The Energon Pub

I wanna to know the "etiquette" on unlicensed Transformers shirts.

Is it kosher to buy one?

Is it a good idea to get a shirt with an image that not "offically" a Transformer, but anyone could figure which Transformers that is supposed to be on the shirt?

I personally do not think that buying an unlicensed Transformer shirt would be a bad thing, but there is side of me that see why person should be squeamish about buying one.

(I can give an example of couple of shirts on request, unless it is against the laws of the site, which is totally understandable!)

I'd prefer to have something 'official' if possible, but if the design/character/style/whatever is simply unavailable in any official capacity, then I think it's a judgment call and entirely up to you (of course Hasbro/Takara might have a different point of view, especially if the content of said shirt is close enough to their intellectual property to be considered theft/bootleg etc.).

I personally snagged some shirts with red Maximal logos on them a while back from one of those online T-shirt shops that allows users to upload their own designs to be printed on the shirts (I'm not the one who uploaded the image, I simply googled around for a 'Maximal logo shirt' and found it), but technically speaking, that's one of Has/Tak's trademarks, so if they wanted to, they could totally get that logo pulled from that website so that no more with that logo could be sold. There was/is nothing 'official' available with that particular logo on it (especially in red), so I got myself 3 black Ts and a black hoodie with them on the front. Had there been any official version, I would have bought that instead.

xyl360 wrote:I'd prefer to have something 'official' if possible, but if the design/character/style/whatever is simply unavailable in any official capacity, then I think it's a judgment call and entirely up to you (of course Hasbro/Takara might have a different point of view, especially if the content of said shirt is close enough to their intellectual property to be considered theft/bootleg etc.).

I personally snagged some shirts with red Maximal logos on them a while back from one of those online T-shirt shops that allows users to upload their own designs to be printed on the shirts (I'm not the one who uploaded the image, I simply googled around for a 'Maximal logo shirt' and found it), but technically speaking, that's one of Has/Tak's trademarks, so if they wanted to, they could totally get that logo pulled from that website so that no more with that logo could be sold. There was/is nothing 'official' available with that particular logo on it (especially in red), so I got myself 3 black Ts and a black hoodie with them on the front. Had there been any official version, I would have bought that instead.

I have feeling that I know this site. I will not mention the name of the site, but it is one I thinking of you could make a shirt with a green Predacon logo and had various "little caricatures" of various TFs were given nicknames.

d_sel1 wrote:

xyl360 wrote:I'd prefer to have something 'official' if possible, but if the design/character/style/whatever is simply unavailable in any official capacity, then I think it's a judgment call and entirely up to you (of course Hasbro/Takara might have a different point of view, especially if the content of said shirt is close enough to their intellectual property to be considered theft/bootleg etc.).

I personally snagged some shirts with red Maximal logos on them a while back from one of those online T-shirt shops that allows users to upload their own designs to be printed on the shirts (I'm not the one who uploaded the image, I simply googled around for a 'Maximal logo shirt' and found it), but technically speaking, that's one of Has/Tak's trademarks, so if they wanted to, they could totally get that logo pulled from that website so that no more with that logo could be sold. There was/is nothing 'official' available with that particular logo on it (especially in red), so I got myself 3 black Ts and a black hoodie with them on the front. Had there been any official version, I would have bought that instead.

I have feeling that I know this site. I will not mention the name of the site, but it is one I thinking of you could make a shirt with a green Predacon logo and had various "little caricatures" of various TFs were given nicknames.

A green Predacon logo? Yuck ! It MUST be yellow as on the show for me . The same reason I wanted a red Maximal logo on my shirts.

xyl360 wrote:

d_sel1 wrote:

xyl360 wrote:I'd prefer to have something 'official' if possible, but if the design/character/style/whatever is simply unavailable in any official capacity, then I think it's a judgment call and entirely up to you (of course Hasbro/Takara might have a different point of view, especially if the content of said shirt is close enough to their intellectual property to be considered theft/bootleg etc.).

I personally snagged some shirts with red Maximal logos on them a while back from one of those online T-shirt shops that allows users to upload their own designs to be printed on the shirts (I'm not the one who uploaded the image, I simply googled around for a 'Maximal logo shirt' and found it), but technically speaking, that's one of Has/Tak's trademarks, so if they wanted to, they could totally get that logo pulled from that website so that no more with that logo could be sold. There was/is nothing 'official' available with that particular logo on it (especially in red), so I got myself 3 black Ts and a black hoodie with them on the front. Had there been any official version, I would have bought that instead.

I have feeling that I know this site. I will not mention the name of the site, but it is one I thinking of you could make a shirt with a green Predacon logo and had various "little caricatures" of various TFs were given nicknames.

A green Predacon logo? Yuck ! It MUST be yellow as on the show for me . The same reason I wanted a red Maximal logo on my shirts.

Well, the local school's mascot is the Hornet and the colors are green and white, although every team but the football still wear yellow too (which is supposedly not one of the school colors anymore).

I don't really care about licensing. Not in the least. I bought this rad T on ebay a good number of years ago that was just a pencil sketch of his head that was top notch with Transformer done in pencil above it and i got lots of compliments on it. It was subtle and classy from an artistic perspective. I destroyed it wearing to work but i miss it. It was a good one.
The licensed ones are so gaudy and overbearing. Almost embarassing.
I just have a belt buckle now that's an Autobot symbol i wear once in a blue moon.

MGrotusque wrote:The licensed ones are so gaudy and overbearing. Almost embarassing.

This is true, most of the time. I generally don't buy them. They actually have better licensed tees for children. I happily buy those for my Son.

Also, I did one for my nerdcore band because we all love Transformers.