Hey fellas.I am curious if anybody has ran into this. I got two CUSTOM MOVIE MASTERS JOKERS pulled from ebay because I was told they were illegal. I just got a response from Waner Bros. In stating: Thank you for your inquiry. As you may know, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. ("Warner Bros.") is the owner of trademark, copyright and other intellectual property rights in and to the Joker character. Because of these rights, no one is authorized to manufacture, reproduce, copy, sell and/or offer for sale any products/services which utilize the Joker Property without the express written permission of Warner Bros. The Custom Batman The Dark Knight Joker Movie Masters which you have offered for sale has not been authorized by Warner Bros., therefore we suspended your auction. I apologize for the inconvenience of your suspended auction; however, I hope that you understand our position. Further, please be assured that we never attempt to single-out any one, or group of, sellers. In that regard, please feel free to forward any other questionable auctions to our attention and we will be sure to investigate and take appropriate action. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Sooo, is this saying that if it has The Joker or any other WB property, it can not be sold with out being authorized? Is that not what ebay is, you buy and resale. I am trying to figure out how to handle this, because I have that other Joker I am working on.
I'm always on the fence with stuff like this. On the one hand, I can see where WB is coming from, but unless you were mass producing them, I don't see how the effect on WB would be noticable. Is this a custom of a figure that has already been bought or something you created from scratch? If it was something you created from scratch, then I think WB has more of a case against you. I would just try to sell the figure but don't call it the joker, call it something else.
Good advice. It was a movie masters figure. I have never had this problem with Transformers. THANK YOU HASBRO!!
WB really cracks down on customs and they seem to hate it. Hasbro rocks cause they really could give a crap unless we start massing them. I am worried on a project I have that involves McFarlane, hope they are like Hasbro. I also don't understand the legitimacy of like Boggs. They wont let us put time into something and then sell it as a one of a kind item but they will let a scalper buy and sell every toy they find in the store? What the heck?
I think it may be fallout from the Ledger family lawsuit with WB and the Joker action figures. That's the only reason I can think of for such a large company spending man hours checking auctions on eBay.
jin made halo customs and they sold on ebay so i dont think u'll hav a problem. i dont see y they make such a big deal. u hav to buy the toy to custom it so they are still making money and its basicly the same as buying and re selling the toy (except for customing it).
yeah this is pretty much the same thing we were warning about ove rthe Joe customs. your customs are ok, but using trademarked names or copyrighted logos is what could potentially get you in trouble.
Well, fundamentally they're operating under "defend it or lose it," I think, but I'm not a lawyer. (I have finished the first two Phoenix Wright games, though.) So I guess you have two options - 1. Figure out a way to auction them by not using any copyrighted material. Call him "Killer Clown" or something stupid like that. 2. Ask WB if there's a way you can get the aforementioned written permission. One assumes that they'd want a cut of the sale or require you to purchase a license or somesuch - but we all know what happens when you assume. It can't hurt to ask.
Wait a second... if I understand this correctly you ARE selling a Movie Masters Joker figure, right? Just one that you've repainted or altered in some way? So this is still a Joker figure that's being resold? How the hell is that WB's business? It's the secondary market. You can resell an action figure that the dog chewed the leg on, or that a little kid drew on with markers without being molested by the legal department, correct? This is fundamentally the same thing... it's an action figure, not totally in it's original condition, being sold on Ebay! Is the WB going to raid yard sales across the country with C&D orders too? Am I right? zmog
it just aggravates me to the point of uselessness in being any help to your situation. we are a sub group minority its not like there is to much of it. if you don't understand what i am trying to say do this type in the ebay search bar custom transformers you will get 60-120 listings now type in transformers you get like 21,000. i am sure it is the same for any popular line. those stupid lawyers should look at it as free publicity rather than a threat. same thing happened with car models years ago were a model company has to pay gm ford ETC ...... a premium for using there trademark. so this is one of the reasons you don't see model kits for lesser cars like geo metro's or something like that. model companies have to produce only cars that will sell very well to cover there overhead. i also contribute this to be partly responsible to the sharp decline in the hobby.
That's crazy. I've got a custom Joker I've been meaning to put up there, but now I feel like why bother? I don't understand what the dividing line is really on the reselling of customs vs original anyways on a secondary market tool like ebay.
Regardless how one feels, the companies that produce toys of their intellectual properties retain the right to protect them. This means that if they want to be the only ones to create a toy made of a character and no one else to do so, they are well within their right to do so. If they don't care as much, they have that right to give leniency. The bottom line is that the creator of something bears the right to control the things they create. This is the right of one artist or a whole company. As for where Hasbro "officially" stands: http://www.tfw2005.com/radicons-customs/the-radicons-blog-18/hasbro-issues-a-press-statement-in-regards-to-custom-toys-164248/?catid=searchresults&searchid=5510
It's true Warner Bros is pretty heavy-handed when it comes to their properties. You'll notice 'sell' is included in there. They try to make it seem like you have to be an authorized Joker distributor. That's not true however. Once you buy the figure, you can resell it, burn it, give it away, etc. The only way customizers get into trouble is when we change the character and the particular liscense. So technically you can legally get away with selling a custom Joker figure so long as you didn't turn it into another character and put something like, "This is the Warner Bro's/Mattel MM Joker with more paint on it." Altering the original figure but keeping the character liscense the same won't violate any copyright laws. Like as stated before, if your dog chews on it, it's still the same product. So yes, you could take Warner Bros to court and win that, enabling you to sell your custom MM Joker with 'extra paint'. But then you'd be on their Ebay hit-list, they'd get their lawers to draw up some rediculous 'end user agreements' for purchasing their figures, and muck up collecting as a whole. Just for the $$$. Oh, and you'd have to spend thousands of dollars in court fees.
