The third parties create original molds and engineer them originally. They don't use logos or insignias. They don't use the original names. For Hasbro to say take one of these companies to court for say an Optimus prime they would need to own the rights to more than just Optimus prime. A transforming red and blue truck is vague. There is a reason why these companies can sell in virtually every official channel going along side Hasbro and takara products. Ko on the other hand is something they can get away with shutting down as it is literally their mold and design which has been stolen.

 

My post from some other random IP/3P/Copyright/Trademark thread:

OK, so I went over this once and it got deleted in some kind of mass posting purge in another thread. So I'll do it again.

I'm an actual, real life lawyer. Like, for realsies. I'm not an IP lawyer, but I do look at the general rules/regs for fun because I'm a sick man. The readers digest version is this:

IP isn't a monolithic thing. Each item comes with a bundle of rights. As a result, whenever I make a thing, absent any other arrangements to the contrary, I own all parts of that thing. Let's say I make a rock star doll that is thematically related to a series of horrible diseases. We'll call her "Germ".

I now own:

* The right to use the image of the Germ doll;
* The right to copy and manufacture a Germ doll;
* The right to use the Germ doll itself;

In addition, if I decide to make a Germ cartoon/comic, I also own:

* Any related images of the Germ cartoon;
* The right to display Germ in a variety of media;
* The right to copy any of my Germ related media;

Also, if I'm a smarty pants, I will also TRADEMARK Germ. Trademark and copyright is different. Trademark means that certain images are protected as a significant portion of my brand and is any word, name, symbol, or design, or any combination thereof, used in commerce to identify and distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from those of another and to indicate the source of the goods.

So in addition to any rights to copy/manufacture Germ, I also prohibit anyone else from using Germ's image/name as it's connected to the Germ concept. So while someone might be able to advertise a brand of disinfectant called Germ Death, nobody can advertise a doll as Germ, even if it's clearly not a Germ doll.

And so on and so forth.

In many cases, this is all insular. Most companies either make their own toy and hang on the rights or contract the design of a toy from someone and immediately exercise contract rights to own the thing manufactured. At that point, the company then can license off bits of their product to others as they see fit. This is usually done by allowing others to use certain images for branding - in essence, trademark crap. That's where all these Germ pencil boxes and backpacks and stuff come from.

So why is Transformers kinda special?

First off, Hasbro never owned Transformers lock, stock and barrel. Takara invented the toys and to date is still the owner/manufacturer of most (all?) of the molds. As a result, their capacity to enforce copyright is truncated, largely because the ability to COPY is also held in the hands of a whole other non-Hasbro-controlled entity. In the 80's Hasbro had no idea what it had on its hands. As a result, it never took the proper legal actions to secure better rights over molds. In addition, Hasbro sucked at trademarking too. That's why we get characters whose names suddenly change (Traibreaker to Trailcutter, for example) - Hasbro failed to or could not obtain (or maintain) a trademark.

As a result, while it's not 100% clean, Hasbro's capacity to enforce copyright and trademark is limited to whatever their licensing contract is with Takara, and whatever names/images they've trademarked. That's actually not as boundless as a lot of people think it is. The bottom line is that an original work (as opposed to a straight copy or a related derivative work) has a pretty dinky threshold.

The US Supreme Court is extremely liberal as to what is considered a unique work, largely due to the fact that it does not want creativity to defined by judges or lawyers. That's not a joke. This is actually the reasoning for the low standards.

So what this means is that Third Parties can come along and make stuff that looks a LOT like Optimus Prime. However, the trademark claim is going to be a little tenuous, as the name is what's trademarked. That's why so many Third Party toys have dumb names like Optometrist Praline. It's not bullet proof, but makes stuff a little harder. Per US IP law, there's an argument that nobody is going to confuse Optimus Prime with Optometrist Praline.

Attempting to chase down copyright also is a little difficult. 3Ps have transformation and design schemes radically different than official toys. Those unique design aspects is what makes the case a whole lot harder for a lawyer. The biggest problem Hasbro/Takara has is this: there are no "screen accurate" toys aside from the MP line. When most 3Ps do a MP style figure, there is actually no real toy they're copying. As a result, it's a little disingenuous to say that HasTak is being infringed. That said, as you approach screen perfection, there MIGHT be a suggestion that the image of the figure might infringe on Trademark because now your toy looks like the trademarked image.

Another issue that's there is HasTak also dilutes its own brand. What IS Optimus prime? Classic G1? Ginrai? Primal? Animated? The UT version? RID01? RID15? TFP Prime? Every blue and red truck can't be Prime. If someone else comes out with a blue and red robot truck, it's not fair play to bash them in the face because ALL BLUE AND RED TRUCKS = PRIME because that's frankly a little insane.

Finally, Hasbro has been letting 3P run rampant for a long time now. There's a possible laches argument - i.e. failure to exercise a right suggests you don't have it anymore.

The bottom line is that this is an incredibly complex, nuanced area of law and for a good reason. You don't get to run into the courthouse with Maketoy's Downbeat and scream "LOOK AT IT. IT'S JAZZ. CLEARLY IT IS JAZZ. zOMG" and expect to win. However, this is sadly how many people seem to think it works (or should work). This is because the United States wants to protect creativity. It's why you can buy an Ikea stool and paint a cat on it and sell it at your local craft fair and not have to worry about Ikea sending a fleet of viking attorneys to come to your house to rape your cat and burn it (the house) to the ground and issue you a summons and complaint.

So that brings us to the question: What about FansProject and their CD stuff?

In the US, people sue other people over the stupidest bologna ever. There's no threshold to sue aside from filing fees. As a result, there are zero things stopping Hasbro from trying to sue aside from the subsequent litigation costs. On a cost benefit analysis, I'm sure some highly paid corporate lawyer has crunched the numbers and decided it's not worth it. Either they're concerned about losing, or don't see the benefit in winning.

A case against FP and their stuff is much, much weaker than the latest Magic Square's attempt at Optimus Prime. FP's designs are unique, share no images or names, claim no association to Hasbro/whatever.

This is also why straight KOs - knockoffs of actual Hasbro/Takara controlled molds, get horribly attacked. This is the easier of the things to enforce. It's a straight copy (or cheap copy) of an actual, tangible thing.

Hope that helps.

 

I don't think it's combating 3P so much as gouging their own customers. The mere fact that a smaller company like Fanstoy can produce comparable if not superior products at a much lower price is all the evidence I need. Takara continuously pushing the price envelope as far as they can and laughing at their fans the whole time.

You're right compared to MP-44 this looks like a pretty sweet deal indeed, but only in the context of official MP comparison. I think the quality of this will be typical Hasbro titan class fare, which isn't bad in my opinion but really isn't worth 600$.

 

The same is true of any industry. Costs increase, it has challenges/jargon of it own to contend with. At the end of the day, it comes down to affordability for the target demographic. The toy industry seems to have lost focus, and have begun pricing their demo out of their merch. Again, to be blunt, nobody gives a shit about R&D costs, company payroll, etc. What matters is final quality and cost. You don't go into the supermarket and talk about the import taxation or harvest yields, you just buy the apples, if the price is fair, and if not rotten/overripe.

You clearly do not understand the definition of that word.
The word you're looking for is "greed".
And the specific phrase is "greedy fucking toy companies that think they're entitled to your whole paycheck" just for the privilege of owning an easy-to-break piece of molded plastic.

I'm not priced out whatsoever. Never said that.

Their target market is getting priced out. Apparently you're in the myopic toy industry bubble that thinks toys are on equal footing with car payments, rent, monthly grocery budgets for the whole family, etc. It's gotten bonkers. I remember walking into Kaybee Toys in the 90s, seeing something neat for $5, grabbing it. Or in the 2000s, seeing something for $10 at Walmart or TRU, grabbing it. Now figures are $30-75 dollars in the late 2010s? What the hell? No wonder the stores don't stock many, pegs lay fallow. Or that TRU went out of business, that companies like Mattel are suffering. You're your own worst enemy, slowly killing the industry from the inside. When "adult collectors" outgrow this nostalgia wave, and seeing as how the younger generation is disinterested in toys, you're fucked. Not just the industry, but you personally will find yourself looking for new employment in a new field. Those overpaid execs won't care, consumer still won't care, but you'll sure care.

If you want to have a mature conversation with me, you'll have to bring more than venom and righteousness to the discussion.

Yeah, yeah, everybody deserves to get paid for their work. But when that's the main defense for why your goods are overpriced, it's evidence that you have no defense. Because payroll rarely requires more than 50% of the company financials. And with Hasbro, all of that can be seen in SEC filings.

So? That's just psychological marketing, a pressure tactic. It's not a good thing for consumers.

 

If Zeta is going to produce this piece, they need to throw down and confirm as I would buy the Zeta Unicron over the Hasbro one. If Zeta waits until Hasbro reaches its crowdfund goal, it might be too late for another Unicron, I am not sure that there are many people having the extra funds, space, or need for two large scale Unicrons. If Zeta can truly produce a piece exactly like the one's shown on the renders, Zeta has the better looking Unicron. Zeta would be the BMW compared to Haslabs Ford/Toyota.

 

Other things worth considering regarding the alleged "gouging" are as follows:

1) HasTak is a known quantity, and have big money. They're generally going to get charged more per figure run, no matter what in comparison to a 3P company who likely just fills up factory time between bigger companies making bigger runs of other products. As a result, when you're looking down the gun barrel of an MP or exclusive, the cost of production gets rammed right down the consumer's throats.

2) HasTak is also more of a target for tariffs and embargoes because they have to do things all legit. 3Ps? Not so much. As a result, if your country is in a massive trade war with China for example, guess who feels the pinch? Spoiler alert: you. This affects every level of production starting from the import of raw materials to make the stuff to make the toys, to the export tax to foreign countries who want to shield themselves from dependence on foreign products.

3) The most recent HasTak offerings starting from the most recent Megatron have an insane part count, which drives up costs even further starting with the creation of the mold, plastic injection, spure removal and ending at assembly and boxing. Collectors just want more complex, far fancier things and when Factory Worker X keeps dropping Itty Bitty Screw #9,442, it's going to slow down production time and increase production cost as a result.

Now, I'm not going to sit there and naively believe that there isn't SOME level of aggressive pricing. Of course there is. That's been Hasbro's strategy for the last 30 years - get you addicted and then jack up the price. However, not all of the steadily increasing price is because EVIL CORPORATIONS, because EVIL CORPORATIONS won't exist anymore if they choke the everloving hell out of their customer base. Take that, Adam Jensen or whatever the hell your name is. Cyberpunk never happened for a reason.

Even if 25% of the price is just pure WTFery, the remaining 75% is beholden to hard costs for production which is also directly affected by how difficult the rest of the Universe is being that decade. In other words, it's a lot harder to get away with chicanery with an industrial product in comparison to a raw good or service. Way more moving parts and far more people to scream bloody murder as opposed to say, OPEC who can decide that oil is now worth your first born child because they feel like a second yacht this week.

 

That's called Android autocorrect. Sometimes you manage to catch it, sometimes not.
And yeah, I can see the panel lines in planet mode,but I can't see where all those round panels are supposed to end in robot mode given there is no visible kibble.

 

WOW!

 

I see Zeta designated this as ZV-02. Is there an ZV-01?

*edit. Found it:

Zeta Toys Zeta-V ZV-01 Pioneer (Bumblebee Movie VW Beetle Bumblebee)

 

I knew this would happen !! The 3rd parties would jump on the Unicron bandwagon and make their own version.

For me, it's great because for a long time this is the ultimate dream.
The only issue would be if they overdone the scaling and made it so big it would be next to impossible to ship overseas !!

So size wize, titan scale is good enough for me will enough articulation to bend forward to grab his stomach, or do the ploughing motion as seen in the movie.

Gauranteed that other 3rd parties will follow suit !!
What a time to be a collector of Transformers.
Till all are made !!

 

But Hasbro used to own their own factories and sold them to utilize 3rd party(no not TF)factories. Are you suggesting they did this to spend more on production?

Tariffs are paid by importers of products not producers, and we don't have a current embargo on China, Vietnam, or India. Hence all the free shipping Chinese sellers offer on ebay.

MP-36 294 parts vs TRU MP-10 369 parts. That's from What's in the Box thread here on tfw. The parts count can't be that big a factor as my THF Megatron is the same parts count as the official and cost only 62$.

 

it's not a case of zeta jumping on the bandwagon , by the sounds of it this has been in the design process for years

 

Zeta might have been working on this for a while but the announcement timing is definitely not a coincidence. Regardless, I like the render pictures and I may buy this giant obscenity

 

I'm not an official white knight in the slightest but the ko is cheaper for a reason. They haven't put any development or time into designing these things from scratch, they just copy it all. Totally different process and costs involved.

 

I’m totally for tasteful unicorn yard art

Remember when we all filled out those surveys and bragged about our 3p habits?

 

This is an awesome post and I love the insight it brings. The only other point I’d raise for consideration (as someone with zero knowledge on the subject) is that it’s written from a US legal perspective. I would guess the chances are that any suit against 3P or KO companies would be brought in a Chinese court were things are likely to be even more complicated? And depending on whether it’s Hasbro or Takara or both bringing the suit, that probably adds even more complexity. Nothing is ever as cut and dried as we amateurs think.

As for this figure vs HasLabs? It’s interesting. I actually don’t mind the HasLab one. I think it’s a little greeblie for me but it’s nothing a little extra paint couldn’t clean up. Likewise, I think the price is actually pretty reasonable given the size and complexity. But it ain’t gonna be MP quality or finish. Of course I’m an Aussie so Hasbro has implemented geographical restrictions to prevent me acquiring the product so it doesnt matter what I think.
As for Zeta, it’s okay. The sculpt is a little soft, and we have no idea of its size or final capabilities (40” is nothing but speculation).
I don’t need just a head as I have the Studio Oz head so this would need to be a whole figure. And it needs to be big. Bigger than zeta combiners. Lewin Prime size or bigger.

Finally... what’s with the fangs? Did Unicron have razor-sharp teeth? I don’t remember that. Hasbro did the same thing. I’m not a huge fan of that look. It may be canon for a version of Unicron I’m not familiar with I guess.

 

So he can eat apples. I think he looks silly with teeth

 

My point is on the factory side production and boxing THF can turn a profit at 60$ producing the same unit. This indicates production costs and parts count are not valid justifications for the massive price increase we've witnessed in official MP.

I'm not arguing that it's the same price to make a KO as an official. Only against the assertion that parts count and production(factory) cost increases are responsible for Takaras massive price hike.

In fact with moving production to Vietnam and India Hasbro has if anything reduced its production cost per unit. You only have to look at the reality of what KO companies and 3Ps are producing to realise Takara is fucking you!

 

The Marvel comics version had the shark teeth.