Buying Transformers toys from Hasbro is like selling out to The Man, dude!
Shortpacked! by David Willis
Toys are serious business.
Convention appearances:
Calgary Expo Calgary, AB: April 26-28
Phoenix Comicon Phoenix, AZ: May 23-26, 2013
BotCon San Diego, CA: June 28-30
San Diego Comic-Con San Diego, CA: July 18-21
SPX Bethesda, MD: September 14-15
Phoenix Comicon Phoenix, AZ: May 23-26, 2013
BotCon San Diego, CA: June 28-30
San Diego Comic-Con San Diego, CA: July 18-21
SPX Bethesda, MD: September 14-15
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Sorcery 101
Templar, AZ
The Transformers Wiki
Hail to the Slash
80 page GIANT
Axe Cop
The Book of Biff
Butt-Taco
Comics Curmudgeon
College Roomies from Hell!!!
Diesel Sweeties
Dinosaur Comics
Dr. McNinja
Dresden Codak
Fans!
Fleen
Gastrophobia
Girl Genius
Girls with Slingshots
Goats
Hark, a vagrant
Hijinks Ensue
Intrepid Girlbot
Legend of Bill
Medium Large
Not Invented Here
Octopus Pie
Overcompensating
Penny Arcade
PhDcomics
Power Nap
Questionable Content
Real Life
Rob and Elliot
Bad Machinery
Schlock Mercenary
Sheldon
So Far Apart
Something Positive
Two Lumps
Wapsi Square
Wonderella
Wondermark
Frumph.NET
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You know, I’ve almost missed seeing Ethan just make toy commentary. Huh.
They’re beyond evil.
The nervE!
And the fact that they will/would have been completely different just doesn’t register with these two. The FansProject one would have been good for army-building, though. I’m hoping that Hasbro/Takara Tomy make a generic repaint someday.
All Transformers these days have retooled heads figured into the original tooling, plus the Wreck-Gar mold has pegs on his ass that plug into his own bike seat, meaning if you had two toys you could make them ride each other. So Junkion generics will absolutely happen.
>> “if you had two toys you could make them ride each other”
So. Not. Touching. That. Line.
I saw those pegs when the first images were leaked. I’m buying two Wreck-Gars as soon as I can! Waiting for the generic would take too long to have that kind of awesomeness!
Wait, how would an $60 ~ $80+ toy be a GOOD army builder?
Good question!
ha ha i know someone who army built that
(not me)
Heh, I was missing Duncan T. Strawman.
But yeah, the super expensive custom figures and accessory packs are one of many things that I don’t quite get about Transformers fandom.
Sorta related note: I stumbled over a custom figure of Nightbird, Earth’s female ninja robot built for peace. And she’s only $150.
Yeah, that was a Transformerscon exclusive this year. I don’t recommend it! Not just because it’s Nightbird, but after handling the Arcee which it’s a retool of, I know that it’s a breakage issue waiting to happen. F-R-A-G-I-L-E.
But, she’s a female robot! And a ninja! And Megatron has a weird thing for her. I thought I recognized the mold… it’s kind of weird that the toys a redo of a custom mold. It’s a real crossing the streams kind of moment.
Out of curiosity, what do you think of Hub running G1? It’s been a fun late night nostalgia bomb.
D00d, read his Twitter feed– he bags that garbage all the time.
“I want to use X to destroy the Autobots!” “But you don’t understand the danger!” “Meh!” #everytransformersepisode
Frank Welker, Don Messick, Casey Casem… this episode’s cast is just Scooby Doo.
Just because he bags it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love it.
Traditionally, custom figures are a side effect of adult fandoms desire for a toy, substantial amounts of disposable income, and HasTak’s unwillingness to produce said toy. The high prices are largely a side effect of the fact that you can’t get economies of scale in small production runs.
This comic would’ve been a lot better if you’d left out the last two panels.
*rereads* Oh hey, you’re right. Even as a non-toy-collector I can see your point.
On the other hand,if he HAD left out the last 2 panels there would have been SOME moron posting along these lines “I don’t get it,whats the point?Willis are suck!!!1lol”.
There are,unfortunately,alot of eddjits on the internet =p
Nah. Duncan’s last line is a good kicker. Although, having Ethan BEGIN his question and Duncan cutting him off with the kicker may have been funnier.
Oh, internets….
I missed this guy.
ahahahaha, fandoms.
Wait.
I know shortpacked is often a cometary of toy collecting fandom.
I people actually lamenting this? Is this a real thing?
You are far more optimistic about human behaviour then I.
I totally believe this. People can and will complain about everything, even good news.
I gave everyone a link under the comment.
Yeah I know. But I don’t need a link to know that would happen.
Wouldn’t that be more on a quality/cost issue? I mean, unless Hasbro tells them not to make the toy, if it’s not a bad price for the quality of the model, people will probably still buy it. Not as many, but it’s a better shot than the company outright telling you to stop. SquareSoft shows how it’s done.
Just out of curiosity, is this something someone has actually SAID somewhere?
If so, I need to know where. I’m feeling frustrated becaise if I mock the idiots at work, I get fired. I need more places to visit to mock idiots more safely.
There’s a link in the box below the comic.
“This is what we like to call ‘Deep Hurting.’ Deeeeeeeeeeeeeep Huuuuuuuuurting.”
Seriously.
Yes, how dare they make a new figure of a character who does belong to them. LOL!
I understand the point of this comic, but… really? People who make completely original toys based on Hasbro property are *thieves*?
Making, no. Selling by the hundreds for profit, yes.
How so? They’re not infringing copyright or even trademark, as far I can tell. (If they did, they’d probably be a grease stain by now.) So even by the somewhat tortured position that copyright infringement = theft they’re still in the clear. Sure, they’re aping some basic ideas from the franchise, but their products are still original designs (rather spectacularly so). So on the scale from 1 to Grand Larceny, to me they look like about a 2 – and fanfic authors are around 4.
Of course they can still be committing copyright infringement. Copyright law requires a certain number of differences between two different things for it not to be infringement. If they don’t satisfy that difference, they’re infringing. If I create a comic called ‘Tinypacked’, starring a gay toy collector working for a megalomaniac who is /Asian/…it isn’t enough to keep it from being copyright infringement.
And just because someone hasn’t been sued for copyright infringement yet doesn’t mean they are immune to it; just means they haven’t been yet.
And yes, Fan-fic writers are stealing intellectual property if they’re trying to make a buck off of it; possibly even if they’re not. That’s why sometimes authors/owners/creators/artists/Willises send Cease and Desist letters to fanfic sites even if they’re not making money; because if you are not vigorous enough in defending your copyright, you can /lose/ it.
You can’t lose copyright by not defending it. That’s a common misconception among people who don’t understand that copyrights and trademarks are distinct concepts covered by entirely different laws.
*sigh* Zeloxenia.
From what I’ve heard, it actually skirts infringement ever so slightly. I’d assume that it’s legal for about the same reason David’s SP! books that use copyrighted characters often are legal, whatever that reason may be.
RE: Jabberwocky: The Shortpacked! books probably slide by under Fair Use and/or Parody laws, since the copyrighted characters aren’t the main focus or selling point but make the occasional cameo for comedic purposes.
However “original” the design of the individual figures may be, the fact is that they are promoting and selling them as Transformers. Transformers is a registered trademark. By selling product under the Transformers name without a license agreement they are, in fact, committing quite flagrantly illegal acts.
Whether or not they’re “thieves” depends on how you want to word it (are they “stealing” potential money from Hasbro? Perhaps “stealing” their trademark to use it illicitly?) but the bottom line is the custom modellers are firmly in the legal wrong.
Not thieves in the legal definition, if only barely. But certainly breaking the spirit of the law, making money off someone else’s properties and ideas. Just because the victim is a Big Corporation doesn’t make it any more ethical.
I disagree. Ethics is one’s own internal value system. Morality is an external (society / god / etc.) system.
Using Batman as an example: He finds it ethical to dangle bad guys 100s of feet over pavement, but not to shoot them even in self defense.
His ethics are 180 from legal but it’s still ethical.
Fanfic authors don’t sale their work so I cant see how that can ever be worse.
Making original works inspired/using other peoples IP’s is, at worse, rude.
But as soon as you start saling your work though you potentially are undercutting/undervalueing the original item and thus cutting into their sales. I can certainly see strong arguments that copyright lasts too long, or is taken to far these days – but we cant argue that it should be ok to use other peoples IPs just as long as you do something “different”. It would hardly be fair for Hollywood to make a movie based on, say, Shortpacked, abuse the brand, give Willis nothing, and then later claim its “ok” because their work was “original” or “different”.
IP’s and authors rights are very important, whether they be big companys or individuals.
The only way I can see fanproducts/fics/art being legaly and fairly sold would be under some sort of profit/royalty scheme. (“Anyone can use anyone else’s IP as long as they give X% of all profits back to the creator”).That sort of law could work…maybe. Allthough that wouldn’t really stop the Hollywood abuse scenario, seeing as they manage to legaly rig their books to claim that most big blockbusters don’t turn a profit and thus tax and royalties don’t apply… -sigh-
By international copyright law, if you make no money, you’re fine. If you make money, it’s classified as theft. Rather simple really.
Bzzt. Copyright violation is still copyright violation, even if you make no money off it. They just can’t expect to sue you for as much if you make no money off it, so they rarely bother. Trademark violation is a bigger problem, since if it can be shown they failed to defend a trademark they can lose it to the public domain, so they have to hide behind a legal fiction of not knowing about fanfic.
Oh, and I suppose I should expand on the definitions a little.
Copyright refers to literal copies of a specific work. So if you took a Transformer, cast a new mold of it and made your own versions from that mold, it’d be a direct copyright violation.
Copyrights also contain a “halo” of derivative works that are deemed to be directly based on the original work. So if I say my homemade transforming robot is an Autobot, I have plugged it into the derivative works framework of Hasbro’s properties. And if it looks pretty clearly like, say, Animated Ironhide with a few new paint applications, then even if I don’t call it an Autobot I’m in violation of derivative copyright.
However, the line around derivative works is hazy at best, and rulings tend to favor whoever has more money to pay lawyers. That’s why companies prefer to stick with trademarks, which are easier to defend…but at the cost that you MUST defend them.
Fansproject toys skirt the gray area of derivative copyright violation, but they’re fairly careful to avoid tripping over actual trademarks. Failing to defend a copyright doesn’t cost you the copyright, you just have to worry about lost sales. Failing to defend a trademark could cost you the trademark. Fansproject doesn’t do enough business to be a threat from a copyright-only stance, and they’ve been careful enough about trademarks so far that Hasbro has been able to ignore them on that count.
No, not as simple as that. Even under the Berne Convention, what qualifies as “fair use” is not constant. Under American legal precedent, not intending to make a profit can be part of a fair use defense, but is usually insufficient on its own. If you make a bunch of photocopies of Twilight and hand them out on the street corner for free, you’re still violating copyright (and possibly perpetrating a crime against humanity).
I believe this Shortpacked! strip is appropiate.
-airfox
this reminds me of some anime fans and how they whine that dib companies are evil, now that the Japanese companies are making them crack down of fansubs.
*dub* damn lack of an edit option.
Slightly different issue that though.
If an Anime isn’t available in a territory/language anyway, can you really hurt sales?
I mean, arguably it might be released in future, and your hurting those future sales. But thats a pretty big “if”. Its certainly legaly wrong, but it seems less moraly wrong to me.
I think it would be nice, in fact, is there was some law that copyrights/patents only applied if a product was legaly avaliable in your country (within a year or two). If a company can’t be bothered to give you a legal way to get something, they can’t later moan over “pirating” (of various sorts).
It can hurt sales. There are plenty of series that are wildly popular in the West, but the dubs still end up with low sales. People say they’ll buy it when its licensed, but they don’t, often citing expense or minor flaws in the dub.
nope.avi.
The Berne Convention gives protection to all signatories. If it’s copyrighted in one signing country, its copyrighted in all. The US and Japan had signed on long before anime even existed. Also, there are various legal issues that may delay localization; Mother 3 fans have been demanding a US version of the third game for years, but Nintendo has been mum. Presumably they’re having issues with the soundtrack, which heavily samples various bits of music.
yeah they both signed Geneva convention too, and we’ve seen it…
Yes, you can hurt sales.
Because the import/export industry exists.
The next thing you know, Hasbro might release toys of stuff that hasn’t come out before, and that’ll be hurting other toy makers who were releasing their own toys! ZOMGS! Hasbro should go out of business to keep other companies from being stepped on, the FIENDS!
I looked at Fansproject’s website and couldn’t find anything about a Wreck-Gar look-alike on there. Not that their site is easy to find anything on at all, but still.
I like what they do, but the prices are way too high for my taste/budget.
It’s too early in the development stage to be pimped out much, but the name of their Wreck-Gar toy is “Collector.” I’m sure Googling that will yield some results.
It seems to me that way too many collectors are addicts, spending way too much time and money on things that don’t actually bring them pleasure anymore, at least based on the amount ofwhining on the net.
It’s hard to let go. It took me years to quit my $200 a month comic book habit but the sense of freedom when you finally do is amazing. The best part is you never have to complain about something you can’t stand because you aren’t even aware of its existence anymore.
Sometimes, I regret being part of the TF fandom.
The fact that no matter how plumply they may be stuffed with straw, that people with those actual viewpoint frighten me. I need a freakin’ drink.
So what are you going to do with the legal version your lawyer told you to replace this comic with?
Ha ha ha as if I actually had a lawyer!
Even though the rantings on the whole subject are just way out there, there is one sad truth, Hasbro is an evil empire bent on world domination to monetize and own the whole of the toy and game market.
I’m more of a Games Junkie/Guru even if I did work in the Toy manufacturing sector for a few years – If you are in the industry long enough you see the patterns and the truth of things. They are not pretty and make you doubt the sanity and ethics of your fellow humans.
Dare to be stupid.
Dare to be stupid
Come on and dare to be stupid
It’s so easy to do
Dare to be stupid
We’re all waiting for you
Let’s go
This is in my head now, and it’s all. Your. Fault.
Video game fans see something like this every time a publisher shuts down a fangame or fanmovie. It doesn’t matter how many ROMhacks of SMB Nintendo allows, the second they stop, say, a fanmade Pokemon MMO or a Zelda movie everyone wants their head on a pike.
I hope the next Shortpacked statue is of this guy.
Outraged fan is outraged. Isn’t there a trope describing this guy somewhere?
I don’t get the rage over Fansproject’s stuff.
Nor do I get the rage over Hasbro deciding one of their older creations is due for an update.
If it hoses over FProject oh well.
This is totally every other poster regged on 2007 or after on TFW2005.
FansProject stuff is awesome. Plus, I spend enough on Hasbro Transformers that I don’t feel bad about buying Third Party TF-like items.
And half of the reason I buy TFs in the first place is because of this comic.
FansProject would be a little more awesome if my toy could actually hold the weapon they made for it!
That stare does make Ethan look like he’s going to explode any second now.