Harmony Gold is a block up the street from my mailbox, they have a sign on the building, but it's a small building. I'm guessing the problem they have with this is that it's on an F-14 Tomcat-style vehicle which is too similar to the Macross/Robotech Veritech Valkyrie, and they've been waiting to pounce on Hasbro when that mistake was finally made, holding off from when the Generations Jetfire was released because of the change in the vehicle nose design. The irony is that Macross straight-up stole the Grumman F-14 Tomcat design without license, and now they're claiming copyright on that.
BWP wrote:Anyway, they really shouldn't have a case. From my understanding, Jetfire's color scheme was actually one that was made specifically for TF, and didn't show up in 'Robotech' anyway. At any rate, Hasbro just needs to point to Skyfire from the G1 cartoon and go "It's a toy vehicle from a property we own colored like a cartoon character from a show we also own. Suck on it."
Ha ha, no. Jetfire's deco is minor tweaked reuse from the Macross design on Rick Hunter's VF-1S Valkyrie specifically. Only change was the Autobot logo from the UN Spacy logo and the skull & crossbones on the tailfins, I believe. But it's a licensed toy for its time, just the license expired, so they didn't break the rules at the time, but they no longer license the Macross visual license and by using an F-14 Tomcat vehicle they crossed the line, according to HG.
And then this misfire of a lawsuit finally bankrupts Harmony Gold and they're forced to sell off all their assets, including the Macross rights which go back to Bandai FINALLY allowing them to release stuff like Macross F and all the various toys and model kits over here, resulting in world peace. In my dreams, anyway.
I'm still unclear how HG retained the rights after that huge legal battle a few years ago, they retained international rights despite the Japanese courts recognizing that their license was never valid in the first place and Studio Nue was the rightful creator.
Does anyone own Dorvack in the US? They're not gonna sue Hasbro over the upcoming Whirl, are they? (I'm actually kinda curious about how that one'll go over in Japan)
Special Armored Battalion Dorvack looks to not have a US licensee for the entertainment, and they were released via dubious sub-license in the US in the long-dead Converters line whose lineage is lost to the sands of time (a friend was just asking about them a few weeks ago, looks like that US licensee went belly up in the '80s).
Gomess wrote:Robotech is still a thing?
Well, I mean, clearly it isn't, but just enough of a thing to sue people over. Bit petty. Especially considering Robotech isn't exactly an *original* property...
Toynami still has the license from HG to sell the same overpriced mold over and over again in book package format. Also, Dynamite will be doing a comic crossover with Robotech and Voltron this year, so there is still a small US presence.
BWp wrote:I can't believe Hasbro's just rolling over for these losers. It's pretty shisety that they're able to cockblock the wide-release of this toy just by throwing a fit, especially when the toy in question doesn't actually have anything to do with Macross/Robotech.
It's the right move from a legal perspective, they can hold onto the product and wait out the legal issues and then release it without worry, but once the lawsuit is filed there's a concern that it could be seen as blatant violation of copyright, especially with the complainant asking for destruction of the existing unsold product.
TM wrote:Technically,Hasbro at the SDCC Convention was able to sell all those Skystriker Jetfire toys. For all we know Hasbro might have sold hundreds/thousands of them at SDCC Convention.
Few thousand would be my guess, maybe 3 or 4 thousand, with another 1 or 2 thousand held back for HTS. They weren't
ABLE to sell them, HG was claiming that was the initial violation of their copyright.
FWIW,Hasbro can always create dummy accounts on ebay & sell those remaining jetfire skystrikers on ebay. Worse case scenario Hasbro sells the remaining skystrikers jetfire's to bbts,tfsource or whatever...--->It'll be kinda hard for Harmony-gold to do the research/investigating to see if Hasbro is selling these or not.
They cannot liquidate them in any way, if they tried that and were found in violation, they would be slapped down much harder. If HG wins this case the way it stands now, the sets are destroyed and Hasbro pays HG for sets sold at SDCC. If HG loses, Hasbro puts the sets up on HTS. If Hasbro sells more of the sets during litigation, it will weaken their legal standing, showing willful disregard for copyright, there may even be a judicial order in place keeping them from doing that. But they're not stupid, these sets represent a drop in the bucket for Hasbro, they're not going to do something stupid to put their billion-dollar company at risk over a few grand in profits.
Dom wrote:In legal terms, Harmony Gold has....not a hell of much to work from.
They have distribution rights that would arguably qualify as squatting (acquiring the rights to IP and then doing nothing but "defend" them from infringement). This could cost them those rights or obligate them to use those rights. And, there is no way that HG has more money than Hasbro.
Well, that's entirely wrong. HG has active licensed product lines with Toynami and has had that presence for I think over a DECADE in the US. And now they're moving forward with a new comic from Dynamite. They aren't copyright-trolling. And their claim has merit since the F-14 Tomcat design copied by GI Joe is very close to the Macross Valkyrie design, and the paint scheme is virtually identical to Rick Hunter's Valkyrie in jet mode wearing Macross/Robotech FASTpacks. No, they
do have a leg to stand on, they have a fighting chance. Doesn't mean they'll win, but don't count them out just yet.
The basis of their complaint is.....that Hasbro used tooling that they own (the Skystriker) to make a toy that is painted in the colours (and colour mapping) of a character that Hasbro owns and paid for the development of. The one tie that this toy has to Harmony Gold's property is that it shares a name and colours with a toy/character that was released 25+ years ago using a pressing of a mould that Harmony Gold does not dispute that Hasbro had a right to use at the time.
The Jetfire G1 mold is not Harmony Gold's, that was Takatoku's mold who had the Japanese Macross license at the time. The colors are not Hasbro's but Harmony Gold's as there aren't enough changes from the recognizable Rick Hunter Valkyrie design.
In PR terms....what is Harmony Gold trying to prove? Do they seriously think that a recall is practical? Do they think that a recall (never mind stopping sales of TF/Joe sets that have not yet been sold) is going to earn them any goodwill? Anybody who still cares about "Robotech" likely has copies (legal and otherwise) of the episodes. HG is a joke, and this will not help them. (After this, I would buy bootlegged "Robotech" on principle if I were going to buy it at all.)
They want cash, but more importantly, if they let this violation pass, they are essentially telling the courts that they are giving up rights to their copyright, they MUST pursue copyright violations lest the passing of one event allow another to use that as precedent. Also, they need to protect their legal licensee who has a similar-looking product at market right now, Toynami. It's legally sound, even if they lose.
