Quote Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime View Post
I think there are two arguments here - legal and ethical/moral.

Legal point: yes, both counterfeits and fan items infringe on HasTak's IP.
There's still a distinction here. The fan item producers are ensuring that they don't directly complete with Hasbro/TT, and are generally treading around flagrant _copyright_ infringement. Sure, they're clearly producing items related to Transformers, but they're not producing items to compete with Hasbro/TT's product.

I think it's fair to assume that Hasbro/TT had no plans to make anything like (for example) City Commander. Classics Ultra Magnus is one of _many_ white Ultra Magnus repaints produced to milk the mould (keeping R&D costs down), and we've never had power armour for any of those.

On the other hand, they may have had Mirage in their sights as a reissue before the KO producers flooded the market with imitations. The KO producers are clearly not worried about stepping on IP toes, and are in effect competing (in fact, illegally outcompeting) with Hasbro/TT's potential TCS/Encore Mirage.