Australian Transformers Convention

[jazzy_josh]

Also the japanese figure of darkmount is called straxus and to my understanding I thought takara and hasbro were in some sort of partnership in that deal or something. I'm sorry but no I still don't feel comfortable with it and I don't want to be sued for stealing of a company sorry.

Also Kup once Hasbro I dare say knows this site so once they see the "NOT" transformers merchandise and then see the site we are from they will put 2 and 2 together and get us there so I will say no I won't be participating in this as essentially you are planning on making knock off items of any merchandise which is against the law. Also that is against all convention policies and rules of merchandise rather it be sold or given. I say Knock off becuse if sold that is what it is, you can draw up the comics and posters and give them away but you can not sell them and if you plan on selling I wont be part of it.

[kup]

Also the japanese figure of darkmount is called straxus and to my understanding I thought takara and hasbro were in some sort of partnership in that deal or something. I'm sorry but no I still don't feel comfortable with it and I don't want to be sued for stealing of a company sorry.

Also Kup once Hasbro I dare say knows this site so once they see the "NOT" transformers merchandise and then see the site we are from they will put 2 and 2 together and get us there so I will say no I won't be participating in this as essentially you are planning on making knock off items of any merchandise which is against the law. Also that is against all convention policies and rules of merchandise rather it be sold or given. I say Knock off becuse if sold that is what it is, you can draw up the comics and posters and give them away but you can not sell them and if you plan on selling I wont be part of it.

So I can't do my own transforming robot event just because I post in a Transformers dedicated message board that happens not to be officially affiliated with Hasbro?

Sorry but again, Hasbro does not own the concept of transforming robots, they own the Transformers franchise. Therefore anyone is free to create their own unique transforming robots characters and stories as long as they don't infringe on copyright.

An originally created transforming robot character in toy form or fiction is not automatically a knock off - Hasbro does not own it and have no grounds to sue me. Actually, if they decide to rip it off themselves, I would have the grounds to sue them since it is my character not theirs.

I understand your concerns and respect why you would stay out of such a project but I still think that your statements are a bit over the top. You are assuming that if anyone that happens to post on this board creates their own transforming robot character fiction and publishes it, they are automatically infringing on Hasbro's IP - To me that is unreasonable.

[GoktimusPrime]

Also the japanese figure of darkmount is called straxus and to my understanding I thought takara and hasbro were in some sort of partnership in that deal or something.

That's because Japan and US have different trademark registers... often Takara can use a name that Hasbro can't because although Hasbro cannot acquire the name in the US, Takara can -- and sometimes vice versa. For example when Takara reissued Perceptor in the Transformers Collection series the toy was called "Cybertron Perceptor". Likewise Henkei Inferno is called "Cybertron Inferno." When Hasbro lost the rights to the name "Ravage" they used names like "Battle Ravage" and likewise "Shockblast" for "Shockwave" (although they seem to have regained the rights to those names now).

"Straxus" is most likely a name that was available for Takara to use, so they went ahead with it (although only hardcore G1 fans in Japan would get the reference since the Marvel Comics weren't available in Japan) -- but Hasbro couldn't secure the rights so they went with Darkmount.

Hasbro and Takara do have a partnership where they co-own the Transformers brand, but they can operate independently for their respective markets - hence why both companies will develop lines exclusively for their markets. e.g. Car Robot was originally developed by Takara just for their market and likewise Beast Machines was developed by Hasbro for theirs (even though later on both of these lines were "cross adapted" as RiD and Beast Wars Returns respectively).

I'm sorry but no I still don't feel comfortable with it and I don't want to be sued for stealing of a company sorry.

That's your choice. Most of us here aren't legal experts anyway, so I think the best thing to do for anyone thinking about doing this is to seek advice from a professional.

Also Kup once Hasbro I dare say knows this site so once they see the "NOT" transformers merchandise and then see the site we are from they will put 2 and 2 together and get us there so I will say no I won't be participating in this as essentially you are planning on making knock off items of any merchandise which is against the law.

Hasbro's been aware of OzFormers for a long, long time. One of Hasbro AU's executive employers was a member here for a while and Hasbro designer Eric Siebenaler has attended events/meets with members here.

Also, third party items aren't counterfeits; so it's more of a legal gray area. As kup said, Hasbro doesn't own the rights to transforming warring space robots -- heck, Transformers weren't even the first. Tonka's Gobots/Machine Men came before Transformers. And we still have other lines like Road-Bots and in Japan there are HEAPS of transforming mecha franchises outside of Transformers. In fact, Transformers was born from "ripping off" other transforming robot franchises like Diaclone, Microman, Dorvack, Mechabot-1, Beetras, Macross etc.!

A counterfeit is legally defined as something that is fraudulently made in imitation of another product and passed off deceptively as the real thing. If you create your own transforming robot - even if it bears some resemblance to a Transformer but is still pretty much your own creation, then ... well it's arguable/debatable if it's made "in imitation." I guess it depends on how much the robot/character resembles an existing robot/character from Transformers. For example, the Third Party Arcee toys are absolutely made in imitation of the G1 Arcee character model (even though it's not an imitation of an existing toy) -- thus HasTak would have reasonable grounds to claim that it's a violation of their IP. The same might be said about other third party toys based on HasTak characters too -- all those third party action figures out there like the Not-Insecticons, Not-Reflector etc.

But what we're suggesting here is NOT creating character models based on any existing Transformer characters - but rather creating unique transforming robot characters and portraying them as warring alien robots. If we're not going to bother with any toys, then we can be very creative with the designs and we don't need to make the resemble any existing Transformer at all. There's no way Hasbro could take legal action then, no more than they could take legal action against say Road Bots or Machine Robo... other people are allowed to make their own transforming robot characters, just as long as they don't look like any established Transformer characters.

Also that is against all convention policies and rules of merchandise rather it be sold or given. I say Knock off becuse if sold that is what it is, you can draw up the comics and posters and give them away but you can not sell them and if you plan on selling I wont be part of it.

You can sell them if they're your own unique creations. If they're drawings of existing characters then yeah, I'd say give them away as freebies - which is something I've always been advocating anyway - and that's what we did at the Sabretron 2004 convention as you may or may not recall. Attendees paid for admission to enter the convention, but once the toys and comics arrived they were given to all attendees free of charge. Likewise at subsequent stalls/booths at conventions I've only ever given away exclusive comics and toys as freebies - like when they participate in an event, or as a lucky draw prize. With the exception of SupaNova 2003 (which was an honest misunderstanding and not deliberate) all exclusive merchandise have been given away as freebies.

But I don't see any legal problems with selling merchandise if they are unique/original creations not based on any images or likenesses owned by Hasbro. Hasbro cannot claim ownership over something they don't own!

Take this for example...

This is a transforming robot I once drew... he transforms into faeces^ice cream. His name is "Unchigar" in Japanese - the English name is "Scattor", but let's change it to "Scat-bot" (since Hasbro owns the literally crappy name "Scattor" )^Ice-Cream-Bot. Oh, and let's say we get rid of that Decepticon logo on his chest -- replace it with a silhouette logo of a pile of poo. Right. Now if I were to sell post cards of this transforming poo-bot under the name of "Unchigar" and/or "Scat-bot" Ice-Cream-Bot, Hasbro wouldn't be able to take legal action against me because this is MY original creation! He's NOT based on any Transformer character... so Hasbro doesn't own the design, I do.

Now, I'm not suggesting that we should make Scat-bot Ice-Cream-Bot the mascot for the convention booth or whatever... this is just an example. Look at the Animania mascots - they were intentionally created as "generic" look anime characters, but not based on any actual Japanese anime character so that they wouldn't need to pay royalties. It's as seemple as that.

[jazzy_josh]

Yeah but lets face it, if you did this approach you will be using character designs that make you instantly recognize the robot and the alt mode as well. Hey you guys said you were at SMASH! a few years back, what year was that because I have been going for a few years and I remember once seeing a crap load of transformers there and during the auction some one auctioned of a huge box of transformers, I missed out on buying that box because I ran out of cash sadly lol.

[kup]

Yeah but lets face it, if you did this approach you will be using character designs that make you instantly recognize the robot and the alt mode as well. Hey you guys said you were at SMASH! a few years back, what year was that because I have been going for a few years and I remember once seeing a crap load of transformers there and during the auction some one auctioned of a huge box of transformers, I missed out on buying that box because I ran out of cash sadly lol.

You keep missing the point that we would not be using recognizable Hasbro characters but original creations.

[jena]

You keep missing the point

You can say that again. Yet again this thread is going around in circles. I'm sorry but Josh, if you don't want anything to do with this, then please just leave this thread.

Personally, I see no problem with designing our own transformer ozformer robots. I'm a teacher, I have annual criminal checks, but I'm not freaking out here. Calm down and get creative or leave this thread so the rest of us can brainstorm some ideas.

[Cat]

I'm out.

I do NOT need to see a picture of transforming faeces, done by an adult. That's sick and unnecessary.


Disgusting.

[kup]

I'm out.

I do NOT need to see a picture of transforming faeces, done by an adult. That's sick and unnecessary.


Disgusting.

Yeah that drawing is not in good taste and I don't particularly like it myself but as Gok said, he only used it as an example to illustrate his point to Josh not as something we might use for any event that we may go forth with.

[jena]

I take it you guys never played with Tamagotchis, those things made poop look almost cute. I don't find cartoon poop offensive. Harden up guys.

[GL-Sideswipe]

just an idea.. kinda stupid. But if you're looking for ozformers transformer design ideas, you could try some beast wars like transformers that have australian native animals as the alternate modes. Or other stuff that disguises itself as australian icons, stubbies? a ute? a generic holden commodore or ford falcon ute transformer would be awesome! obviously you wouldnt design it to be identified by ford or holden but you get the idea yeah?