What's Takara Tomy's and Hasbro's stance on 3rd party bots?

[tinyJazz]

I like to think of it as a form of fan art, commissioned fan art if you will, there is no denying the engineering or the asthenic of one of these pieces of plastic art is as good as any sketch some artist whips up and makes a print of and sells/gives away at a convention. if you want to claim infringing on someone's intellectual property then fan art is just as big an infringer as a Fan Art toy company

You just reminded me of this really great post:

Is Fan Art Illegal?

This is an SDCC seminar by a copyright lawyer who used to work for Paramount Pictures. It's like an hour long but really good. If you don't have the time the main points are summarised in the article/post under the video.


Basically:

Do you own the character in question?

Yes? Do what you please!
No? You have no legal right to profit from work featuring characters without permission from copyright holder.
No? You have almost no rights to create such works not for a profit, either.

I still buy and commission fan art though the artist alley at botcon was the best!