New vehicles for TF4

[JediTricks]

So he actually invented new devices to go on his Camaro? That he actually owns the patent for? Also, again I'm wondering if he's actually even pissed off about this. Nothing anywhere has ever said what his position is. Hell, for all we know, he could be flattered and think it's the coolest thing since sliced bread. I just find it funny that the fans are so up in arms over this when we haven't actually heard from the guy himself.

No, he took existing parts and put them together, based on design artwork he dreamed up and created. If this were a patent, this would be a slam dunk, patents allow for use of prior patents as long as they are sourced as such, that's why Apple can successfully sue Samsung for a "slide to unlock" despite there already being touchscreen computers AND slide locks that unlock things in the real world. But it's not a patent issue, it's a copyright issue, and that's muddier (the wheels are a similar but different thing, his design on them is a modification based on a previous design, but they were fabricated only this way for his design, not bolted-onto from existing designs). In any case, it's a really shitty thing to do on their part.


I think you forgot or didn't read all of the article or the extra talkback with his personal comments:
http://jalopnik.com/mr-vengeance-wrote- ... -510727515

I don't know what to think of this..

part of me is flattered they would outright copy my car to make for one of my favorite toy characters of all time..

then part of me is kind of mad that they just outright took my hard work and put a yellow stripe on the nose.. even the execution is horrible on the copy of my ideas..

The worst thing would be for every little kid calling my car Bumblebee and others making bootleg Bumblebee clones.. that would suck.

[...]

The big thing is that many recognize that it was indeed from the heart.. enough so that so many people alerted me to what they saw with the Transformers 4 Bumblebee, and that I was blatantly ripped off..
They surely just googled my car.. hell, google Vengeance Camaro and you will see how many places this thing is and the respect it gets (not me but the car gets).
I didn't build my car to eventually be called Bumblebee.. she already HAS a name.. and a name with meaning.

And I don't appreciate the blatant copy of ALL my modifications..
couldnt you have painted bumblee bee YELLOW with the same mods?... did it HAVE to be flat black with all the SAME mods?
their execution of my car was lackluster also.. they couldnt even find out what handles my car was running so they used similar early vette handles.. even shaved front valance.. even the stabilizer bars canted like mine.. even copied my mirrors.. but the biggest giveaway is the wheels.. they must have called up my wheel maker and asked EXACTLY for the same wheels and depth.. not knowing that the car was minitubbed to accommodate the 14s in the rear.

So before you go defending Bay's production designers again, consider putting your father's dream and your own dream onto paper, then taking 7 years of hard work, of sweat and blood and toil and busted knuckles to bring that dream to life that makes a statement about who you as an individual are and how you got there, and then see that originality get flushed down the shitter by greedy, lazy people who just copied the first image on Google they could find. I'm not even accusing Bay of fault here, he probably had no idea, that's why he pays production designers to come up with that sort of thing, and you know how little credit I give him generally. But to claim this plagiarism is ok simply because it's poorly protected under existing copyright law because its base comes from a production car is pretty short-sighted IMO.

[Shockwave]

I'm not defending Bay at all, I'm just trying to understand this and that is coming from a legal perspective (no, I'm not a lawyer). And I still don't get it. And here's the part that I don't get: People are all up in arms as if this guy owns the design of the entire car itself, when in reality he doesn't "own" anything. He doesn't own the design of the Camaro, Chevy does. It doesn't even sound like he owns the designs of the custom parts he used nor does it even sound like he owns so much as a copyright on the custom paint job he did. So what is it that he actually owns that got ripped off? Legally, nothing. This would be like me getting pissed off if Hasbro made a Generations Breakdown from the Lambo mold in exactly the same colors I used for my custom. I put a lot of time and effort into that (especially when one considers the resources that went into recasting the Botcon breakdown head in dark blue) but I don't own the character, the parts, or the design, Hasbro does and that's their right to make that if they want to. And actually, it's not even that direct, it would be more like what the fan club is doing by releasing their original G2 Breakdown now in G1 colors. It's essentially the same custom I did but with slightly different paint.

Again, I'm not defending Bay or his staff, but I just don't see why everyone is so pissed off over a couple of mass produced cars that were customized.

[JediTricks]

I'm not defending Bay at all, I'm just trying to understand this and that is coming from a legal perspective (no, I'm not a lawyer). And I still don't get it. And here's the part that I don't get: People are all up in arms as if this guy owns the design of the entire car itself, when in reality he doesn't "own" anything. He doesn't own the design of the Camaro, Chevy does. It doesn't even sound like he owns the designs of the custom parts he used nor does it even sound like he owns so much as a copyright on the custom paint job he did. So what is it that he actually owns that got ripped off? Legally, nothing. This would be like me getting pissed off if Hasbro made a Generations Breakdown from the Lambo mold in exactly the same colors I used for my custom. I put a lot of time and effort into that (especially when one considers the resources that went into recasting the Botcon breakdown head in dark blue) but I don't own the character, the parts, or the design, Hasbro does and that's their right to make that if they want to. And actually, it's not even that direct, it would be more like what the fan club is doing by releasing their original G2 Breakdown now in G1 colors. It's essentially the same custom I did but with slightly different paint.

Again, I'm not defending Bay or his staff, but I just don't see why everyone is so pissed off over a couple of mass produced cars that were customized.

My layperson legal argument is that these are his specific artistic designs, he drew them before Bay's production designers drew them, he realized and executed those designs before Bay's production design team executed their imitation of that design. If he had been working at another movie studio instead of for his personal use, and drew up these designs first and executed them, then Bay's people saw that and copied it, that would be unquestionable plagiarism.

This isn't just ANY Camaro modification, that's not the point, if he simply had a black Camaro and Bay's people made a black Camaro, that wouldn't be a design specific enough to warrant this conversation. But he bought his Camaro and was within his legal rights to modify it in these very unique ways, he designed these very specific mods for only that '67 Camaro body, those mods on that '67 body are what were copied, not the Camaro itself. They copied the designs that led to "Vengeance", that's the issue. They licensed the Mustang from Saleen in '07 despite the base car being a Ford, that was also only mods because they were Saleen's designs on top of the Mustang, Saleen had the money to defend their legal rights to those designs and executions enough to sell the car as an OEM, an original equipment manufacturer.

If this was a store-bought canvas and he was using store-bought paints and other materials to create a piece of art, then Bay's production designers saw his artwork and intentionally copied it without permission or license, you wouldn't be saying "well he has no leg to stand on because he didn't design the canvas and didn't manufacture the paints and other materials". Plagiarism is plagiarism, regardless of the medium.

If you took Generations Sideswipe and modified him into Breakdown before they released it, you would be copying Hasbro's existing character design for Breakdown and would have no rights.

[Shockwave]

It would be more like if he painted a picture and then the movie producers painted that same picture in different colors. Yeah to some extent, that is plagiarism, but not really. It's more like creating a knock off. I dunno, I would have more sympathy with this guy if it had actually been a straight exact copy, but it isn't. The fact that they changed color on some of the parts means that they actually did take they're own artistic license with it, so it's not even very much like the dude's original expression.

[JediTricks]

It would be more like if he painted a picture and then the movie producers painted that same picture in different colors. Yeah to some extent, that is plagiarism, but not really. It's more like creating a knock off. I dunno, I would have more sympathy with this guy if it had actually been a straight exact copy, but it isn't. The fact that they changed color on some of the parts means that they actually did take they're own artistic license with it, so it's not even very much like the dude's original expression.

They changed 1 thing, that's all, just 1 thing: a single color, the gloss nose stripe, from black gloss to yellow gloss - the rest of the car is the same matte black, and the accessories and custom wheels are the identical color too. It couldn't be any more of a copy and still be called Bumblebee, it's literally an identical change, 1 color difference to make it Bumblebee, that's not artistic license, it actually would require a minimum of 7 intentional changes to be considered substantial enough to get a patent if that was what we were talking about.

Anyway, I still see this as REALLY wrong, and the fact that this design started on paper makes it plagiarism.

[Sparky Prime]

A Chevy Sonic RS rally car has been revealed to be in the film.

[Sparky Prime]

A silver Dodge Challenger has been spotted as part of the filming taking place in Texas.

[Almighty Unicron]

This entire conversation has reminded me... bumblebees have horizontal stripes, not vertical. I often forget he's supposed to be named after an insect rather than another abstract name like "Optimus" or "Megatron".

[Onslaught Six]

Bumblebee's stripes were always just aping traditional racing stripes, though. If he had been named Cliffjumper, he'd have the same deco. (Except be red, obviously.)

[Sparky Prime]

Somewhat better picture showing the ambulance we saw a while ago along with the rest of the Autobots, proving that it is indeed an ambulance.