Banned
I would say if you could build the funds up and buy the stock instead of doing a fan stall have an actuall proper business stall at the convention, sell products. Be like the gifts for the geek guys hell they even get celebrities as well at their table and sell autographs and photos. But you would have to buy a licence from hasbro to do so though.
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
And that's where every single attempt at this has either been hindered or fallen apart. The best thing to do is just to exclude hasbro altogether.Originally Posted by jazzy_josh
Banned
You exclude them and then if they find out they can sue the forum or even worse the owner because sold property that was their's and I don't think any one wants that other wise it's stealing and if we're stealing I won't help out on that because I just don't feel comfortable and I don't want to take any part of that sorry. I will help in any other way but if it comes to merchandise or sales or anything illegal I just won't be part of sorry. No offence to any one but morally I can't and for my future career I can't have any criminal records at all.
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
Isn't that a little melodramatic?
They can't sue us if we are not using their property. Hasbro does not own nor have sole rights to transforming robots. If we dont use any of their properties, we are perfectly legal.
Banned
It still sounds fishy to me and with me trying to get into a career that does criminal checks and one person here already said hasbro almost sued them for a fan based comic book I am sorry but no I can't and won't and I don't think it's being melodramatic at all.
Rank 6 - Dedicated Member
This would fall under fair use (Admittedly, Goktimus' idea is stretching it, and I'd be wary of it, but that still doesn't fall under this category).
Any action would be civil, even if it WERE wrong, so nothing would show up on a criminal record.
Fan conventions happen all the time. There's things you can do, and things you can't. It's about finding the right line, being respectful of the IP you're wanting to celebrate, and being able to offer people a great experience.
So your scenario could only happen if a very narrow set of unlikely circumstances were met.
As for Goktimus' idea, well, it is technically viable, but not for me. It would fall too close for me to feel comfortable. But that is simply my opinion.
Look at something like the 'Mosaic' series of one-page stories. It's been going for years, with Hasbro's knowledge, no problems. There's just an internal editing procedure to make sure they stay within certain boundaries (no porn etc).
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
I don't see it as 'too close'. That assumes that Hasbro owns the transforming robot license and that's not true.
Hasbro owns Transformers but not the concept of transforming robots. Heck, even the general 'G1 Transformer aesthetic' is not owned by Hasbro. As long as you keep your characters original and do not use any trademarked imagery or terms, you are perfectly legal and not 'getting too close' at all.
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
That's because we explicitly used Transformer characters, likenesses, names etc. It was because at the time I mistakenly thought that Hasbro AU had given me approval -- it was an honest mistake and not done intentionally. Hasbro understood this which is why they took no action other than a verbal warning.
I'm not an expert in intellectual property law, but isn't there some kind of 'fair use' thing where if you change a certain proportion/percentage of an image, then it's no longer their property?
Hasbro does the similar things for trademarks they don't own, for example the Generations Straxus toy was called "Darkmount" because Hasbro couldn't secure the rights to the name "Straxus." Likewise "Jazz" is called "Autobot Jazz", except in Alternators where they couldn't even secure that name (because I think that toy also falls under the category of replica car), so they had to use the name "Meister." IDW's introducing a character called "Circuit Smasher," which appears to be their version of "Circuit Breaker" - a G1 character still owned by Marvel Comics (there's speculation that Circuit Smasher may be a relative of Circuit Breaker rather than being Circuit Breaker herself... himself... umm...)
The comics and posters should be easy enough to do if you tweak the character models enough - as Paulbot pointed out, Marvel/Sunbow did the same thing in the G1 comics/cartoon... look at Jetfire/Skyfire -- they had to make the comic/animation model look drastically different from the toy otherwise they would've been sued by Harmony Gold for "ripping off" Robotech.
As for the toys... I think it should be okay so long as you explicitly state that you're giving them away as freebies. As I mentioned before, it's been previously done before with BotCon exclusive toys that 3H weren't able to secure sales rights for like Rook and Tap-Out.
But anyway, if any of this concerns you seek professional legal advice before proceeding. In NSW there's a service called LawAccess which gives free legal advice -- I'm sure there are equivalent services in other states.
Rank 6 - Dedicated Member
Alternators Meister wasn't called 'Jazz' because that was the name of a different model of car, at the time.
'Fair use' wouldn't apply here. I think I know what you mean, but it's the wrong term. 'Fair use' would cover me if I was doing a review of a book you'd written, and I included short paragraphs from the book to illustrate my point. I can't just copy the WHOLE thing, but there's a certain amount I can copy for this review, that falls under 'Fair Use'. That's just one example.
It's also a fine line between a homage, and a swipe. Artists and creators have been struggling with that one for centuries.
Also, Jetfire wasn't changed because he would have 'ripped off' Harmony Gold, but more due to the fact that toy couldn't be solld in Japan, so they wanted it altered. That's from what people have been able to piece together anyway, there's still a bit of speculation involved. But Hasbro had the rights to the toy, so they could use it.
Rank 1 - New or Inactive
If I remember correctly, my uni lecturers always used to say that if you change something by at least 10% it's fine and that was when I studied graphic design aka the industry of professional copycats. My understanding was that you could basically steal anyone's logo or whatever as long as you changed it in some way.
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