The Energon Pub

All I'm gonna say is this....Hercules is not a carbon knock-off..i.e. Hasbro or Takara have not made a toy even REMOTLEY similar to this. Nor have they called any of the toys by any of the names used by Hasbro and Takara. The fact that it looks like devestator is great...but guess what....as long as they don't claim it as devestator it is not legally, nor will it ever be devestator. Therefore TFC has stolen nothing. If this is the case than anyone who has ever done fanart should be sued and have their creations ripped off of the web because they didn't obtain Hasbro's or Takara's permission to make that. Either way, I guarantee if someone tries to take a third party product from someone at botcon...that they did not purchase AT BOTCON...and all they are doing is carrying it...S*** will go down.

AutobotMR2 wrote:All I'm gonna say is this....Hercules is not a carbon knock-off..i.e. Hasbro or Takara have not made a toy even REMOTLEY similar to this. Nor have they called any of the toys by any of the names used by Hasbro and Takara. The fact that it looks like devestator is great...but guess what....as long as they don't claim it as devestator it is not legally, nor will it ever be devestator. Therefore TFC has stolen nothing.

Really, so you're saying that Devastator looks absolutely nothing like Devastator? Even if that was the case, which it clearly isn't, there's more to it than that. The fact is that it does look alot like Devastator and considering the design similarities, colours and configuration of the combiner team members in forming Devastator; trying to claim that it's entirely coincidental is very shaky ground to be standing on. Even if you take the different and more intricate engineering, the base design has clearly been copied along with the likeness rights.

AutobotMR2 wrote:If this is the case than anyone who has ever done fanart should be sued and have their creations ripped off of the web because they didn't obtain Hasbro's or Takara's permission to make that.

Except that people loading art on Deviant Art aren't trying to make a buck off those designs. If they were then Hasbro would have grounds to step in.

AutobotMR2 wrote:Either way, I guarantee if someone tries to take a third party product from someone at botcon...that they did not purchase AT BOTCON...and all they are doing is carrying it...S*** will go down.

For starters, it only applies to dealers. Secondly, if dealers are fooish enough to bring 3rd party toys or KOs with them after signing agreements stating they woulds not do so and agreeing to have them confiscated if they did, then they deserve to have them confiscated.

Man I know some of you personally, in the real world, and you guys are some of the nicest people I've ever met, smart too. Some of you have reached a level of success that allows you to purchase any Transformer at any time.

Yet you guys fell into the trollathon that lasted what? 12 hours yesterday?

So there won't be any 3rd party figures on Botcon's dealer floor, not the end all of problems.

All I'm saying is legally speaking 3rd parties are safe from lawsuits...most of them anyway. Because yes it looks like devestator, but once agian, Hasbro does not own the right to color coordination, look at the Wal-Mart exclusive "devestator" released a few years ago....it couldn't even be called Devestator BY HASBRO. They had to alter his name. And I do agree with you that if dealer's DO bring 3rd party items to botcon, they should be taken away...because they have violated their agreement with Hasbro for their table. But back to Hasbro actually taking action agianst some 3rd party companies...unless they do claim that this character IS INDEED this character...and it is a carbon copy of a patent made by Hasbro or Takara....Hasbro will be in litigation with that for a long while...it would be too long a fight for them to invest in with not enough to gain from it.

Also, please forgive my mis-spellings...I know there are many.

AutobotMR2 wrote:Also, please forgive my mis-spellings...I know there are many.

No, Im goin to bann u fore tat.

Dead Metal wrote:

AutobotMR2 wrote:Also, please forgive my mis-spellings...I know there are many.

No, Im goin to bann u fore tat.

The sad thing is...I would prefer physical harm over being banned from this site! PLEASE NO!!!

AutobotMR2 wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:

AutobotMR2 wrote:Also, please forgive my mis-spellings...I know there are many.

No, Im goin to bann u fore tat.

The sad thing is...I would prefer physical harm over being banned from this site! PLEASE NO!!!

Note the extream spelling errors.

AutobotMR2 wrote:All I'm saying is legally speaking 3rd parties are safe from lawsuits...most of them anyway. Because yes it looks like devestator, but once agian, Hasbro does not own the right to color coordination, look at the Wal-Mart exclusive "devestator" released a few years ago....it couldn't even be called Devestator BY HASBRO. They had to alter his name. And I do agree with you that if dealer's DO bring 3rd party items to botcon, they should be taken away...because they have violated their agreement with Hasbro for their table. But back to Hasbro actually taking action agianst some 3rd party companies...unless they do claim that this character IS INDEED this character...and it is a carbon copy of a patent made by Hasbro or Takara....Hasbro will be in litigation with that for a long while...it would be too long a fight for them to invest in with not enough to gain from it.

The thing is though that it's not just going to be about Toy designs. When you look at TFs from a toy company marketing perspective, what you find is that there's a crossover as to what the character is. The cartoon and the comic were of course made to sell the toys, but at the same time, the cartoon and comic are products in and of themselves.

So what you wind up with is Devastator as an IP for the comic, the cartoon and the toy and so if a 3rd party toy copies the cartoon likeness for example, it could be argued that even though the toy looks different, the likeness for the character which the toy is based on (meaning that the character is already being marketed by the owners as a toy) has been plageurised.

In some cases, it might be more vague (eg Battle Trailer), but in cases like the new Minibots and Hercules, it's pretty open and shut.

Hopefully once the dust is settled (I get the feeling that this stage is alot of posturing by Hasbro before taking action against the worst examples of ripping off their IPs), these companies resolve the issue with licensing deals which make the 3rd party stuff out there completely legit. But for now, it's a case of these companies going about things in the wrong way, and Hasbro defending their rights and properties- completely justifiably too I might add.

Locked for now.

Because I can do that AND get the last word in...

ANYONE here who is so beholden to one side or another of this argument is wrong. This is not a black and white issue. If it were, it would be resolved.

Not only do I see a grand total of zero people with an educated opinion based upon current legal standards and practices putting anything forth here, but there is a ton of grandstand-trolling going on.

Go do something else for a while.