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Author Topic: Hasbro is going after a pony plushie maker on DA  (Read 33768 times)

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Offline Tilas

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Hasbro is going after a pony plushie maker on DA
« on: May 22, 2012, 02:40:08 PM »
(Sorry if this is a repeat, I did a few searches and didn't find anything)  I just read this on DeviantArt, that a pony plushie maker who is fantastic as making plushies just got a cease and desist letter from DA staff, after they were approached by Habros legal eagles. I've copied their journal post below, and I'm curious, what do you think? I mean on one hand, I side with the artist. On the other.... I have to kind side with Hasbro on this one. I mean, yes, it's fan work and so many of us do sell cutoms and things, but I know this artist has been selling their work in the thousands of dollars, and it's all out using hasbro's property, not parody, not alteration or custom. So... where to draw the line? What do you think? Fair play or infringement?

Quote
ORIGINAL: http://whitedove-creations.deviantart.com/journal/Here-we-go-again-303725481
This is not a troll doing this. It is from the DA administation.  They have a complaint from Hasbro.

Someone turned me in. 

This note came from

"I'm contacting you today as a courtesy concerning a complaint which we have received.

We have received a claim of infringement from one Carin G. Reynolds, Esq. of Golenbock, Eiseman, Assor, Bell & Peskoe law firm representing Hasbro Inc.

The claim targets your use of your deviantART account to produce, advertise and sell plushies of the My Little Pony characters.

Hasbro is demanding that we close your account due to your infringement on their MLP property.

We obviously do not wish to close your account so I have spoken with Hasbro's representative and they would be willing to accept a solution which involves you removing all advertising and offers to sell My Little Pony related creations through your deviantART account.

If you are willing to voluntarily remove all My Little Pony related journals and deviations mentioning that you will or have sold plushies of these characters and thereby infringed on Hasbro's copyright and trademark then we can consider the matter to be resolved providing that you do not resume offering these characters for sale through your deviantART account.

I do hope that you are willing to remove this content from your deviantART account as our only other option to satisfy the claim of infringement filed with us by Hasbro's representative is to actually close your account and remove everything."


END OF NOTE

They are asking me to remove any post concerning commissions and prices, but maybe I will get to keep
my pics as long as they do not infringe copyright. In order to prevent any additional problems, I'm also removing all MLP related names and replacing them with generic substitutes like Purple Pony.

I am removing any names that are Hasbros

If you have any question, my email is listed. Please note me there.           

Offline Ice Crystal

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Re: Hasbro is going after a pony plushie maker on DA
« Reply #1 on: May 22, 2012, 02:44:00 PM »
Wow. I guess I can understand it but dang. That's too bad. Their plush are really lovely!

This person has even had their plush purchased by Jayson Thiessen. http://whitedove-creations.deviantart.com/art/she-is-going-to-live-with-Jayson-Thiessen-299594390
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Offline babystarz

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Re: Hasbro is going after a pony plushie maker on DA
« Reply #2 on: May 22, 2012, 02:53:25 PM »
Aww, that's really too bad :/ I wonder why they've just gone after her? I do believe it is infringement, it's just odd to me that only one person has received communication about it.
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Offline Eviecorn

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Re: Hasbro is going after a pony plushie maker on DA
« Reply #3 on: May 22, 2012, 02:56:16 PM »
Weak!  That's pretty scary for a relatively small-time plush maker. :(

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Water_Fire

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Re: Hasbro is going after a pony plushie maker on DA
« Reply #4 on: May 22, 2012, 02:57:04 PM »
Hmm. I can see why Hasbro WOULD go after them, but why only single out one seller? It does whiff a little bit of the troll to me, but I can't be sure.


Of course, there is the argument that they've made thousands of dollars off their copyright. In an ideal world, they'd hire the artist on to design plushies for them legitimately. After all, it's what the tech companies do with hackers!

Offline Lyra

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Re: Hasbro is going after a pony plushie maker on DA
« Reply #5 on: May 22, 2012, 02:58:13 PM »
Quote
If you are willing to voluntarilyremove all My Little Pony related journals and deviations *mentioning that you will or have sold* plushies of these characters

Ah it's not so bad, all they have been asked to do is remove anything that explicitely says the plushies are for sale, or have been sold. The person can simply continue posting pictues of pony plushies, but only discuss sales through private messaging, it's not really a loss and is a more careful way to go about it
« Last Edit: May 22, 2012, 03:00:24 PM by Lyra »
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Offline Bellevi

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Re: Hasbro is going after a pony plushie maker on DA
« Reply #6 on: May 22, 2012, 03:00:49 PM »
Maybe this means that they'll be going after other plushie makers. This will probably be just for G4 plushie makers, right? As far as I understand, Hasbro has lost the copyright for a lot of G1 names and I know AnitasMom makes a lot of G1 plushes.

Offline knitgirl

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Re: Hasbro is going after a pony plushie maker on DA
« Reply #7 on: May 22, 2012, 03:01:16 PM »
That's pretty sickening.  It's not like you can buy official MLP show accurate plushies in a range of characters.  Because if I could, I would.. Who would rather spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on a stuffed animal instead of say $20 if they had a choice???

Offline StarFaerie

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Re: Hasbro is going after a pony plushie maker on DA
« Reply #8 on: May 22, 2012, 03:02:17 PM »
Hmmm, having a look at her plushes, there is a lot of craft and skill in what she does but not a lot of art. I think that's what differentiates it from most custom work and makes it infringement rather than homage or fan art.
Hasbro are being rather nice about it for a large corporation really, just getting her to take down mentions of sales and even letting her keep her DA account rather than actually suing her for the infringement.
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Offline Emfen

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Re: Hasbro is going after a pony plushie maker on DA
« Reply #9 on: May 22, 2012, 03:05:58 PM »
It's a gray area.. I mean look at we love fine, they sell pony t-shirts but do they have any partnership with hasbro? There are a lot of plush makers, or merch makers for that reason. Instead of targeting this artist, I think they should have offered the artist to be hired and design their plush. Sometimes hasbro seems to punish the fanbase more than embrace it. Then you got those who make 3d figures... There are a lot of talented designers just lying in front of hasbros feet and yet they blindly claim copyright.
I understand that you might dislike your materials floating around on the web, but hey it's free promotion. Someone liked your stuff and decided to spread it around. Once my art was "stolen", but I figured that the person that re-uploaded it liked it so no hard feelings.
If now hasbro was claiming copyright, why not target equestria daily? Or Eveerfree radio? Or minecraft servers with pony material taking payments? There are a lot of those which fall in the category of copyright infringement so why target a single person?
It's like that dumb urban taggers incident all over again.
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Re: Hasbro is going after a pony plushie maker on DA
« Reply #10 on: May 22, 2012, 03:09:33 PM »
We Love Fine is different because it's got a deal with Hasbro to make the shirts.


Thinking about it, it whiffs even harder of the trolls to me. After all, they've been successful in taking the Youtube accounts down in the past. There's such a huge custom base for MLP, it really does feel odd they'd only go for one (albeit very profitable) artist.

Offline Tilas

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Re: Hasbro is going after a pony plushie maker on DA
« Reply #11 on: May 22, 2012, 03:17:12 PM »
Rereading it, I can't help but agree with the troll possibility. Maybe someone who didn't like her whined and complained to get her caught. I dunno. Still, it's a tough call. I mean it's one thing when we sell customs for $20-$50. We're small fries and able to fly under copyright radar. But this artist was getting over a $1000 per pony, which is much more noticable...

Offline Emfen

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Re: Hasbro is going after a pony plushie maker on DA
« Reply #12 on: May 22, 2012, 03:24:36 PM »
Of course quality is desired, hence the big bucks. If only hasbro learned that if they put some more quality into their plush merch it wouldn't be such a problem. She is one of the best plush makers around and the demand to own a thing of that quality is a privilege to pony fans, what if hasbro sold plush ponies of that quality? I'd buy one in an instant.
I think there's trolling involved...
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Offline Al-1701

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Re: Hasbro is going after a pony plushie maker on DA
« Reply #13 on: May 22, 2012, 03:32:21 PM »
What I find interesting is it's a law firm contacting Deviantart.  Why wouldn't Hasbro contact her directly?  It's not like they don't know how if she's selling the plush.
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Offline Catlein

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Re: Hasbro is going after a pony plushie maker on DA
« Reply #14 on: May 22, 2012, 03:32:58 PM »
It might be an issue of volume. WhiteDove has sold several plushies in the over a thousand dollar range, and her commissions are usually $400 plus. Well this isn't generally any different in pricing that other big name plushie artists, WD has made an absolute tonne of plushies, and has probably profited immensely in a short period of time. A mildly profitable hobby spread out over several years (like your average customerizer) is probably not as threatening to Hasbro as what WD is being perceived as.

Hasbro might also be uncomfortable with the fact that even the show creators are going to her now that she's so well known.

 

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