The Soapbox XII: The Convenient Truth

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Not me. I don't buy any toy that's not manufactured under licence from Hasbro or Takara. So yeah, it's kinda moot for me too.

And I very much respect. that. I can't say the same for myself though so I can't deride KO producers or mass-customisers and that's really my contention. Unless we do what you do and not participate at all, we really have no leg to stand on.

Sky Shadow brings up a good point about deception/fraud. The problem with knock offs over garage kits is that they are counterfeit items which attempt to deceive consumers into thinking that they are legitimate. And certainly many collectors have been burned spending their money on KOs believing them to be legitimate.

Garage kits like City Commander are NOT a counterfeit imitation of an existing product. The people who make them are making NO pretense that their products are manufactured under licence. It is legally dubious in terms of its visual similarity with Ultra Magnus --- but even then, only the trailer/armour, not the entire robot. I thought that you could copy a certain percentage of someone's intellectual property; like they do with parodies. And of course, the producers of these kits go to lengths to try and avoid/dodge direct affiliation with HasTak's intellectual property; such as not:
+ using the trademarked names like "Transformers," "Ultra Magnus" etc. anywhere
+ the illustration of "Classics Prime" in the comic book instruction is highly obscured and also distinctively modified from the actual toy... so it's an ambiguous looking transforming robot that bears striking similarity to Classics Optimus Prime, but it's NOT an imitation of that toy! (again, they could claim to have modified 10% of the toy's image)

Garage kits are kinda like software and hardware that people make that just happen to be compatible with products made by companies like IBM, but not actually made by those companies. How many of us have "IBM compatible" PCs?

What most of us consider to be "knock offs" on the other hand would be toys that attempt to deceive consumers into thinking that their counterfeits are legit. So morally speaking I think that garage kits and knock offs are two different things because one is not attempting to deceive consumers whereas the other is.

I think that's neither here nor there as the deception argument isn't what comes first. The infringement is. We are trying to rationalise the infringement and quality it b/c of its deception. Does it make it okay if there is an infringement of Hasbro/Takara's IP as long as its offering something that's original? Or something that is an add on? I think not. The deception isn't the primary issue. In fact, you'd argue that FansProjects comic trying to be ambiguous about the transforming figure in its comic is aimed at blurring the legal line. That's there intention and that in some shape or form is deception. Henceforth, there is ultimately no leg to stand on as at its core both offerings, KO or mass-custom project, are predicated on the infringement of IP of Hasbro/Takara.

If the customisers will give me what Hasbro wont then i really dont care who's profitting. Its a Sh!t thing to say but dems the cards we're dealt!

And tbh that's really the very heart of it. We should buy what makes us content but the only thing is we need to be wary of making moral judgements on what is right and wrong as we're not the best ones, with the exception of those who refuse to buy non-office product, in the position to say so anymore.