Now who would put a thing like that on the "out of context" thread on page 3-ish?

But Sluggites can already make their own t-shirts - Pete can't stop them. But he could profit from what they're already doing or thinking of doing by just nudging them in the right direction. Also, home-made t-shirts would never be in direct competition with Pete-made - how could they be? Shoved together badly produced t-shirt v. professional one with it's own specially drawn art by The Artist? It wouldn't be an either/or situation for most, I bet. Pete's got nothing to lose, even if only half of those who decided to make their own shirt paid for it - at the moment, none of them do.

Actually, we can't do it legally without Pete's permission. That would violate his copyright.

I'm assuming that yr avg Sluggite has little or no respect for copyright (and indeed gets most of their entertainment by violating it) but is willing, even eager, to help keep SF afloat. Therefore they'll make t-shirts with the pictures /they/ want with no regard for copyright infringement (and possibly buy an official one too), but if it's pointed out to them that they can actually help Sluggy by paying for the t-shirt image and hey, look! it's really easy to do so, then they probably will.

Even better? "In Soviet Russia, Yakov Smirnoff joke tells you!"

And on a more serious note, the purpose of copyright is to promote the creation of new things, not inhibit it.