The Soapbox XII: The Convenient Truth

[STL]

Just a sorta related question;

Do you think Matt Moylan of Lil' Formers fame would pay licensing or royalties to HasTak for his use of their characters?

I don't think he's ultimately profiting or making money from them. In many ways, it's a creative endeavour that he shares with fans. And it's not really just limited to TFs either. He's not selling those strips; just using them as part of parody as Sky Shadow points out.

This is an example of a KO trying to pass as a Fan kit:

http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?t=5450

The toy is not adding anything to an existing toy nor creating a new unique toy in the likeness of Hasbro's intellectual property. It's blatanly replicating HasTak's invested R&D into a scaled down unofficial toy which they are happy to sell and profit from without paying any royalties to the company that went through the procedure of creating the design.

It's not trying to trick anybody that its official but it is benefiting from the design and development of another. It's almost 100% Plagiarizing the engineering and design of a toy made by another company.

To me this is more in the realm of theft than any third party accessory kit or custom parts. I would indeed call this toy a KO.

So what? I thought you said KOs are fraudulent and deceptive and that's why individuals such as yourself see them as wrong. How is this product a KO when it quite clearly makes its point that it is a resized MP. It's not trying to decieve, nor lie.

Mind you, I don't disagree with you that they are infringing the IP of Hasbro/Takara. But there's a really large hole in argument that tries to says its okay to steal IP as long as there's no deceptiion on fans but then say its not okay b/c they steal the IP of an already designed toy?

What's the difference between IP of a toy that Hasbro/Takara have invested heavily in and the IP of a character/brand that Hasbro/Takara have invested heavily in?

Not very much, I'm afraid.