T-Macksimus wrote:ausbot wrote:If Hasbro is using his images for their products then they should give this site some form of official recognition.
While they are rarely in any kind of position to give the site recognition or advertise it to the general public without making some kind of special, concerted effort, they do have folks (obviously) who are a presence on this site just the same way that IDW has some of their crew following the happenings on this site as well as Paramount from time to time.
The big problem is that Hasbro is a huge corporations with teams of lawyers who eat sites like this for breakfast and for whom conscience, respect, decency and morality never even enter their minds so pretty much the only recourse that Ryan has at this point that won't bankrupt him and lose him the site is to take it across the chin. Besides, there is also the question of whether this is even a Hasbro product. I'm saying this is fan made. Every single licensed Hasbro piece of apparel has their logo and copyright plainly placed in the lower right (as you're facing the product) corner of whatever picture is being used. There is nothing of the kind in the picture so I'm saying it's fan-made at which point this person better beg for mercy and start giving some recognition because Ryan will be in a position to nail their asses to the wall.
Appreciate the support. Not looking to nail anyone's behinds to a wall, just would like after 14 years to be at a point where Hasbro can ask me for content and maybe they could send Seibertron.com some toys in advance for us to photograph for them and everyone else. That helps the marketing machine by building more hype for upcoming products. They get photos for their archive. You guys get pics in advance. Seibertron.com gets some extra traffic. Win-win situation.
It's not about who's right or wrong or anything legal-wise. It's just about professional and courteous conduct and respect. People at Hasbro know me, they know Seibertron, ... just odd that something would have gotten this far without some type of communication about it. Hasbro is a good company and I don't think any harm was intended.
Apparently the photos were used for the 2013 Transformers Retro Style Guide, which you can see on Hasbro designer Steven Lathrop's website at
http://stevenlathrop.4ormat.com/457067-2013-transformers-retro-style-guide-art#From what I have gathered, it sounds like quite a few images were archived in-house at Hasbro and someone removed the watermarks from the images. In come new people working on the brand, it's assumed that these archived images were photographed in-house, style guide project is created and launched, and the photos were supposedly used accidentally. It's been known for a while that Seibertron.com photos are used in-house at Hasbro and by various comic artists (the images show up periodically in the official powerpoint presentations shown at various conventions and even in at least one Million publishing book as reference material from Takara) but this is the first time I've seen my photos used at the retail level before (those shirts are available in Australia).
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