Can MP Exhaust be sold there with PM feeling it infringes on their IP?

 

Wow. This took a lot longer than I thought it would.

 

The one thing that really bothers me about Pete not giving specifics is this: It could very well lead to the rules being applied VERY unevenly. Booth X is told they can't sell Toy A, but because someone else interprets the rule differently Booth Z is told that Toy A is just fine

 

I've always seen the line being "if it is a complete figure that resembles a Transformers character, that's not cool. But virtually any 3rd party toy that utilizes an existing toy(and add on) is okay."
Where the hazy area is, for example, Fansproject Bruticus. Standalone molds AND add on to existing toys. That's where questions arise.

 

Haha, given how brazen these 3rd party "companies" have become, it won't surprise me if they band together to make their own convention that they call, of course, "Not BotCon".

Re: the actual announcement here, it's clear as day and perfectly obvious what they mean and what they're banning, and anyone needing explanation or more clarification obviously aren't smart enough to bother explaining to anyway.

 

Go figure a guy with the handle Crooked Man supports IP infringement.

 

All that means is that people will make more deals in hotel rooms.

 

It's amazing Hasbro has allowed it to continue this long. They've been good sports about it for years, but I can't blame them for banning this stuff at their own, official show.

 

This sure is a strange way to say we're gonna make all the figures you want immediately. Oh wait, their not going to at all.

 

Keeping it vague allows some freedom at the show to determine what is and isn't appropriate. There is no way they can provide a full list of what isn't okay. It's frustrating to dealers and fans, sure, but it's not going to stop people from 3rd party and botcon. To tweak a quote from Jurrasic park "Fans...uh, find a way"  

 

It's like being at a Honey Nut Cheerios convention and trying to sell the off brand dollar store cereal.

 

Ditto.

 

It's actually not perfectly obvious, unless the answer is ANYTHING made by a 3P including posable hands/feet/weapons.

 

This^.
Pete, you can't request to change a news story when you're not willing to supply us with actual rules.
You want us to call you? That's really suspicious. You're trying to hide stuff and that's not right.
It's not that hard to type what's banned, and what's not. You guys need to fix your PR guidelines.

 

Honestly I think when it was just products Hasbro was not offering they were willing to look the other way - but now that BOTH the 3rd parties and Hasbro are releasing combiners and identical characters in the same time frame I think Hasbro is less willing to overlook it.

 

While I do think that a crap ton of 3p stuff is astoundingly awesome, this move is only logical. People need to keep in mind that while 3p stuff may have been going on for a very long time, the likes of FP or Maketoys DO NOT have any rights to names or designs that Hasbro does, and Hasbro could rip these guys a financial new one if they wanted to. It's one thing for a company to make their own transforming toy(s), it's another thing entirely for Fans Toys to take the character Shockwave and create a toy out of him, completely saying that it is NOT Shockwave, when it so obviously is. Is Hasbro making any money off of Quakewaves sold? No. And I know the design of QW isnt SPOT ON the same as Shockwave, or that Hercules isnt SPOT ON head to toe exactly the same as Devastator, but cmon. They are what they are, and the designs legally belong to Hasbro. They took those designs and essentially marketed them as their own, and made money off of them. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but that is the very definition of illegal in the copyright sense. Though those laws are super fucked up sometimes.

Overall, this is just a logical thing to do.

 

I can certainly understand why Botcon doesn't want to print a list of items not allowed at the show, as doing so is a potential show killer. I mean, why would anyone fly halfway around the country (world?) to attend a show to purchase items they can purchase in their own neighborhoods?

Flight/gas/rental car, hotel, food, etc. aren't cheap. Anyone having to pay all that to attend a show is going to want to purchase more than Mr. Potato Head Optimus Prime and some one-step changer.

Why not just ask for a cut in the sales of 3PC and call it a day?