if anyone in their legal department had a fucking brain...they would file suit like the company did over the Bratts dolls..and get a legal judgement to have all rights and materials and profits turned over due to copy right infringement...then they would have the molds and all the profits involved with the "illegal" garage productions...

 

what is funny, hasbro owes a lot of thanks to FP for the Superion add on kit......there was a lot of people that picked up the Target superion for that add on kit

 

In truth I don't think Hasbro REALLY gives a rat's ass about anything FP, iGear, or any number of tiny independents can make and sell. The actual cost to Hasbro is negligible, as the value of all of this stuff put together is a drop a bucket.

What Hasbro probably DOES care about is building good defenses against the broader, abstract concept of trademark dilution, particularly that far reaching intellectual property lawsuits can be lost on the grounds that a company did not vigorously defend a trademark, a phenomenon that similarly leads some IP-holders to take draconian action against fan-sites or fan-fiction.

In any case, I find it kind of amusing that people get so emotionally bent out of shape that someone, somewhere would DARE to take ANY gesture that would be loosely construed to undermine a highly profitable, huge corporation that we all give hundreds or thousands of dollars every year, but its evidence that corporate public relations departments earn their pay.

 

Probably another reason Hasbro hasn't hit out to hard against them, if an add on kit up the sales of an on the self toy that does nothing but help them. From a point of view you could say all the add on kits help hasbro, how many more toys have been sold cos they look good with city commander or it will look great on your self next to NB Roadbuster. Sure its a few extra sales not a massive profit but far more than it would cost to actually set the legal team on them.

 

I wouldn't have gotten Superion if not for the kit. I am personally suprised that the Knight Morpher AKA HOS Prime isn't getting more static. That is a blatant rip off of their character. Don't get me wrong, I'm getting it. I just thought there would be more red flags about it.

 

All signs seem to indicate that they're fine with add-on kits and upgrade kits but whole figures based off their I.P. are a bit of a no-no. It really felt that they unveiled the Classics 3.0 Drift sketches at Botcon as a big F.U. to the group making the fan one as that had only been revealed a few days prior.

 

you know how lazy they get sometimes.

 

Are there pics anywhere? I don't remember seeing them.

 

100% this.

I imagine the percentage of Superions sold because of the add-on kit is very, very low.

 

of the ones sold here, i'd say it was close to if not one hundered percent of the ones sold were because of that, they have not restocked, there are the same amount as before me and a bunch of collectors picked them up, in the exact same place, looking very untouched, and not even neatly shelved, so it's pretty easy to notice, but that's just my area, yours may be different

 

Indeed. If catering to the fandom is as low on the priority list for Hasbro as we're always being told then catering to fans which bother to stump up for an unofficial add-on kit probably registers even lower on the Hasbro Give-a-shit-o-meter.

 

Hasbro can file suit against iGear and SGCollect since they make direct copies of their products. But both iGear and SGCollect are based outside of the US and filing a suit and getting a judgment against companies outside the US will be much harder. If they do decide to file suit its gonna be a coordinated effort between TakTom and Hasbro. Also iGear and SGCollect hasn't reached the mass producing capabilities that they can flood the market and would have an effect on Hasbros earnings. When that time comes we'll most likely see the ban hammers come down hard. IMO iGear is really pushing it and somewhat brazen at that.

But then again I would still buy iGears mini mp.