hasbro – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Preservation Fail: Hasbro Wants Old ‘Transformers’ Games Re-Released, Except Activision Might Have Lost Them

from the dude-where's-my-hard-drive? dept

And here we go again. we’ve been talking about how copyright has gotten in the way of cultural preservation generally for a while, and more specifically lately when it comes to the video game industry. The way this problem manifests itself is quite simple: video game publishers support the games they release for some period of time and then they stop. When they stop, depending on the type of game, it can make that game unavailable for legitimate purchase or use, either because the game is disappeared from retail and online stores, or because the servers needed to make them operational are taken offline. Meanwhile, copyright law prevents individuals and, in some cases, institutions from preserving and making those games available to the public, a la a library or museum would.

When you make these preservation arguments, one of the common retorts you get from the gaming industry and its apologists is that publishers already preserve these games for eventual re-release down the road, which is why they need to maintain their copyright protection on that content. We’ve pointed out failures to do so by the industry in the past, but the story about Hasbro wanting to re-release several older Transformers video games, but can’t, is about as perfect an example as I can find.

Released in June 2010, Transformers: War for Cybertron was a well-received third-person shooter that got an equally great sequel in 2012, Fall of Cybertron. (And then in 2014 we got Rise of Dark Spark, which wasn’t very good and was tied into the live-action films.) What made the first two games so memorable and beloved was that they told their own stories about the origins of popular characters like Megatron and Optimus Prime while featuring kick-ass combat that included the ability to transform into different vehicles. Sadly, in 2018, all of these Activision-published Transformers games (and several it commissioned from other developers) were yanked from digital stores, making them hard to acquire and play in 2023. It seems that Hasbro now wants that to change, suggesting the games could make a perfect fit for Xbox Game Pass, once Activision, uh…finds them.

You read that right: finds them. What does that mean? Well, when Hasbro came calling to Activision looking to see if this was a possibility, it devolved into Activision doing a theatrical production parody called Dude, Where’s My Hard Drive? It seems that these games may or may not exist on some piece of hardware, but Activision literally cannot find it. Or maybe not, as you’ll read below. There seems to be some confusion about what Activision can and cannot find.

And, yes, the mantra in the comments that pirate sites are essentially solving for this problem certainly applies here as well. So much so, in fact, that it sure sounds like Hasbro went that route to get what it needed for the toy design portion of this.

Interestingly, Activision’s lack of organization seems to have caused some headaches for Hasbro’s toy designers who are working on the Gamer Edition figures. The toy company explained that it had to load up the games on their original platforms and play through them to find specific details they wanted to recreate for the toys.

“For World of Cybertron we had to rip it ourselves, because [Activision] could not find it—they kept sending concept art instead, which we didn’t want,” explained Hasbro. “So we booted up an old computer and ripped them all out from there. Which was a learning experience and a long weekend, because we just wanted to get it right, so that’s why we did it like that.

What’s strange is that despite the above, Activision responded to initial reports of all this indicating that the headlines were false and it does have… code. Or something.

Hasbro itself then followed up apologizing for the confusion, also saying that it made an error in stating the games were “lost”. But what’s strange about all that, in addition to the work that Hasbro did circumventing having access to the actual games themselves, is the time delta it took for Activision to respond to all of this.

Activision has yet to confirm if it actually knows where the source code for the games is specifically located. I also would love to know why Activision waited so long to comment (the initial interview was posted on July 28) and why Hasbro claimed to not have access to key assets when developing its toys based on the games.

It’s also strange that Hasbro, which says it wants to put these games on Game Pass, hasn’t done so for years now. If the games aren’t lost, give ‘em to Hasbro, then?

Indeed. If this was all a misunderstanding, so be it. But if this was all pure misunderstanding, the rest of the circumstances surrounding this story don’t make a great deal of sense. At the very least, it sounds like some of the concern that these games could have simply been lost to the world is concerning and yet another data point for an industry that simply needs to do better when it comes to preservation efforts.

Filed Under: archives, copyright, preservation, transformers, video games
Companies: activision, activision blizzard, hasbro

WotC Makes Major Changes To D&D OGL License, Sends Community Into A Frenzy

from the d-and-don't dept

If you go back and review Techdirt stories about Dungeons & Dragons, the beloved tabletop fantasy roleplaying game, you will see that most of them focus on the stupidity of moral panics, in which D&D is often swept up. This post is decidedly different. Wizards of the Coast (WotC) recently announced there would be changes to its Open Gaming License (OGL) licensing agreement for creators making content around D&D’s core ruleset. And we’ll absolutely get into that. But first: a history lesson.

The current Open Gaming License in place for D&D dates back over two decades. The purpose of that license is very clear: let creators in general use D&D’s core rules and lore to create new content, but disallow the use of certain copyrighted and/or trademarked content. Why would WotC have opened the game up like that? For the most obvious of reasons: because it was profitable to do so.

In a 2002 interview, then-WotC VP and OGL architect Ryan Dancey said the OGL was “essentially exposing the standard D&D mechanics, classes, races, spells, and monsters to the Open Gaming community. Anyone could use that material to develop a product using that information essentially without restrictions, including the lack of a royalty or a fee paid to Wizards of the Coast.”

The idea, Dancey said at the time, was directly inspired by Richard Stallman’s GNU General Public License. And this wasn’t just altruism on WotC’s part; Dancey said the license would encourage the kind of network externalities that would make the D&D rules system more popular, thus increasing sales of the game’s core rulebook and allowing others to profit off of content based on that system.

Dancey might as well have been a Techdirt reader from back in the day, but this sounds of that logic. Open things up with a generous license, get people to create their own content, and it will all lead to more purchases of the core content that WotC sells in the first place. It was simply good business, in other words. This license continues to be in use all the way up to present.

But as I mentioned, that’s about to change. WotC announced a couple of months ago that the OGL would be updated to version 1.1 and that the changes would reflect a desire to not “subsidize” large corporations that were releasing commercial content utilizing D&D core content. That led many to speculate just what the hell would be in OGL 1.1. Thanks to a leaked draft of the new licensing agreement, the public got its first look at OGL 1.1 a week or so ago. The top-line changes are certainly different, though many in the D&D community looked at these specifics with only mild irritation.

The leaked license document sets up a 25 percent royalty for any revenues a company makes beyond $750,000 in a single year. That new royalty reflects WotC’s position that the original OGL was “always intended to allow the community to help grow D&D and expand it creatively” and “wasn’t intended to subsidize major competitors,” according to the leaked document.

That lines up with WotC’s December statement, which says the license update is partly intended to prevent “large businesses [from] exploit[ing] our intellectual property.” And while the royalty in the leaked license only applies to companies with relatively large revenues, the new OGL reportedly lets WotC “modify or terminate this agreement for any reason whatsoever, provided we give thirty (30) days’ notice.”

The number of folks hitting that top tier number in the 10s of people, so we’re not talking about a ton of creators. And, while many have noted that the 25% royalty is on gross revenue rather than profit, you should also note that this is a progressive system, so the royalties only begin to be applied once you’ve made your first dollar over 750,000inasingleyear.MuchoftheirritationinsteadcenteredontherequirementtosharerevenuedatawithWotCifacreatormakesmorethan750,000 in a single year. Much of the irritation instead centered on the requirement to share revenue data with WotC if a creator makes more than 750,000inasingleyear.MuchoftheirritationinsteadcenteredontherequirementtosharerevenuedatawithWotCifacreatormakesmorethan50k in a year in revenue.

Are these changes going to massively effect the wider community? Not these ones, no. I’d argue they’re still counterproductive, however. After all, in the last two decades, D&D has seen a massive uptick in popularity and gameplay, much of it corresponding to creator content, such as Critical Role and the like.

But those aren’t the only and, arguably, most important changes. The new OGL also purports to replace and nullify the original OGL.

Rights and royalties aside, the most controversial part of the new OGL version 1.1 could be its potential effect on the original, decades-old OGL. The new version reportedly calls itself “an update to the previously available OGL 1.0(a), which is no longer an authorized license agreement [emphasis added].”

That wording came as a surprise to many in the community because the original OGL granted “a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive license” to the Open Game Content it described. But while that license was explicitly perpetual, the EFF points out that it was not explicitly irrevocable, meaning WotC retained the legal right to cancel the original agreement at any time, as it seems to be attempting with this updated version.

That just plain sucks. A metric ton of content has been created under the old OGL which was pitched as a perpetual license. To have that license suddenly nullified is a huge betrayal. And, frankly, additional language in the original OGL is likely to create some significant legal headaches for WotC if it wants to enforce its new restrictions in court.

For instance, there is a clause in OGL 1.0a that reads:

Even if Wizards made a change [to the license] you disagreed with, you could continue to use an earlier, acceptable version at your option. In other words, there’s no reason for Wizards to ever make a change that the community of people using the Open Gaming License would object to, because the community would just ignore the change anyway.

But the new OGL, which creators have yet to agree to, says the opposite. It says that the old OGL is nullified and no longer an option for creators. The previously quoted Dancey actually helped create the old OGL. Asked for comment on what that clause means, well…

Yeah, my public opinion is that Hasbro [WotC’s parent company] does not have the power to deauthorize a version of the OGL. If that had been a power that we wanted to reserve for Hasbro, we would have enumerated it in the license. I am on record numerous places in email and blogs and interviews saying that the license could never be revoked.

The result? Well, there are about 40k signees of an open letter to WotC stating that they will refuse to sign up under the new OGL, that the old one is still in effect per the terms within it, and that the community insists the old OGL be an option for new content moving forward.

“From what we’ve seen, OGL 1.1 is not an open license,” the group wrote. “It is a restricted license. WotC can change it at any time to create even more restrictive terms. They can remove anyone’s right to use it for any reason. It is a joke. It is a betrayal.”

This is an amazing example of a company shooting itself in the foot with the worst imaginable timing. D&D likely has never been more popular, or played/watched by more people, than it is right now. Purely because WotC decided it wanted more control, and money, from the creative community its open policies helped create, well, now that community is up in arms, angry at what it sees as a massive betrayal.

Which will lead to two things. First, a chilling effect on creators afraid to create for D&D now. Second, a community with a sizable and very loud megaphone that is very, very angry at the moment when WotC should be riding the crest of the popularity wave it helped foster.

A failed charisma check, in other words.

Filed Under: copyright, license, ogl, ogl 1.1, open gaming license, open licensing
Companies: hasbro, wizards of the coast

Harris Faulkner Suit Against Hasbro Over A Toy Hamster Ends In Settlement, Hasbro To Discontinue The Toy

from the sigh dept

While we cover a lot of silly intellectual property disputes here, none has the potential to upend our society into a circus of hilarious litigious stupidity as much as publicity rights do. This barely-arrived form of intellectual property has been the star of all kinds of legal insanity, with one needing only to note its use by such upstanding denizens of our reality as Lindsay Lohan and the brother of Pablo Escobar. But I have to admit I had reserved a special place in my humor-heart for Harris Faulkner, the Fox News anchor that sued toy-maker Hasbro for making a a hamster figurine that shared her name. Because the sharing of a name isn’t sufficient to arise to a publicity rights violation, the IRL-non-hamster-Faulkner had to claim that the ficticious-hamster-Faulkner also borrowed from her physical likeness, an argument which her legal team actually made. As a reminder, here are images of both.

Just to be clear, one of the depicted is an African-American female news anchor, while the other one is a pale-furred hamster with what appears to be a melted turd on its head. Hasbro pointed this out in its response to Faulkner’s suit. I just want to hammer this point home: Hasbro had to point to the differences between a human female news anchor and a cartoon hamster in a legal filing before a very real court of these here United States. Because of publicity rights. If your head hasn’t hit the desk in frustration yet, don’t worry, because the two sides of this lawsuit have settled and Hasbro has agreed to stop producing the toy hamster.

The judge set up future fact-finding about children’s opinions about the toy hamster and whether there was real confusion in the marketplace, but that won’t happen due to the settlement.

No terms have been released by the parties, but in a joint statement, they say, “The ‘Harris Faulkner’ toy is no longer manufactured or sold by Hasbro. However, since there still may be ‘Harris Faulkner’ toys or packaging with the ‘Harris Faulkner’ name in the stream of commerce, Ms. Faulkner reiterates that she has not endorsed or approved this product.”

Now, it certainly sounds like Hasbro decided that the legal action brought against it by IRL-Faulkner was entirely too much of a pain in its corporate ass compared with whatever revenue was being generated by hamster-Faulkner. But just the fact that this wasn’t laughed immediately out of court is a canary in the mine of our sanity when it comes to publicity rights. This will only get worse, I fear, particularly in a country where the cult of celebrity grows at a pace that should terrify us all.

Filed Under: dolls, harris faulkner, trademark
Companies: hasbro

Hasbro Sued For Font Piracy On My Little Pony Merchandise

Live by the copyright, die by the copyright, as I’ve said before. See, copyright protectionism is sort of like taking a moral stand: when someone asserts the importance of their copyright, they assert it for all copyrights. For most of us, this is not a problem, because we don’t spend a great deal of time bashing others over the head with the copyright cudgel. But when you’re Hasbro? Especially considering all of the many various actions taken by the company to shut down anything having to do with its My Little Pony property? Well, then it would be nice if the company might at least make sure it wasn’t committing copyright infringement in selling that property as well.

But that appears to be asking too much. Hasbro is finding itself the subject of a copyright infringement action over the font it uses on basically everything My Little Pony.

According to Font Brothers, American toy multinational Hasbro did so when it started to use the “Generation B” font for its My Little Pony products, without permission. The Generation B font was created by Harold Lohner and is commercially exploited by Font Brothers. One of the best known uses of the font is for the popular My Little Pony toys and videos. However, according to a complaint filed at a New York federal court Hasbro failed to obtain a proper license, so My Little Pony is using a pirated font.

From the complaint itself, it appears Hasbro was not only using the font internally without a license, but was distributing it to third parties as well.

Upon information and belief, Defendant Hasbro has used or instructed others to use unauthorized copies of the GENERATION B Font in the creation of, but not limited to, all products, goods, merchandise, television and film properties, and advertising materials connected with the “My Little Pony” product line and by way of third party vendors authorized to sell “My Little Pony” branded goods bearing the term “My Little Pony” using the GENERATION B Font, showings of which are annexed hereto as Exhibit D.

Upon information and belief, Defendant Hasbro has not purchased the special license from Font Brothers which authorizes the use of the GENERATION B font software as a resource for use on goods for sale and for distribution to third parties or in the creation of its various HASBRO “My Little Pony” branded goods, products, and/or services.

Oops. The complaint goes on to note that Hasbro had repeatedly been made aware of the lack of license and authorization for the font, but that the company had failed to even bother to respond. Keep in mind that the company appears to have used this font on tons of products and merchandise, including on its own site. And distributed it as well. All while being aware that it was unathorized to do so. Sort of puts a couple of fan-made My Little Pony games into perspectrive, doesn’t it?

And, lest you think that this is all some misunderstanding in which Hasbro used a different font that was somewhat simliar to GENERATION B:

While small differences can sometimes be tricky to prove that an unauthorized font is used, in this case it is also used on Hasbro’s website. The stylesheet of the website specifically mentions the Generation B and a copy of the font stored and distributed through Hasbro’s servers.

Hasbro has since removed all uses of the font from its website, which rings more as an admission at this point than complying with any requests. And, sure, maybe super-aggressive copyright protection over the use of fonts can be a little silly at times, but it’s going to be hard to find any friends to fight in your corner when you’ve been beating everyone over the head with copyright all these years.

Filed Under: copyright, fonts, my little pony
Companies: hasbro

Disney Sending Out DMCA Notices Over Pictures Fans Took Of Their Legally Purchased Star Wars Toy

from the the-dark-side dept

We see abuse in the way some companies and people use the DMCA takedown process all the time. Those stories typically range from anywhere between mildly frustrating to truly infuriating. But to really abuse the DMCA process in the most heartless, idiotic, disingenuous and fan-hating manner, we of course must bow before the masters over at Disney.

All of this started not that long ago, in a Walmart not particularly far away, when someone with a Facebook Star Wars fan group walked into a store and legally purchased a Star Wars figurine and then uploaded a photo of it to the Facebook group. Turns out the figurine contains a sort of spoiler within it or something. As such, plenty of other websites, such as Star Wars Unity, linked to it, embedded the photo of the figure, and discussed its implications. You know, like Star Wars fans do on all kinds of sites all the time. Well, that’s when the DMCA notices began rolling in and the images started coming down.

This morning I woke up to numerous DMCA takedown notices on the @starwarsunity Twitter account, the Facebook account, the Google+ Page, and my personal Twitter for posting the image of an action figure that was legally purchased at Walmart. My webhost also received a takedown email from them with a threat of a lawsuit of the image wasn’t removed. I of course removed the image because I can’t afford to be sued by a toy company who likes to bully Star Wars fans.

The exact wording of the “infringement” is:

“Description of infringement: A screen shot of an unreleased figurine for Star Wars: Force Awakens”

Except, of course, the figurine wasn’t “unreleased,” it was very much released at a Walmart where it was legally purchased. If the Walmart made a mistake in putting it out on the shelves too early, that doesn’t suddenly make it copyright infringement for someone who bought it in good faith to take a picture of it. And, taking a step back, even if the figurine had not been released by the Walmart, how is taking a picture of it copyright infringement? It isn’t, by any sane reading of copyright law. Because it was a picture of a Star Wars toy made by Hasbro, most people logically assumed the takedowns were coming from the toy company.

This wasn’t a figure that was stolen off the back of a truck or stolen out from behind closed doors at Hasbro. It was legally purchased in a store by a fan and they posted a picture of their purchase on the internet. But because Hasbro is terrified of pissing off Disney and losing the Star Wars license early, they’re threatening and bullying fans online with legal action for sharing pictures of their purchases. Due to this I urge all Star Wars fans to avoid Hasbro product and not purchase any of their Star Wars releases. Until Hasbro grows a brain and stops bullying fans online, they do not deserve any of our money.

Except it doesn’t appear that this was Hasbro at all. Turns out the DMCA notices are coming from Irdeto, an anti-piracy outfit we’ve discussed before, and are being sent on behalf of Lucasfilm, which is, of course, Disney. And those DMCA notices are going out not only to the original uploader of the picture, but even to those using the picture in a discussion or news capacity, and even those retweeting the picture.

So, let’s recap. Hasbro made a toy that was released by a Walmart and bought legally by a fan, who uploaded a photo of the toy. Disney/Lucasfilm, which does not have a copyright on that photo, is having a third party, Irdeto, send out DMCA notices for the uploading of a picture, or a retweeting/reposting of the picture, which is not copyright infringement. And this gross abuse of the DMCA process is being done simply to stifle the speech of Star Wars fans and save them from a spoiler that apparently is coming from the depiction of this toy.

If that isn’t the kind of DMCA abuse that results in some kind of punishment, nothing is.

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, fans, figurine, star wars, takedown
Companies: disney, hasbro, irdeto, lucasfilm, walmart

Fox News Anchor's Suit Over Toy Hamster Likeness Results In Hilarious Point-By-Point Hasbro Rebuttal

from the rats dept

Okay, damn it, fine, let’s talk about Harris Faulkner and her insane likeness rights lawsuit against Hasbro over a toy hamster. I’ve been avoiding this stupidity since September, when the lawsuit was filed, because how do you even broach a topic like a cable news anchor suing a toy company over a tiny little inanimate hamster? In any case, Harris Faulkner, an award winning Fox News anchor, sued Hasbro over its “Harris Faulkner” hamster, alleging that the toy not only shared her name, but was an appropriation of her “unique and valuable name and distinctive persona.” Her lawsuit, in fact, spends a great deal of time making sweet love to Faulkner’s awesomeness for reasons I can’t even begin to understand.

In her time at FNC, Faulkner has covered many major news stories. She has anchored key moments of FNC’s political coverage, including the 2013 government shutdown, the 2013 State of the Union Address, the 2012 vice presidential debate, and the 2012 election night. She has also reported on significant international news events, including the fall of Tripoli in 2011 and the death of North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il, as well as some of the most significant domestic news in recent memory, from the death of Whitney Houston, to the trial of George Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin, and the Emanuel A.M.E. Church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina.

Hopefully lawyers for Hasbro will be willing to stipulate that Harris Faulkner is indeed the cat’s pajamas. The problem is that, other than sharing the not-really-super-unique name Harris Faulkner, the tiny toy hamster doesn’t share any of the likenesses that Faulkner has alleged.

Yeah, one of them is a lovely looking woman news anchor and the other is a hamster. That, combined with the absurdity of the idea that Hasbro was somehow marketing toy hamsters to Fox News loving tots really should be all that’s necessary to understand how silly this all is. We don’t really need to write out a blow by blow explanation of how Faulkner and this toy hamster aren’t similar, do we? No, we don’t, because Hasbro chose to do it for us in their response.

“First, Ms. Faulkner is an adult, African-American, human, female newscaster; the Hamster Toy is an inch-tall, cartoon-like plastic animal, which has no apparent gender or profession, or even clothing that might identify its gender or profession,” Hasbro responds. “Second, contrary to Plaintiff’s allegation, the Hamster Toy does not have the same ‘complexion’ as Ms. Faulkner,” continues Hasbro. “The animal depicted by the Hamster Toy has ‘fur’ (not skin), which is golden yellow, a wisp of ‘hair’ that is medium-brown, a pink nose,and a muzzle that is white. Third, despite Plaintiff’s claim, neither the ‘shape’ of the Hamster Toy’s eyes, nor the ‘design of its eye makeup’ misappropriate Ms. Faulkner’s likeness,” Hasbro puts forth. “Ms. Faulkner has brown, almond-shaped eyes; the Hamster Toy has large, circular blue eyes.”

Hasbro also asked the court to note that identical names aren’t enough on their own to cause a valid publicity rights violation, so this whole thing comes down to whether Faulkner and the hamster are similar in appearance. Which they aren’t. At all. As lovingly detailed above in one of the most absurdly awesome court rebuttals I’ve ever seen. However, Faulkner gets a chance to respond to Hasbro’s response, which at this point I sincerely hope she does, because I want to see what her legal team comes up with next.

Publicity rights, man. They provide such entertainment.

Filed Under: hamster, harris faulkner, likeness rights, publicity rights, toys
Companies: hasbro

Hasbro Spent Time, Money, Lawyers' Attention To Barely Make A Difference Over My Little Pony Fan Game

from the pony-up dept

Several years ago, we wrote about a fan game that had been shut down by Hasbro because it incorporated My Little Pony intellectual property. Yes, an expression of fandom was bullied out of existence by Hasbro. The argument trotted out by those in support of the company was the same argument that’s always trotted out in these instances: the company had to shut the game down, or else risk losing its trademark protections through non-enforcement of its rights. That’s not actually true, of course. There were many smart business routes to go for Hasbro, including offering a low-cost license to the gamemakers to allow the project to continue. Hell, we’ve actually seen instances in which Hasbro has chosen to enable fans to do some things with MLP characters, such as these 3D printing capabilities. But Hasbro chose to be the bully. And how’d that turn out?

Well, the company essentially might as well have done nothing as far as the end results go. Yes, the fan game is back, albeit with a barely different name, fractionally altered game characters, and with the collective understanding by everyone looking at it that this was supposed to be My Little Pony in a fighting game but now isn’t because trademark. What was Fighting is Magic has become Them’s Fightin’ Herds and it’s every bit as insane as it sounds. Oh, and they actually got someone who has worked on MLP properties to boot.

Them’s Fightin’ Herds is a 2D PC (Windows) fighting game with adorable animals in an original universe designed by Lauren Faust (producer and developer for “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic”; creator, director and developer for “Super Best Friends Forever”). It is the spiritual successor to “Fighting is Magic”, with improved gameplay mechanics and graphics, an entirely new (and awesome!) dynamic music system, a graphic lobby, and a whole bunch of new features.

So, let’s review. A group of My Little Pony fans created a fan fighting game using the Hasbro property. Hasbro, rather than spending ten seconds looking for an amicable route that would protect its interests while allowing this expression of fandom to continue, instead decided to sic the lawyers on its own fans. Those fans complied and took the game down…only to slightly rework it to avoid the legal issues and are now releasing the game pending its crowdfunding campaign, which has managed to generate over 100kofits100k of its 100kofits436k goal in one day, as of the time of this writing. The game is blatantly similar to the original MLP game, save for the changes made to avoid Hasbro’s interference. And it looks like the team has a good chance of cashing out in a major way.

So, the legal route got us all to a barely different place than we would have all been three years ago. How much time and money did Hasbro spend on this? And, whatever that amount was, was it worth it just to get us to what could have been passed off as a possible example of what the many-worlds theory would look like in practice? A barely different adjacent reality that is nearly identical to our own, save for a few ultimately meaningless differences? And, the better question, why didn’t Hasbro learn this lesson the first time, when its legal action against Scrabulous resulted in the exact same outcome?

Filed Under: fan art, fan games, intellectual property, licensing, my little pony, overreaction
Companies: hasbro

Why Princess Twilight Sparkle May Be The Key To Keeping 3D Printing Revolutionary

from the don't-block-the-innovation dept

When toy company Hasbro was looking to launch its super fan store for lovers of My Little Pony (tag line: “Super Art for Super Fans“), they decided to do something different. They teamed up with 3D printing startup and marketplace Shapeways and had six designers put their spin on this revered childhood toy. While the commercial sector watched nervously to see if this was the start of brands-gone-wild, what transpired was clear: the 3D printing world took one step closer to the mainstream and one design closer to a major brand.

The result of this strange-bedfellows relationship, thus far, has been some interesting brand improvisation for My Little Pony. Take Can Can Pinkie, a modified version of Pinkie Pie pony designed by Nikita Krutov now available for sale on the Shapeways site. The figurine is dressed in fishnets and ready to can-can right into the history books as some of the first super fan art supported by the brand it’s altering.

Although the technology for 3D printing has existed for more than 30 years, it’s only recently become part of the popular consciousness — as companies like MakerBot and Pirate3D made national news first for creating low-cost 3D printers and then for blasting through their Kickstarter campaigns. And designers today are taking full advantage of these lower cost technologies to personalize or in some cases remix existing designs into something never before imagined. Now designers and remixers are prototyping and often making new iPhone cases, jewelry, ceramic vases, and toy cars that are going from concept to creation faster than ever before.

Among big companies, though, Hasbro is still virtually unique in its willingness to partner with Shapeways. Most brand managers — the people whose job it is to keep you aware that an iPhone is an iPhone and that M&Ms are M&Ms — still do not want fans altering their product. It’s marketing 101 that control of a brand is the best way to ensure its success.

Altering that basic business tenet is an uphill battle, but Hasbro’s willingness to experiment could be the beginning of a hopeful trend that builds bridges to fans through the use of technology, and that allows the 3D printing industry to blossom.

So where is this technology headed? Straight to Imaginationville. 3D printing allows us to imagine a future where our children will be able to learn about their neighborhoods and then actually print a 3D model of their neighborhood. They may even be able to create something that embodies the changes they imagine would improve where they live. It’s given us a world where fan art, instead of being relegated to the back of notebooks, can be made into real figures.

Part of the reason that 3D printing is so captivating is that it can be applied to such a vast array of products, concepts, and problems. Right now you can 3D print human tissue, fighter jet parts, concept cars, and your very own likeness. Scientists even see printing complete human organs in the not-too-distant future.

With such potential on the horizon, it’s no wonder people can’t stop talking about the future of 3D printing. At a session on 3D printing that the Copia Institute hosted this month, a cluster of tech lawyers, advocates, and developers sat around a table at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California brainstorming ways to fast-forward the 3D printing industry through the tumult the music industry faced in the ’90s when it was rocked by online music sharing. That tortured pathway involved three steps: music labels suing people for pirating, trying unsuccessfully to implement digital rights management, and finally a move to the current system of allowing consumers to buy only the music they want. (When was the last time it occurred to you that you had to buy a whole album?)

As Natalia Krasnodebska, Shapeways’ community manager, put it at the Copia Institute roundtable, many in 3D printing want the industry to skip straight to the third step, eliminating years of fitfully struggling to find the right way to get products to consumers who want them and making money doing it.

With seemingly limitless possibility, however, comes the concern about how to keep the technology viable as it advances so quickly.

3D printing is dramatically reducing the cost of prototyping, which in turn is reducing manufacturing costs. It’s helping everyone from big business to doctors designing prosthetic limbs work faster and work cheaper. For that reason, not to mention the creativity it’s unleashed in the average Joe, 3D printing is worth keeping viable.

Here are a few ways we can make that happen:

The Hasbro/Shapeways partnership is a model that more companies and designers should use, but it’s only a starting place. Generating models that companies can use and test will let us continue to expand on creative uses for 3D printing.

Megan Garcia is a Senior Fellow for New America. This post was originally appeared in a slightly different form on Medium, and was written after attending our Copia Institute inaugural summit.

Filed Under: 3d printing, intellectual property, my little ponies
Companies: copia, hasbro, shapeways

My Little Pony Fan Game Shut Down By Hasbro Over Trademark

from the my-little-trademark dept

If you have spent thirty minutes in the past year surfing the internet for anything revolving around memes, you know what bronies are. They're a rather passionate adult fanbase for My Little Pony and they love to create stuff to express their fandom. We previously covered (surprisingly) that Hasbro appeared to be a company that embraced this fanbase, realizing that all the additional attention and exposure would only serve them.

Well, reader PonyRock alerts us to news that Hasbro hasn't completely come over to the light side of the force, having recently shut down a fan-made MLP game. For their part, the makers of the game appear to bend over backwards in professing understanding of Hasbro's position, even after spending a year and a half developing their game.

Hasbro is not to be blamed here. As per U.S. Trademark law, as soon as an infringement comes to light, they are obligated to defend the trademark, or they will lose it. They had no choice in the matter, regardless of what they thought of the project or how it benefited them.

As I said, very gracious, if perhaps a bit incorrect. Hasbro likely did indeed have other options beyond a strict takedown of the game, which is now lost to everyone. If they had wished instead to continue to embrace their rabid fanbase, I would imagine they could have issued a zero dollar or low-cost license to the developers, allowing the game to go forward and potentially benefiting from even more exposure. Instead, the nuclear option was chosen, resulting in the game disappearing and exposure of the takedown instead of the game.

Despite the developers being more than fair to Hasbro regarding the takedown, the comments on the article are rather negative towards the company. I almost wonder if all the bending over backwards towards Hasbro might not be part of a strategy to get the company to reconsider and go the route described above. It'd surely be the better route. Going nuclear gains nobody anything.

Filed Under: fan game, my little pony, trademark
Companies: hasbro

Hasbro Offers Nerf Blogger Free Samples, Sends Lawyers And Investigators Instead

from the what-a-way-to-treat-a-fan dept

We’ve praised Hasbro in the past for embracing and supporting the fan culture that surrounds the My Little Pony cartoon, but we’ve also pointed out that they aren’t always so accommodating. This story, unfortunately, falls into the latter category. Callum points us to a rather disturbing tale from the operator of an Australian blog about Nerf, another Hasbro product, who got quite a shock out of what he thought was a friendly gesture by the company.

It started wonderfully: he was contacted by a Hasbro product manager who was asking for his mailing address so she could send him some free samples of a rare-in-Australia Nerf gun to offer as a promotional giveaway on the blog. He gave it to her, and soon after got something in the mail from Hasbro: a legal nastygram.

Not the nastiest of nastygrams, sure—in fact he makes a point of saying how polite it was. Which is why he decided to comply with its request that he take down some photos of an unreleased Nerf gun from the blog, which Hasbro claimed were copyrighted and confidential. The letter also asked him to tell them where he got the images, and he responded explaining that he’s not sure where they came from because he gets photos sent to him constantly—and also reminded them that journalists and their sources have certain protections under Australian law. They emailed back and said they wanted to talk more on the phone; he responded saying the matter seemed to be resolved and he couldn’t see any point in talking further. In the mean time, he got another email from another product manager confirming that they were sending him free samples! He was understandably confused, and then things got genuinely nasty:

Flash forward to today- I forgot all about this for a bit and didn’t reply to the latest letter from the lawyers. Then I get stories from neighbours that some strange woman and some burly, repo-looking type is hanging around my apartment block. How creepy is that?

Sadly they weren’t here to give me free stuff. Turns out they’re from Hasbro’s lawyers!!! I told them the same stuff all over again and tried to explain that I got a bunch of stuff from ebay and taobao – of course they haven’t heard of taobao and seem to want me to do their job for them.

Yup. They sent people to his house to investigate and intimidate him. All while at the same time trying to court him with free stuff from another arm of the organization. At first, naturally, he wondered if the offer of free samples was a ruse to track him down, but Hasbro’s lawyers roundly denied that and as the story began to gain traction, Hasbro released a statement on the Nerf Facebook page:

We appreciate the opportunity to provide the following statement concerning Hasbro’s investigation into “leaked” IP information regarding its NERF brand products. As with anything, there are two sides to every story. While we cannot comment on the details of any ongoing investigation, Hasbro takes all circumstances of its stolen and leaked IP very seriously and will continue to investigate sources of unauthorized information and products as it relates to its brands. We would like to clarify one of the inaccuracies that has been reported. While a local Hasbro Australia marketing team did reach out to the Urban Taggers website to engage in promotional activity for which it required its address, it was completely unrelated to the confidential global investigation being conducted on Hasbro’s behalf by independent investigators looking into sources of leaked IP information. Hasbro greatly values and appreciates its fan communities and is very proud of its strong relationships with many bloggers and sites that cover our brands and products.

I’m inclined to believe them—but that doesn’t make their behavior all that much less shameful. This is a problem a lot of big companies have: their legal departments and their marketing departments are completely disconnected, so one is out there encouraging activity that the other is trying to squash. It’s why you get nonsense like Viacom suing YouTube over videos they uploaded themselves. This may have just been a coincidence with really horrible timing, but at the end of the day it’s no way to treat a customer—much less a super-customer who promotes your products to others.

Oh, and he never got his free Nerf guns.

Filed Under: intimidation, nastygram, nerf
Companies: hasbro