You may remember that back in last July, we reported a new venture by Hasbro; where Shapeways (a company working with 3D printed material) would 3D print Fan Art based on Hasbro properties. Though it was initiated with My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, our members speculated that in the future we will see Transformers as well.
Sure enough, thanks to an Email received by 2005 Boards Member chroma23, Hasbro confirms that the new project will expand into Transformers.
Future projects include:
- Dragonvale
- Dungeons & Dragons
- Monopoly
- My Little Pony [already implemented]
- Scrabble (to be sold in US and Canada only)
- Transformers
You can read the entire letter, after the jump. Dear 3D Artist,
As you may have heard, Hasbro and Shapeways are working together to encourage artists to create and sell 3D designs based on Hasbro’s iconic brands. Our July launch of SuperFanArt.com featured five artists and their My Little Pony-based designs. We’ve generated substantial press and attention for the artists, Shapeways and Hasbro with our story of a major entertainment company empowering fans to engage with their brands. Given this early success, we want to expand this opportunity to include more artists, more Hasbro brands and more 3D printed awesomeness.
This letter is an invitation for you to become part of SuperFanArt and the broader Hasbro and Shapeways communities, so we can help you promote and sell your designs to other fans. If you have a passion to develop 3D-printable art based on any of the following brands, we’d like to hear from you:
· Dragonvale
· Dungeons & Dragons
· Monopoly
· My Little Pony
· Scrabble (to be sold in US and Canada only)
· Transformers
Get your designs ready and visit SuperFanArt.com on August 22 for instructions on how to upload your work for promotion and sale. We hope you’ll join us in expanding the power of 3D printing by becoming a part of this exciting movement!
Your friends at Hasbro & Shapeways.
Scaleface
Is there a thread for people to make Superfanart requests in yet? Somewhere I can post "hey, I'd love to buy a XYZ on Superfanart!"
mephinc
Considering Hasbro is working with shapeways they probably did a run through on their entire database and flagged every tf item before this was even announced. It's a really simple thing to do. Now that is public they can start sending out the spam emails like the above mentioned. Once they decide to pull the legal card, they simply redo the search and compare it to the previous. New tf items are added to the list and sent the spam, existing items that are no longer found(tf was removed from name etc) are taken off the list, and repeat offenders are moved to a new list and sent a fancy c&d order.
This can all be done in a matter of minutes with the right code. I can run through, sort and index a list of over 10,000,000 random items in just over three minutes.. algorithms and databases are easy
Automaster
I'm coming to the party late on this one. I saw all the press initially, but have withheld due to my own skepticism. Can anyone offer an update? Have you noticed an increase in your sales? A decline? Have you had to restructure your pricing based on Hasbro's cut?
Scaleface
BTW – Nice Sixshot gun. Looking forward to a Quickswitch gun too.
Trentulas
Most likely, any infringing items will individually be targeted with DMCA takedown notices or a similar cease and desist order if Hasbro chooses to act on non-SFA items. The DMCA allows for targeted removal of specific infringing content. If you have sixty videos on a youtube account, and three of them are encoded episodes of a TV show, the copyright holder can only force Youtube to remove the infringing content. Any deletion of other videos or account shutdowns are to youtube policy. It is probably similar with infringing printable files.
Generic items will be outside this kind of action. Thus my makeshift weapons packs still being available while, for example, my miniature Sixshot-in-Gun-Mode accessories are awaiting Hasbro approval.
I can't wait until Full Color Plastic is ready for general sale.
chroma23
well i will rather be off the radar than being on the radar TBH. i couldnt care less if they have interest in my stuff or not, especially if their objective is more about $$$ as supposed to "product/design appreciation" that our customers (ie people here on TFW2005) show
i guess i will get a C&D order soon if i dont join SFA lol
chroma23
i feel that is unlikely – IF you have other non-transformers stuff for sale. like a iphone case or a ceramic cup. is hasbro/shapeways bold enough to forbid you from selling iphone cases which clearly are out of hasbro's legal reach?
its possible they will disallow TF related items (that are not on SFA) on sale. sure an iconic item like optimus prime head will have red flags, but i feel that its harder to enforce for really generic items – say some generic gun or a thigh part. i can just say its designed for gundam toys for example which hasbro has no control over (well, until bandai steps in of course lol)
so i think it depends if the items have a striking resemblance to a hasbro IP. its hard to argue that those my little pony full color sandstone sculptures not to have striking resemblance to the my little pony brand
but we shall see what happens down the road
Scaleface
Depends on if a part ALSO has TF relivance. For instance, if someone were to make upscaled versions of the original 4 Aerialbot limbs pistols, with 5mm handles. These could be used with Uranos OR with the upcoming Generations Superion combiner, right?
It also might get merky with third party toys that upgrade official ones. Like, for instance, TFcon Stronghold. There are Shapeways add-ons for it to make it look more like Stronghold, but the base toy is a Hasbro Onslaught. Can people make things like that for Shapeways?
bellpeppers
It's possible that they scanned the SHAPEWAYS site before people changed their other tags.
Unlikely, but possible.
At least they showed interest in your stuff. Apparently they aren't interested in my FoC Seeker Null Rays.
Scaleface
I did wonder if this mean anyone making TF related items on Shapeways who isn't part of Superfan art will get shut down from using Shapeways.
Cracka J
sounds like a good idea in theory, with both parties mutually benefiting, but I'd be a bit worried if they pull the "if you aren't with us, you're against us" card…and anyone that doesn't want to get into the superfanart club and pay 35% for licensing is just, well, not "allowed" to play.
everything starts innocently and with good intentions until they realize the extent of their legal reach could just shut everyone down that doesn't want to play by their rules. don't want to sound paranoid but it's how this shit usually happens.
Scaleface
I wonder if similar principles to what Hasbro is doing with Shapeways could be done with something like Youtube. Tons of fans make video podcasts, stop motion animation, video reviews, motion comics, whatever.
Let people make Hasbro IP fan videos, and submit them to Hasbro for approval. Hasbro add them to an official web site of Hasbro "fan art", and gets a portion of the money Youtube generates from views, but helps encourage traffic to the videos by approving them as "Hasbro approved" fan art.
Honestly, there are a lot more Transformers fans with Youtube accounts than Shapeways accounts.
chroma23
pretty darn sure i have removed every single transformers tags off my shapeways models, but looks like im still under their radar unfortunately:
just got 2 of the same emails too, like spam
bellpeppers
It's been a few days. Haven't gotten anything emailed to me.
Trentulas
First thing I made specifically for SuperFanArt.
I don't know if it will get approved, but here's hoping.
sunlink
Ugh. The amount of items I would have to modify just to remove a "Transformers" tag would be so time consuming. I guess from Hasbro's PVO this is just another point of revenue and a good move on their part. I just dont know if I want to deal with it or not.
bellpeppers
Just submitted my Null Ray Set:
https://www.shapeways.com/model/upload-and-buy/2600483
Also have existing TF custom stuff up there as well. Lets see what happens.
chroma23
well, at least for amazon……part of what they are taking from your profits is for using their "amazon" platform and payment system and handle credit card or paypal transactions and merchant fees etc to sell the stuff on your behalf without hassle, so i like to think that as (partially at least) a "cost" and at least its not so bad
likewise, shapeways charges markup fees too as we all know but at only ~3% im sure nobody's complaining
for hasbro, the 35% is pure "sit back, do absolutely nothing, and collect money" pure profit without effort, and IMHO based on that reason alone i think it's a bit steep
as mentioned in my previous posts, the people who will benefit the most from this are people like fakebusker and wulongti, whose designs are purely from hasbro's original toys, or full figures. alot of my stuff involve the use of 3rd party products so personally superfanart does nothing for me since i am relatively sure hasbro wont approve it. that said, i dont mind putting my other non-3rd-party stuff on superfanart, but i just dont want to jeopardize my other 3rd-party stuff with a C&D if hasbro finds out.
and i know this is a bit too much to ask, but if someone can copy and paste the hasbro agreement that will be much appreciated and interesting to read
johnbonhamatron
I've just submitted my designs to SuperFanArt, as well, so we shall see what happens, largely because after the initial "they're going to own all my stuff!" panic, I find myself agreeing with fakebusker.
And Hasbro taking 35% of the profits is pretty good, that's only marginally more than the 305% Amazon takes on the books I sell through Kindle. I can live with that quite happily!
And to chroma23, I'll let you know what happens if I do have a design that they don't approve.
chroma23
actually you are correct, i didnt try to click on the "UPLOAD" button which tells you to tag "superfanart" as well
what i am interested to know is…..what happens if we decline the agreement? are we not allowed to sell the product, or the "transformers" tag is just removed and we go on our own ways?