Our premium polo t-shirts blend style and professionalism, ensuring your team embodies your brand effortlessly. With a plethora of fabrics, colors, and sizes, we tailor each piece to perfection. Let your logo shine on the canvas of high-quality polo t-shirts, a statement of unity and sophistication. Trust AllThingsCustomized to deliver unparalleled excellence that transforms simple apparel into powerful brand ambassadors. Experience logo-centric elegance – connect with us today to redefine your corporate look.

[stubbornfactory]

Your Brand, Your Story: Customizing Corporate Gifting with Stubborn Factory

In today's intense business landscape, standing apart from the competition is crucial for any company. One impactful and impressive way to make a lasting impression is through customized corporate gifting. Whether it's business apparel, staff uniforms, company event shirts, or custom branded t-shirts, the right effort being put into corporate gifts can enhance a brand's identity and leave a memorable impact on clients, employees, and partners. In this blog, we will explore how Stubborn Factory, a leading merchandising brand, can help you elevate your brand and create a story befitting of your brand, and your company. 

[personalizedtshirts]

Invest in our high quality Corporate T Shirts to enhance your brand identification and team spirit! Our comfortable and stylish t shirts come with customized choices that make it easy to show off your logo. Perfect for daily use, team outings, and business functions, they guarantee that your brand is noticed. Reach out to us right now for dependable quality to enhance your company reputation!

[pippenpaddlopsicopolisthethird]

Reminder at the beginning of pride month that rainbow capitalism, beyond anything else, is a metric of public opinion. A corporation slapping a rainbow logo on twitter or selling a t-shirt with a rainbow graphic means that they believe they can make as much, or more, money by doing so than if they refused to. You can talk in circles for hours about whether this is allyship or exploitation or whatever, but it is always a symptom, not a cause.

That's what should worry you about Target pulling down pride displays, or companies deciding not to walk in pride parades. A sudden decline in rainbow capitalism is a visible thermometer for the political, social, and legal pressure against queer rights, particularly in the USA in 2023.

[t-shirts-printing]

Custom T Shirts are the perfect way to showcase your brand, event, or personal style. Design unique T Shirts with logos, graphics, or slogans to stand out! Contact now!

[yntstore]

5 Reasons why you should wear a Logo T-shirt

Creating a logo is one of the vital steps when you kickstart a full-fledged business. It is a factor without which a business has no existence. Do you agree to this? Indeed. When you start a business, you need to focus on a dozen factors. These factors include business development, strategy, marketing, sales, finance and lots more. But when we talk about B2B businesses, many start-ups try to focus on brand awareness and for increasing the same, making merchandise play a major role.

Merchandize is not a naive term but it is a collective marketing material that helps a brand to become prominent in its business sector. These include printed cups, bags, visiting cards, printed customized logo business shirts, printed writing materials (letterhead, diary, pen, pencil) and lots more.

One of the interesting things is printed logo t-shirts. Imagine, your team wearing your brand’s t-shirts and they are representing you across the globe. It gives you satisfaction and happiness. Today folks we will note down 5 simple reasons on why you should wear a Logo t-shirt?

Grabs attention

As discussed earlier, merchandise like printed t-shirts can extensively help a business to create “Brand Awareness”. As things stand, businesses only have 4 seconds to convert a prospect into customers and a logo can be the shortest yet coolest element to do so.

Likewise, a logo can immediately grab a viewer’s attention and it has the potential to communicate business’s core values and goals in a quirky way. It’s like judging a business by its appearance and making sure it is always impressive and ever-lasting. Check out cool collections of Logo t shirts here pals.

First Impression is the Last One

We were taught during school days “First impression is the last impression” and the same thing applies here. You get only one chance to do this in a right way and a cool logo customized t-shirt can surely help you in doing it. If designed well, it can create interest in the mind of viewers and also give them an opportunity to get to know more about the business. Your logo introduces your business as an authentic authority in the professional arena. Eg: YNTStore Official is an online Customized Printed Tshirt corner.

Creates a foundation for brand identity

Successful branding and marketing includes conveying a story that will have an impact on the viewer’s mind. It should include emotions and sentiments but in a simple and plain manner. Logo t shirts help in serving as the foundation for narrating a brand’s story.

Memorable

One of the coolest things a Logo Tshirt can ever do is make your brand memorable. Obviously, you want people to immediately recognize and connect with your brand. It triggers positive recall about the business and logos are aesthetically beautiful elements.

Separates you from others

Logo creates unique identity about your brand. Dare to be unique with your logo t-shirt and merchandize and tell customers why your brand is different from others. Sure, there may be thousands of printed customized t-shirt dealers but yours is unique on the basis of purity of the fabric, unique colors, customized designs and mainly, affordable prices.

Do you wish to have your brand logo on merchandise like t-shirts? Connect with YNTStore today on (email id). Also, follow YNTStoreOfficial on Instagram and Facebook. Explore the variety of merchandize on https://yntstore.com/

[ms-demeanor]

Also I have to say "but bands are using AI art for their album covers" is not a winning argument.

That band wasn't going to pay you. That band was going to beg somebody's artist brother for a freebie or they were going to have the people in the band who can kind of draw draw something or they were going to use a moody photo someone took with their cellphone. Best possible scenario is "they were going to trade for something from someone in the scene," and this is still the most likely scenario for bands that *give a shit* about that kind of thing.

And I've been the one doing freebie artwork for my musician friends; I've made album covers and done promo shoots, I've drawn logos and I've got a standing offer to make buttons for the cost of materials for every band I've ever played a show with. The people who give a shit in the scene are already doing this because everybody knows that everybody's broke.

I'm certain that there's not *zero* overlap between "bands that can afford to pay artists and photographers to create album artwork" and "bands that are using AI art for their album covers" but if you think "indie musician" is a demographic that has money to spare on commissioned artwork, I'm pretty sure you're mistaken.

Like. Okay, I mean my *big* argument is that AI image generation is fair use, full stop.

But the secondary argument that I've got is that I'm not sure there's a market to have the bottom fall out of.

The person making shitty covers for their amazon romance novel was not going to pay you. They were going to pay someone on fiverr eight dollars *at best* and that's only if they couldn't find a way to DIY.

That band that's trying desperately to sell ten tickets so they can play a show at the cool venue was not going to pay you to do their cover art. Their last fifty bucks just went to covering those tickets because their friends aren't even coming to their free shows. They were going to stage a photoshoot with a cellphone and a timer and someone's sister's selfie stick.

That person who made an AI avatar was not going to pay you for a custom avatar they were going to take a screenshot of your work and use that.

The people who are able to afford to pay artists and who are interested in paying artists are not the people who are replacing artists with AI. The t-shirt dropshippers, the shitty book cover designers, the bland corporate artists, and the art reposting instagram pages were the ones who undercut your market.

If you're concerned that someone is going to use AI to make art that is materially similar to yours and sell it, you're just concerned that someone is going to make art that is materially similar to yours to sell. The concerns about AI doing it are functionally exactly the same as what happens when someone says "wow, I want that on a t-shirt" under your drawing. If someone were to draw a character similar to but distinct from yours with words similar to but distinct from yours and put a link to that on a reblog of your post, that person is not actually infringing on you. They're a shithead, but that's not actually art theft. If they used your character and your words, or if they directly copy the image, that's art theft and you can try to get their post taken down. It's the exact same thing with AI.

The people who care about art and can afford to pay for it are always going to pay for it. Your problem isn't with AI, your problem is with the fact that people don't value art and that's as true now as it was a decade ago.

You are trying to sell a complicated, crocheted sundress made with 100% hand-dyed alpaca wool on Etsy and are complaining that the loose knit acrylic sundress from walmart is undercutting your market. Some people are always going to make the effort to save up and pay for your work because they value the craftsmanship, but those people didn't want to shop at WalMart in the first place. And the ones who value your craftsmanship but just plain can't afford it were going to dig through the bins at a thrift store until they found a crocheted swim cover from the seventies that they could pass off as a dress with a few alterations.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Inkjump Linkdump

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

It's the start of a long weekend and I've found myself with a backlog of links, so it's time for another linkdump – the eighteenth in the (occasional) series. Here's the previous installments:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

Kicking off this week's backlog is a piece of epic lawyer-snark, which is something I always love, but what makes this snark total catnip for me is that it's snark about copyfraud: false copyright claims made to censor online speech. Yes please and a second portion, thank you very much!

This starts with the Cola Corporation, a radical LA-based design store that makes lefty t-shirts, stickers and the like. Cola made a t-shirt that remixed the LA Lakers logo to read "Fuck the LAPD." In response, the LAPD's private foundation sent a nonsense copyright takedown letter. Cola's lawyer, Mike Dunford, sent them a chef's-kiss-perfect reply, just two words long: "LOL, no":

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/04/19/apparel-company-gives-perfect-response-to-lapds-nonsense-ip-threat-letter-over-fuck-the-lapd-shirt/

But that's not the lawyer snark I'm writing about today. Dunford also sent a letter to IMG Worldwide, whose lawyers sent the initial threat, demanding an explanation for this outrageous threat, which was – as the physicists say – "not even wrong":

https://www.loweringthebar.net/2024/05/lol-no-explained.html

Every part of the legal threat is dissected here, with lavish, caustic footnotes, mercilessly picking apart the legal defects, including legally actionable copyfraud under DMCA 512(f), which provides for penalties for wrongful copyright threats. To my delight, Dunford cited Lenz here, which is the infamous "Dancing Baby" case that EFF successfully litigated on behalf of Stephanie Lenz, whose video of her adorable (then-)toddler dancing to a few seconds of Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" was censored by Universal Music Group:

https://www.eff.org/cases/lenz-v-universal

Dunford's towering rage is leavened with incredulous demands for explanations: how on Earth could a lawyer knowingly send such a defective, illegal threat? Why shouldn't Dunford seek recovery of his costs from IMG and its client, the LA Police Foundation, for such lawless bullying? It is a sparkling – incandescent, even! – piece of lawyerly writing. If only all legal correspondence was this entertaining! Every 1L should study this.

Meanwhile, Cola has sold out of everything, thanks to that viral "LOL, no." initial response letter. They're taking orders for their next resupply, shipping on June 1. Gotta love that Streisand Effect!

https://www.thecolacorporation.com/

I'm generally skeptical of political activism that takes the form of buying things or refusing to do so. "Voting with your wallet" is a pretty difficult trick to pull off. After all, the people with the thickest wallets get the most votes, and generally, the monopoly party wins. But as the Cola Company's example shows, there's times when shopping can be a political act.

But that's because it's a collective act. Lots of us went and bought stuff from Cola, to send a message to the LAPD about legal bullying. That kind of collective action is hard to pull off, especially when it comes to purchase-decisions. Often, this kind of thing descends into a kind of parody of political action, where you substitute shopping for ideology. This is where Matt Bors's Mr Gotcha comes in: "ooh, you want to make things better, but you bought a product from a tainted company, I guess you're not really sincere, gotcha!"

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

There's a great example of this in Zephyr Teachout's brilliant 2020 book Break 'Em Up: if you miss the pro-union demonstration at the Amazon warehouse because you spent two hours driving around looking for an indie stationer to buy the cardboard to make your protest sign rather than buying it from Amazon, Amazon wins:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/29/break-em-up/#break-em-up

So yeah, I'm pretty skeptical of consumerism as a framework for political activism. It's very hard to pull off an effective boycott, especially of a monopolist. But if you can pull it off, well…

Canada is one of the most monopoly-friendly countries in the world. Hell, the Competition Act doesn't even have an "abuse of dominance" standard! That's like a criminal code that doesn't have a section prohibiting "murder." (The Trudeau government has promised to fix this.)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-an-overhauled-competition-act-will-light-a-fire-in-the-stolid-world-of/

There's stiff competition for Most Guillotineable Canadian Billionaire. There's the entire Irving family, who basically own the province of New Bruinswick:

https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/dynasties-2-the-irvings/

There's Ted Rogers, the trumpy billionaire telecoms monopolist, whose serial acquire-and-loot approach to media has devastated Canadian TV and publishing:

https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/canadaland-725-the-rogers-family-compact/

But then there's Galen Fucking Weston, the nepobaby who inherited the family grocery business (including Loblaw), bought out all his competitors (including Shopper's Drug Mart), and then engaged in a criminal price-fixing conspiracy to rig the price of bread, the most Les-Miz-ass crime imaginable:

https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2023/06/what-should-happened-galen-weston-price-fixing/

Weston has made himself the face of the family business, appearing in TV ads in a cardigan to deliver dead-eyed avuncular paeans to his sprawling empire, even as he colludes with competitors to rig the price of his workers' wages:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-12/a-supermarket-billionaire-steps-into-trouble-over-pandemic-wages

For Canadians, Weston is the face of greedflation, the man whose nickle-and-diming knows no shame. This is the man who decided that the discount on nearly-spoiled produce would be slashed from 50% to 30%, who racked up record profits even as his prices skyrocketed.

It's impossible to overstate how loathed Galen Weston is at this moment. There's a very good episode of the excellent new podcast Lately, hosted by Canadian competition expert Vass Bednar and Katrina Onstad that gives you a sense of the national outrage:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/podcasts/lately/article-boycotting-the-loblawpoly/

All of this has led to a national boycott of Loblaw, kicked off by members of the r/loblawsisoutofcontrol, and it's working. Writing for Jacobin, Jeremy Appel gives us a snapshot of a nation in revolt:

https://jacobin.com/2024/05/loblaw-grocery-price-gouge-boycott/

Appel points out the boycott's problems – there's lots of places, particularly in the north, where Loblaw's is the only game in town, or where the sole competitor is the equally odious Walmart. But he also talks about the beneficial effect the boycott is having for independent grocers and co-ops who deal more fairly with their suppliers and their customers.

He also platforms the boycott's call for a national system of price controls on certain staples. This is something that neoliberal economists despise, and it's always fun to watch them lose their minds when the subject is raised. Meanwhile, economists like Isabella M Weber continue to publish careful research explaining how and why price controls can work, and represent our best weapon against "seller's inflation":

https://scholarworks.umass.edu/econ_workingpaper/343/

Antimonopoly sentiment is having a minute, obviously, and the news comes at you fast. This week, the DoJ filed a lawsuit to break up Ticketmaster/Live Nation, one of the country's most notorious monopolists, who have aroused the ire of every kind of fan, but especially the Swifties (don't fuck with Swifties). In announcing the suit, DoJ Antitrust Division boss Jonathan Kanter coined the term "Ticketmaster tax" to describe the junk fees that Ticketmaster uses to pick all our pockets.

In response, Ticketmaster has mobilized its own Loblaw-like shill army, who insist that all the anti-monopoly activism is misguided populism, and "anti-business." In his BIG newsletter, Matt Stoller tears these claims apart, and provides one of the clearest explanations of how Ticketmaster rips us all off that I've ever seen, leaning heavily on Ticketmaster's own statements to their investors and the business-press:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/antitrust-enforcers-to-break-up-ticketmaster

Ticketmaster has a complicated "flywheel" that it uses to corner the market on live events, mixing low-margin businesses that are deliberately kept unprofitable (to prevent competitors from gaining a foothold) in order to capture the high-margin businesses that are its real prize. All this complexity can make your eyes glaze over, and that's to Ticketmaster's benefit, keeping normies from looking too closely at how this bizarre self-licking ice-cream cone really works.

But for industry insiders, those workings are all too clear. When Rebecca Giblin and I were working on our book Chokepoint Capitalism, we talked to insiders from every corner of the entertainment-industrial complex, and there was always at least one expert who'd go on record about the scams inside everything from news monopolies to streaming video to publishing and the record industry:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

The sole exception was Ticketmaster/Live Nation. When we talked to club owners, promoters and other victims of TM's scam, they universally refused to go on the record. They were palpably terrified of retaliation from Ticketmaster's enforcers. They acted like mafia informants seeking witness protection. Not without reason, mind you: back when the TM monopoly was just getting started, Pearl Jam – then one of the most powerful acts in American music – took a stand against them. Ticketmaster destroyed them. That was when TM was a mere hatchling, with a bare fraction of the terrifying power it wields today.

TM is a great example of the problem with boycotts. If a club or an act refuses to work with TM/LN, they're destroyed. If a fan refuses to buy tickets from TM or see a Live Nation show, they basically can't go to any shows. The TM monopoly isn't a problem of bad individual choices – it's a systemic problem that needs a systemic response.

That's what makes antitrust responses so timely. Federal enforcers have wide-ranging powers, and can seek remedies that consumerism can never attain – there's no way a boycott could result in a breakup of Ticketmaster/Live Nation, but a DoJ lawsuit can absolutely get there.

Every federal agency has wide-ranging antimonopoly powers at its disposal. These are laid out very well in Tim Wu's 2020 White House Executive Order on competition, which identifies 72 ways the agencies can act against monopoly without having to wait for Congress:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down

But of course, the majority of antimonopoly power is vested in the FTC, the agency created to police corporate power. Section 5 of the FTC Act grants the agency the power to act to prevent "unfair and deceptive methods of competition":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

This clause has lain largely dormant since the Reagan era, but FTC chair Lina Khan has revived it, using it to create muscular privacy rights for Americans, and to ban noncompete agreements that bind American workers to dead-end jobs:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/25/capri-v-tapestry/#aiming-at-dollars-not-men

The FTC's power to ban activity because it's "unfair and deceptive" is exciting, because it promises American internet users a way to solve their problems beyond copyright law. Copyright law is basically the only law that survived the digital transition, even as privacy, labor and consumer protection rights went into hibernation. The last time Congress gave us a federal consumer privacy law was 1988, and it's a law that bans video store clerks from telling the newspapers which VHS cassettes you rented:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act

That's left internet users desperately trying to contort copyright to solve every problem they have – like someone trying to build a house using nothing but chainsaw. For example, I once found someone impersonating me on a dating site, luring strangers into private spaces. Alarmed, I contacted the dating site, who told me that their only fix for this was for me to file a copyright claim against the impersonator to make them remove the profile photo. Now, that photo was Creative Commons licensed, so any takedown notice would have been a "LOL, no." grade act of copyfraud:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/21/the-internets-original-sin/

The unsuitability of copyright for solving complex labor and privacy problems hasn't stopped people who experience these problems from trying to use copyright to solve them. They've got nothing else, after all.

That's why everyone who's worried about the absolutely legitimate and urgent concerns over AI and labor and privacy has latched onto copyright as the best tool for resolving these questions, despite copyright's total unsuitability for this purpose, and the strong likelihood that this will make these problems worse:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/13/spooky-action-at-a-close-up/#invisible-hand

Enter FTC Chair Lina Khan, who has just announced that her agency will be reviewing AI model training as an "unfair and deceptive method of competition":

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4682461-ftc-chair-ai-models-could-violate-antitrust-laws/

If the agency can establish this fact, they will have sweeping powers to craft rules prohibiting the destructive and unfair uses of AI, without endangering beneficial activities like scraping, mathematical analysis, and the creation of automated systems that help with everything from adding archival metadata to exonerating wrongly convicted people rotting in prison:

https://hrdag.org/tech-notes/large-language-models-IPNO.html

I love this so much. Khan's announcement accomplishes the seemingly impossible: affirming that there are real problems and insisting that we employ tactics that can actually fix those problems, rather than just doing something because inaction is so frustrating.

That's something we could use a lot more of, especially in platform regulation. The other big tech news about Big Tech last week was the progress of a bill that would repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act at the end of 2025, without any plans to replace it with something else.

Section 230 is the most maligned, least understood internet law, and that's saying something:

https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/

Its critics wrongly accuse the law – which makes internet users liable for bad speech acts, not the platforms that carry that speech – of being a gift to Big Tech. That's totally wrong. Without Section 230, platforms could be named to lawsuits arising from their users' actions. We know how that would play out.

Back in 2018, Congress took a big chunk out of 230 when they passed SESTA/FOSTA, a law that makes platforms liable for any sex trafficking that is facilitated by their platforms. Now, this may sound like a narrowly targeted, beneficial law that aims at a deplorable, unconscionable crime. But here's how it played out: the platforms decided that it was too much trouble to distinguish sex trafficking from any sex-work, including consensual sex work and adjacent activities. The result? Consensual sex-work became infinitely more dangerous and precarious, while trafficking was largely unaffected:

https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-385.pdf

Eliminating 230 would be incredibly reckless under any circumstances, but after the SESTA/FOSTA experience, it's unforgivable. The Big Tech platforms will greet this development by indiscriminately wiping out any kind of controversial speech from marginalized groups (think #MeToo or Black Lives Matter). Meanwhile, the rich and powerful will get a new tool – far more powerful than copyfraud – to make inconvenient speech disappear. The war-criminals, rapists, murderers and rip-off artists who currently make do with bogus copyright claims to "manage their reputations" will be able to use pretextual legal threats to make their critics just disappear:

https://www.qurium.org/forensics/dark-ops-undercovered-episode-i-eliminalia/

In a post-230 world, Cola Corporation's lawyers wouldn't get a chance to reply to the LAPD's bullying lawyers – those lawyers would send their letter to Cola's hosting provider, who would weigh the possibility of being named in a lawsuit against the small-dollar monthly payment they get from Cola, and poof, no more Cola. The legal bullies could do the same for Cola's email provider, their payment processor, their anti-DoS provider.

This week on EFF's Deeplinks blog, I published a piece making the connection between abolishing Section 230 and reinforcing Big Tech monopolies:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/05/wanna-make-big-tech-monopolies-even-worse-kill-section-230

The Big Tech platforms really do suck, and the solution to their systemic, persistent moderation failures won't come from making them liable for users' speech. The platforms have correctly assessed that they alone have the legal and moderation staff to do the kinds of mass-deletions of controversial speech that could survive a post-230 world. That's why tech billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg love the idea of getting rid of 230:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/facebooks-pitch-congress-section-230-me-not-thee

But for small tech providers – individuals, co-ops, nonprofits and startups that host fediverse servers, standalone group chats and BBSes – a post-230 world is a mass-extinction event. Ever had a friend demand that you take sides in an interpersonal dispute ("if you invite her to the party, I'm not coming!").

Imagine if your refusal to take sides in a dispute among your friends – and their friends, and their friends – could result in you being named to a suit that could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle:

https://www.engine.is/news/primer/section230costs

It's one thing to hope for a more humane internet run by people who want to make hospitable forums for online communities to form. It's another to ask them to take on an uninsurable risk that could result in the loss of their home, their retirement account, and their life's savings.

A post-230 world is one in which Big Tech must delete first and ask questions later. Yes, Big Tech platforms have many sins to answer for, but making them jointly liable for their users' speech will flush out treasure-hunters seeking a quick settlement and a quick buck.

Again, this isn't speculative – it's inevitable. Consider FTX: yes, the disgraced cryptocurrency exchange was a festering hive of fraud – but there's no way that fraud added up to the 23.6 quintillion dollars in claims that have been laid against it:

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/US-v-SBF-Alameda-Research-Victim-Impact-Statement-3-20-2024.pdf

Without 230, Big Tech will shut down anything controversial – and small tech will disappear. It's the worst of all possible worlds, a gift to tech monopolists and the bullies and crooks who have turned our online communities into shooting galleries.

One of the reasons I love working for EFF is our ability to propose technologically informed, sound policy solutions to the very real problems that tech creates, such as our work on interoperability as a way to make it easier for users to escape Big Tech:

https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook

Every year, EFF recognizes the best, bravest and brightest contributors to a better internet and a better technological future, with our annual EFF Awards. Nominations just opened for this year's awards – if you know someone who fits the bill, here's the form:

https://www.eff.org/nominations-open-2024-eff-awards

It's nearly time for me to sign off on this weekend's linkdump. For one thing, I have to vacate my backyard hammock, because we've got contractors who need to access the side of the house to install our brand new heat-pump (one of two things I'm purchasing with my last lump-sum book advance – the other is corrective cataract surgery that will give me lifelong, perfect vision).

I've been lusting after a heat-pump for years, and they just keep getting better – though you might not know it, thanks to the fossil-fuel industry disinfo campaign that insists that these unbelievably cool gadgets don't work. This week in Wired, Matt Simon offers a comprehensive debunking of this nonsense, and on the way, explains the nearly magical technology that allows a heat pump to heat a midwestern home in the dead of winter:

https://www.wired.com/story/myth-heat-pumps-cold-weather-freezing-subzero/

As heat pumps become more common, their applications will continue to proliferate. On Bloomberg, Feargus O'Sullivan describes one such application: the Japanese yokushitsu kansouki – a sealed bathroom with its own heat-pump that can perfectly dry all your clothes while you're out at work:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-22/laundry-lessons-from-japanese-bathroom-technology

This is amazing stuff – it uses less energy than a clothes-dryer, leaves your clothes wrinkle-free, prevents the rapid deterioration caused by high heat and mechanical agitation, and prevents the microfiber pollution that lowers our air-quality.

This is the most solarpunk thing I've read all week, and it makes me insanely jealous of Japanese people. The second-most solarpunk thing I've read this week came from The New Republic, where Aaron Regunberg and Donald Braman discuss the possibility of using civil asset forfeiture laws – lately expanded to farcical levels by the Supreme Court in Culley – to force the fossil fuel industry to pay for the energy transition:

https://newrepublic.com/article/181721/fossil-fuels-civil-forefeiture-pipeline-climate

They point out that the fossil fuel industry has committed a string of undisputed crimes, including fraud, and that the Supremes' new standard for asset forfeiture could comfortably accommodate state AGs and other enforcers who seek billions from Big Oil on this basis. Of course, Big Oil has more resources to fight civil asset forfeiture than the median disputant in these cases ("a low- or moderate-income person of color [with] a suspected connection to drugs"). But it's an exciting idea!

All right, the heat-pump guys really need me to vacate the hammock, so here's one last quickie for you: Barath Raghavan and Bruce Schneier's new paper, "Seeing Like a Data Structure":

https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/seeing-data-structure

This is a masterful riff on James C Scott's classic Seeing Like a State, and it describes how digitalization forces us into computable categories, and counts the real costs of doing so. It's a gnarly and thoughtful piece, and it's been on my mind continuously since Schneier sent it to me yesterday. Something suitably chewy for you to masticate over the long weekend!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/25/anthology/#lol-no