Anybody give a crap about the movie line right now?

[BWprowl]

Yes, but it's because of lawyers that that even has to happen to begin with. Somewhere a long time ago, some asshole said "Hey, that guy's product has the same as mine even though it's completely different." And in came a lawyer that said "Just sue them. Here's my card." then caused shit like this. I mean, is anyone ever REALLY going to confuse Bluestreak the TRANSFORMER with Bluestreak the toy car that some obscure toy company no one's ever heard of that the company doesn't even make any more? No. No one in the right mind would. But because some asshole sued some other asshole a bajillion years ago, suddenly Hasbro can't use the name Bluestreak. It's bullshit and I fucking hate it.
/rant.

Shockwave
-Most lawyers actually enjoy causing shit like this.

Some people's parents might be lawyers, you know. >_>

[Onslaught Six]

Shuts up, Toki. Your fathers is deads.

[Dominic]

I am unsure how it is evil for a lawyer to represent a client's interests in protecting and maintaining the value of IP.

Prowl, what kind of lawyers if you do not mind me asking?

Dom
-has known plenty of good lawyers.

[Shockwave]

Obviously I didn't mean to cast any aspersions towards anyone here (or their relatives) so Prowl, I am genuinely sorry if I offended you. I have to deal with legalese all day at work and it's easily the most annoying part of my job. Not to mention that since I work for a public system everything we send out is basically a legal document meaning that when someone calls in to request a simple statement of this or that it has to go through two or three different departments and winds up taking a month just to get it drafted and sent. It's bureaucratic red tape just for the sake of it. AND on top of that, once we do actually send out the statement it's worded so convolutedly that no one would be able to understand it anyway. Then the other thing that irritates me is when I see shit like the whole Bluestreak thing and I just gotta think "You gotta be fucking kidding me!" I understand that there are some instances where protection of intellectual property is genuinely necessary but shit like this just regoddamndiculous.

Shockwave
-Also knows a few decent lawyers.
A very few.

[Dominic]

Look at it like this, if Hasbro had bene more aggressive (using lawyers), they would not have lost the copyright in the first place.

Say what I will about Hasbro, they have always been much more generous with IP than is necessary, or even advisable.


Dom

[Shockwave]

Look at it like this, if Hasbro had bene more aggressive (using lawyers), they would not have lost the copyright in the first place.

True but I find the need for them to do this in the first place to be ridiculous. I mean, I can see wanting to make sure nobody puts out the same product with the same name on it but I don't see any problem with two completely different and unrelated products being named the same thing.

[JediTricks]

I would think a problem would be that Hasbro cannot be too forceful about protecting those old copyrights because all of them are applied to toys that are UNLICENSED versions of other companies' visual trademarks. They didn't protect it back in the day, and now they have to tread lightly because they want to avoid any conflict so the foundation of their brand doesn't get shaken. I wonder if we asked them for a more direct explanation of what causes this, would they just sputter a generic answer or simply refuse comment? I think we asked something like that about Straxus on AF but got a sputtery answer.

[Shockwave]

Yeah yeah, I know they have to protect their IP blahblahblahblah. I just think the system is fundamentally ridiculous and annoying. I get it, but it doesn't make it any less irritating.

[JediTricks]

Yeah yeah, I know they have to protect their IP blahblahblahblah. I just think the system is fundamentally ridiculous and annoying. I get it, but it doesn't make it any less irritating.

Something I came across recently made me think it's not that crazy. Back in '84 when they were creating post-wave-1 characters for Transformers, they had this one guy, a robot that turned into a t-rex, and one of the names they were considering using for him was... "Trapjaw". Keep in mind, Mattel's Masters of the Universe figure and cartoon character of the same name had been on the market for a year at that point.

Then again, Lucasfilm and Paramount went to war over early '80s sci-fi movie title starting with the word "revenge", each claiming they had right to their title starting with that term and the other would be ripping off their business. In the end neither used it with "Wrath of Khan" or "Return of the Jedi".

[Shockwave]

Heh, same thing happened with Alien: Resurrection and Star Trek Insurrection (which was originally supposed to be subtitled Resurrection).