Knock Off Generation 1 Metrotitan Delayed at Ages Three and Up

Regardless of the position you are taking, you have done a fine job of looking like an ass with this post...

I doubt they'll get into that.

The great sages of the Wu-Tang Clan teach us, "Cash rules everything around me."

Kits like the ones above boost sales of Hasbro's product, while KOs of items that are or will be reissued cut directly into sales.

Times like this make me glad I have no interest in a Metrotitan, as it means I need not deal with moral ambiguities on my own part, and the way-too-sure-of-themselves hard moral stances of those on both sides of this issue.

wow and all this time I thought this had been released awhile ago

I'm not surprised.

Dude, you are making yourself look uninformed. Research the relationship between organized crime, Militants and Terrorists and bootlegs and you will maybe try to understand what I am talking about. You simply don't know enough about the issue to discuss this. Read a newspaper and stop throwing insults.

I'm glad Hasbro is trying to put a stop to this.

Uhhh... Just about all of the accessory kits and third party product that comes out of Japan ARE licensed by Takara. That makes them legal product.

Know what you are talking about before opening your mouth.

Whoa, there, dude. You are NOT SURE if and when the relationship between organized crime and bootlegs is nothing but corporate strategy to regain profit. If you want to go all moral and ethic over this, think about the problems a hungry corporation can cause as well, in the same ethical context. Let's forget for a second how Hasbro is our pet company and we love it when they make money. Either that or we should all just back off.

That's kind of arrogant to assert when we don't even know if the information we're reading is being fed or not. Simply put, which newspaper? Stopping with insults is always good, though.

If you are going to invoke conspiracy theroy into any discussion, then I think there is no point in discussing it. The free press does a good job on researching 'corporate propaganda' as fact or fiction and there is plenty of research and evidence from free press and educational organizations and governments that corroberate it so this is not simply a "money Hungry corperation"

Look at the stories about New York City as it is in the news recently. It is not quite as bad as some of the news from abroad but they do detail the impacts on their city.

The 'is it real' discussion is simply isn't productive because those who believe it does no harm can't be convinced otherwise.

TwinCast
Galvatron

So if we buy TF KO's (and we know they are) we're supporting the bad guys you mention? America's and the Worlds enemies are making KO Transformers? Well I'll be. I'll turn myself in for buying a Mini Fort Max and those oversized Micromasters at KMart. Just curious. How would you classify Impossible Toys?

A3U gets its' Hasbro product from Hasbro Canada. And they are the ones who threatened to take away his dealer license. Hasbro USA hasn't as of yet threatened US dealers with that. Why, who knows.

Did you expect any other result?

Why pick on the one store and not go after them all? Seems odd to me. Sucks for A3U.

On the topic of KO's:

Huh? Not that I'm a big defender of KO's or anything (personally have no interest in inferior product), but why in the world is A3U getting their balls busted over this, but not any of the other stores that are selling KO's? Doesn't make sense.

I don't know the online marketplace all that well... How many other online sellers of knock-offs have Hasbro-Direct retail accounts?

Seems it would be a no-brainer in any kind of supplier agreement that the retailer agrees not to knowingly sell knock-offs. It's probably in their contract.

Did A3U ever ship those BT Prowl KOs and probably a couple of others, which were held up for the same reason?

so who does Tfsource get their product from?
I would assume directly from hasbro since they seem to carry the legions of everything that hasbro sells TF wise..

mods... please?

Echoing some of the comments I've made in previous "ZOMG! KO'S ARE TEH EVIL!" threads, I think it simply comes down to the fact that A3U are *so* well known for being a KO reseller, not to mention being Canada's, more or less, most popular online dealer for Transformers. I think that makes them stand out a lot more, and as such, makes them an easy target. Previously having an entire section specifically dedicated to KO's probably didn't help matters either.

But as I always say in threads like these, I could care less one way or the other about the rights & wrongs of KO's. They are what they are and people either buy them or they don't. But the point is that A3U doesn't exactly stay off the radar when it comes to these things, and if anything, is known to be THE western dealer for this stuff thanks to their avid presence & advertising on sites like this. I mean, 90% of upcoming KO figures that we know about are actually thanks to A3U's posts, so I'm sure it was only a matter of time before that eventually raised some red flags with Hasbro, even if it's just with their Canadian division. Plus it's a lot easier to go after legitimate businesses who have physical AND online stores with merchant accounts than it it is to chase down every guy in his basement who happens to have a website & PayPal account.

I personally think A3U should either just get out of the KO realm altogether or devise some sort of way of selling them completely separate of the A3U moniker. It would take all of 2 minutes to come up with a new business name alias, buy a new domain & setup a PayPal account. Being a exclusively online source, he wouldn't need to worry about a physical address either. It would take the legal flak off A3U and wouldn't cause anymore headaches for Hasbro or Takara than eBay sellers already do. It might not be the perfect solution, but I think it would sure as hell help.

Just my opinion. Again.

This post is about the most accurate a description of the situation as it appears now. Close the thread and leave everyone to read this post.

Done: kotransformers.com

Unfortunately in doing so, they blew away the single greatest internet resource for identifying these modern bootlegs. I was excited when Spencer announced he was planning to compare a loose Bootleg Prime along side an authentic one. I guess that fell through. Lame.

Also, just because that store doesn't have a physical address, doesn't mean he can't get in the same trouble as before. It's all a matter of time before it happens again. If the connection between that site and A3U is established by Hasbro he'll be even more fucked for violating the original C&D.

Yup, kotransformers.com used to have comparisons....but now it just sells KOs...wtf?

wow... I can't tell if that site is serious or not. Looks like a lot of work was done on it.

I do like how they kept the 'figure distinguishing information' on the sale page. So hopefully we won't loose it as a resource for those who need to sniff out issues on eBay.

lol metro * ahem* plex

Actually, very little work has been done. That's the same software I use for my store and to get that much installed is all point and click. It's fast and easy, and I'm sure that's all they wanted to get the Bootlegs moving again.

My favorite part is the character name obfuscation to deter, oh say, Hasbro from finding them. Shhh, itsa secret.

Whoa. Guess you slapped me down, huh?

Except, see the question mark in my post? I didn't know. The question mark makes it obvious I was not speaking with any expert authority. I was guessing. And if you read my question, I believe it's clear that I was of the opinion it's legal, and Hasbro couldn't go after them.

Reading comprehension FTW!

Do you have a specific problem with me, or are you just rude in general?

guys guys!

These KO threads are tearing us apart!!!

can't we all just get along?

I guess I should have acknowledged in my post that I *am* aware of this site as well, but obviously the big problem here is that Spencer blew his potential cover by letting us all know that he's the one behind it when he should have just kept quiet. So when I suggested an entirely new business name alias & website in no way connected to him or A3U, I meant in addition to this site as well. My bad for not mentioning it before.

This is true, but the chances of that happening are a lot less likely. I'm not saying it wouldn't or couldn't ever happen, obviously, it's just that the anonymity of it would undoubtedly *help*. With the ability to now keep all whois information for domain registrations private (even with .ca domains as of June) combined with the ability to run successful e-commerce sites without having to ever divulge your name to the public and use separate computers to mask IP tracking, it's almost scary exactly how virtual you can remain nowadays. Granted, the minute everyone figures out this product is coming from Vancouver, most people will be 100% certain it's associated to Spencer somehow. But at the same time, all the speculation in the world doesn't necessarily make things true. For all anyone knows, it could be other Vancouver residents like me or Tech Spec actually running the show, for example.

And even when it comes to things like copyright infringement of (most) physical product, companies are obligated to first issue an official cease & desist warning *before* they're even able to pursue full blown legal action. That creates a huge window of opportunity for someone to take advantage of and ultimately close before things potentially get caught up in litigation.

I'm not saying this is what Spencer or anyone else *should* do. I'm just pointing out that it *is* an option for anyone that desperate to sell KO's, no matter how shady it ultimately is in practice. Or there's always the easy alternate option of just creating an eBay store instead.

When all is said & done, though, I think Spencer is pretty much screwed when it comes to selling KO's anymore. He's now been red flagged by Hasbro themselves, so no matter who else might end up selling them out of Vancouver either instead or in addition to him, he'll likely be the one to get blamed anyway. That's why I think he should just get out of it altogether and leave the KO shit for the Asian eBay sellers to deal with. I think most of us would prefer A3U stays in business with the continued ability to sell official Transformers at equal or close-to retail price than to have their dealer license yanked at the expense of selling handfuls of (often) inferior KO's that we don't really need.

I believe he was talking to me. Sorry if I offended you by being wrong, but I thought it was the kind of thing where Takara basically said "you're adding to our product so we don't care." I didn't believe any of these where officially licensed. The only thing I knew was completely legal where those kits sold at conventions, because of the "1 day license" that is available in Japan. I didn't know takara had any relationships with people like Justitoys and Fansproject. Can you tell me where you got your info? I'd like to see what else I can learn from your source(I'm not being sarcastic, I'm eager to be constructive here) Anyway, I was stating my thoughts that the physical kits where legal, but maybe not the packaging and usage of licensed names.

Any form of personal attacks or name-calling will not be tolerated in this thread.

Actually, your posting reads as a sarcastic/rhetorical question, rather than a legitamate question. I replied in that tone.

I appologize if it was not intended that way.

I'm not sure how it reads as sarcastic, but no, it was not intended to be.

Sorry if I overreacted.

Guess it is time for me to step in and make a post. Just some information for me to share:

1. It was not Hasbro Canada that contacted me but it was Hasbro US. When I originally spoke with them, it was only their legal department. They were quite helpful and co-operative. We were singled out because someone reported us to them, specifically someone from tfw as all their resource was pointed back to this site and quoted several threads from this site. They asked us to cease and desist which I complied with by taking down everything from our site. I was under the impression that we had worked out that I could complete all transactions that I currently had but could not make any more new ones. The reason that everything is delayed right now is that I had to put a stop on everything coming in and then to get it started up again to fulfill my orders takes time. Everything in this industry takes time.

2. Why am I being singled out? Well, I was told it was because I was the only one with a complaint against me so other companies are free to continue to do so until someone complains about them I guess. They were kind of vague about this whole process. When asked about eBay I was told that there really is nothing they can do about that and don’t intend on doing anything in that avenue. Items from Justitys are NOT legitimate product and are also considered KO figures to Hasbro but they have not done anything about them as of yet. I have attempted to get a breakdown of what is ‘OK’ and what is not as Big Lots sells KO Devastator sets and they are a huge US chain. It does seem that what it comes down to is the use of the Hasbro Logo and directly inferring that the KO product is a Hasbro product.

3. I am not so much and advocate of KO s but do believe in keeping everyone informed. There are too many people out there selling these items as legitimate items and that pisses me off as much as everyone else. I am as much a collector as a retailer of Transformers and I have spent many years also collecting KO figures as well, new cheap items and vintage well made ones as well. My stance on these is that Hasbro will not stop them. I have been threatened into providing all information as to who the KO manufacturers are and know for a fact that Hasbro has done NOTHING to even contact them in the 4 months they have had the information. It is my opinion and my opinion only, that if you can’t stop something like this from happening then you should have a hand in attempting to control it. Not only did I provide a legitimate forum for selling these items but also provided vital information regarding them and the awareness for the fandom to tell the differences between these figures and vintage ones.

4. www.kotransformers.com will NOT ever be selling items. This is an information site only and while using the zen cart format, it is not ever going to be a selling site. This site will have all the same content as previous and I have many reviews still to go up but we here at Ages Three And Up have been busier than ever as we are opening our second store here in Vancouver on the weekend of May 30th and that is why I have not had much of an on line presence over the last month or so. I have been so busy trying to get the new store all set up and everything in order and it does not leave much time for on line browsing.

Real nice to hear some whiny d-bag from here is solely responsible for you getting the shaft on this.

Way to go, whoever. I'm sure you're very proud of yourself. You just screwed the one and only online seller who is completely honest about these and their quality.

I doubt we'll ever find out who; however with luck they'll be so "proud" of their actions that they won't be able to resist. I certainly hope so, anyway. I'd love to know who to tell everyone I know to put on ignore for good.
And in case they don't own up: Good work, shithead.

Wow, thanks for taking the time to share all the details. It's good to know what's going on.

Wow. That's pretty darned crappy. Thanks for the heads up Spencer as why you were being singled out didn't really make any sense. Shame that someone on these boards was responsible for this. I don't buy KO's (I take a whatever attitude towards them), but I always loved the service that A3U gave when it came to documenting KO's and showing the differences between the KO's and the originals... so, good work to whoever the douche bag is that reported A3U, because you just stopped the only reputable seller from selling them and the real problem (eBay sellers whom attempt to pass them off as originals) will have nothing done about them straight from Hasbro's own mouth. Again, good work shit head... good work... hope you're proud of yourself.

As much as I dislike KOs, I have never had a problem with stores that sell them. I have a problem with the companies that make them. Especially since many of the KO producers market their KOs as reissues or legit products so many people are selling what they think is legit which gets back into the whole mess. This I don't agree with. Hasbro should attempt to be treating all retailers equally. Singling you out for something they are explicitly turning the other way with everyone else seems a bit absurd. Technically it is their right, but I would respect them and trust them more if they were doing this as an actual effort to address the issue opposed to being manipulated into shutting down 1 person.Agree. Your comparisons have been a useful resource for many of my purchases as a collector who wants to find the real thing. Using KOs as a tool to keep people informed I felt would have been a value to Hasbro. Shutting down your ability to deal in them basically shuts down your ability to do the comparisons too and document.Hmmmm, too bad. The tragic aspect is I could make a website that is an exact clone of your site, begin selling them tomorrow and Hasbro wouldn't care until someone reports me. Doesn't make much sense. Consistency hasbro!

Some people in this fandom, I swear, need some mental help. Threats to show and movie producers, whining to Hasbro and burning good people. Man, it has done nothing but negative things to this hobby. Only a total shitbag would do something like this and single out Spencer. I suspect this type of person has nothing else to care about. It Infuriates me.

Sucks man, I was against them myself until I bought one and then even had a go at selling them (not much luck) real shame that someone felt so bad about it that they grassed you to hasbro though, I've got to say their explanation kind of sucks in that your the only one being singled out because you had a complaint against you, how that works I'm not really sure.

seems maybe someone took advantage to maybe grind an axe...

yay anti-KO league..... big victory...... douche nozzles

sorry to hear that spencer

You don't see any of us who are against KOs saying that the loss of Spencer's contribution and education about KOs for collectors is a good thing. He was one of the only people doing something positive about it and he got walloped over it. So KOs are still out there everywhere *AND* we have little to no way for collectors to distinguish between them as our one ally who made an effort to have a cohesive resource to help identify is now gone

It really isn't a victory for anyone.

hence........... sarcasm.........

But it is probably safe to say that it was not one of the folks that like KO's that turned him in....s:

another over zealous anti-KO person wasted a good resource for everyone...

another case of one bad apple ruins all of them.....