Hasbro getting tough on prototypes on fan sites - Hasbro response page 7

[AnnaPommes]

i wonder what hasbro said about this.
i mean, does anyone know abount an official statement from hasbro ?
we can discuss a lot here, but we still don´t know how it was meant actually.
did someone once emailed the hasbro support and asked them about taobao leaks?

[Rhini]

The only thing I have to add is that we cannot conclusively know that hasbro's legal team obtained his address from the person offering him free items. They could legitimately be unconnected. Sure the timing is very coincidental, but that's a heck of a stretch for someone to go to to get an address.

THIS.

I am not saying the guy is making things up, but so far we only have one side of the story, his. We only have his viewpoint of how things are happening. The situation from the other viewpoint might be quite different indeed. What if Hasbro really was wanting to send him some free product for his blog?

The blogger himself states that Hasbro sent him another email asking for his mailing address a second time, after he had already received the lawyer letter. This to me implies that the two instances are not connected, like he assumes they are. Like NoDivision says, that's a pretty lengthy stretch to go to get someone's mailing address.

My final say: Don't believe everything you read in a blog or other website as if it were straight up 100% fact. At least think about it a bit to see if it makes sense.

Yea but what you have to realize is that short of tracking someone's IP address to their house using hacking/police methods, you probably can't obtain someone's address just from a handle they use as a blogger. Can I find your current home address with only your username on this forum? I don't think I could. They obviously thought that emailing him was insufficient and didn't think he would provide a physical location for himself, as I certainly would not, so they used underhanded methods.


Plus, why on earth would Hasbro offer free product to someone they are considering taking legal action against? Because I don't think their law firm would not act independently of Hasbro itself in terms of pursuing legal action against individuals. I would assume they would need to get some sort of go ahead from them first, and any person getting a go ahead to send free, unreleased product would likely have to speak to the same individuals and they would have raised a red flag.


As someone stated earlier too, we have to keep in mind that Hasbro Australia is not the same as Hasbro USA, and has shown in the past that they are not supportive of their fans at all.

[Dyzarktarzk]

Another thing I've been thinking, not sure how many of you guys have thought about this issue:

I'd REALLY PREFER Hasbro ONLY released a certain amount of ponies PER YEAR (ie, 30), all DIFFERENT and ORIGINAL, than having 80 ponies, 70 of them being the same 'basic' ponies just with different accessories and/or playsets, and the new ponies (10) being bonus only available with the playset and pony released already (ie, I'd really the baby unicorn that is with Applejack, forgot the name, but I ALREADY HAVE 2 Applejacks, and want her no more).  If going to release playsets and accessories, why not release them without ponies?  Or with a really exclusive pony and not ponies already released?

[LadyMoondancer]

Hasbro’s Gibson hung up on Crikey  when we called her for comment, saying that “I’m not allowed to comment…I’m going to have to go” when asked whether the she had used the Pinpoint Sight offer to trick Yang into disclosing his address.

Translation:  "Yes, that is exactly what we did."

[ShortyBoo]

Another thing I've been thinking, not sure how many of you guys have thought about this issue:

I'd REALLY PREFER Hasbro ONLY released a certain amount of ponies PER YEAR (ie, 30), all DIFFERENT and ORIGINAL, than having 80 ponies, 70 of them being the same 'basic' ponies just with different accessories and/or playsets, and the new ponies (10) being bonus only available with the playset and pony released already (ie, I'd really the baby unicorn that is with Applejack, forgot the name, but I ALREADY HAVE 2 Applejacks, and want her no more).  If going to release playsets and accessories, why not release them without ponies?  Or with a really exclusive pony and not ponies already released?

I wish they'd offer the playset exclusive ponies separately on their website. I think that would be awesome if we had the option to buy Sweetie Swirl, Star Dreams, Star Swirl, Starbeam Twinkle, Skywishes, etc. by themselves for $5 or so directly from Hasbro. They wouldn't even have to bother with fancy packaging, just send them in clear plastic bags like they did with the G1 mail order ponies. It likely will never happen, but it would stop a lot of the TaoBao sales, I think.

[teresat]

I wish they'd offer the playset exclusive ponies separately on their website. I think that would be awesome if we had the option to buy Sweetie Swirl, Star Dreams, Star Swirl, Starbeam Twinkle, Skywishes, etc. by themselves for $5 or so directly from Hasbro. They wouldn't even have to bother with fancy packaging, just send them in clear plastic bags like they did with the G1 mail order ponies. It likely will never happen, but it would stop a lot of the TaoBao sales, I think.

Really great idea.

Also, as far as new releases, this year has been really dry. We're almost 5 months into the year and only 2 new ponies have been *officially* released. If they released more *new* ponies, customers would not be stalking Taobao. Yes, we know more *new* ponies are coming but they have been slow.


Edited to add emphasis to "new" and not mane 6.

[NoDivision]

Yea but what you have to realize is that short of tracking someone's IP address to their house using hacking/police methods, you probably can't obtain someone's address just from a handle they use as a blogger. Can I find your current home address with only your username on this forum? I don't think I could. They obviously thought that emailing him was insufficient and didn't think he would provide a physical location for himself, as I certainly would not, so they used underhanded methods.

We're not talking about a forum username though, we're talking about a doman registry. I can find basic info on who owns the doman in question by just doing a google search. The letter says "our searches show that you are the registrant of the doman urbantaggers.com" Ownership info for domains is pretty easy to find. If you work in legal, you can probably find far more information pretty easily. I'm just saying, I don't think a legal team would have to resort to trying to bribe someone with the promise of free toys - there are much easier ways for them to find the information.

[Taxel]

Yea but what you have to realize is that short of tracking someone's IP address to their house using hacking/police methods, you probably can't obtain someone's address just from a handle they use as a blogger. Can I find your current home address with only your username on this forum? I don't think I could. They obviously thought that emailing him was insufficient and didn't think he would provide a physical location for himself, as I certainly would not, so they used underhanded methods.

We're not talking about a forum username though, we're talking about a doman registry. I can find basic info on who owns the doman in question by just doing a google search. The letter says "our searches show that you are the registrant of the doman urbantaggers.com" Ownership info for domains is pretty easy to find. If you work in legal, you can probably find far more information pretty easily. I'm just saying, I don't think a legal team would have to resort to trying to bribe someone with the promise of free toys - there are much easier ways for them to find the information.

However they seemed to not understand Google, what auction/selling websites are, etc. They assumed that because he bought a product/found photos online he had the name, address, email, and IP address of the seller/owner of said items. They're internet retards.

[NoDivision]

I also think it's presumptuous to asume that one single person is behind the whole inquiry. Just because one person doesn't seem to understand the concept of property on the internet doesn't mean someone else who was asked to find the address can't use google.

[Dyzarktarzk]

I wish they'd offer the playset exclusive ponies separately on their website. I think that would be awesome if we had the option to buy Sweetie Swirl, Star Dreams, Star Swirl, Starbeam Twinkle, Skywishes, etc. by themselves for $5 or so directly from Hasbro. They wouldn't even have to bother with fancy packaging, just send them in clear plastic bags like they did with the G1 mail order ponies. It likely will never happen, but it would stop a lot of the TaoBao sales, I think.

Really great idea.

Also, as far as new releases, this year has been really dry. We're almost 5 months into the year and only 2 new ponies have been *officially* released. If they released more *new* ponies, customers would not be stalking Taobao. Yes, we know more *new* ponies are coming but they have been slow.


Edited to add emphasis to "new" and not mane 6.

And don't forget we do not have MO anymore...  *sad*  Only international exclusives that are part of another package...

[Lon-san]

I wish they'd offer the playset exclusive ponies separately on their website. I think that would be awesome if we had the option to buy Sweetie Swirl, Star Dreams, Star Swirl, Starbeam Twinkle, Skywishes, etc. by themselves for $5 or so directly from Hasbro. They wouldn't even have to bother with fancy packaging, just send them in clear plastic bags like they did with the G1 mail order ponies. It likely will never happen, but it would stop a lot of the TaoBao sales, I think.

Oh man, I'd LOVE that. Even if they asked a little more than $5 because of the "specialness" it would still allow people to come out ahead of buying a whole playset or buying one at x3 the price.

[saply]

I wish they'd offer the playset exclusive ponies separately on their website. I think that would be awesome if we had the option to buy Sweetie Swirl, Star Dreams, Star Swirl, Starbeam Twinkle, Skywishes, etc. by themselves for $5 or so directly from Hasbro. They wouldn't even have to bother with fancy packaging, just send them in clear plastic bags like they did with the G1 mail order ponies. It likely will never happen, but it would stop a lot of the TaoBao sales, I think.

I think Hasbro is crazy not to offer their own ponies on their website in a reliable supply. At that point, they wouldn't even have to pay a cut to third-party retailers like Target. I will admit this statement is bred from ignorance, and there could be good reasons for them not doing so, but to me it makes no sense!

[cobalte]

Legal firms acting on behalf of a huge company using underhanded tactics to pressure an individual they are investigating? Well, I never! 


Well, it doesn't surprise me that Hasbro as a whole are starting to investigate these things. I think technically the ponies would still be Hasbro property until released for sale, but don't quote me on that one. What makes me giggle is the seemingly internet-illiterate law firm. Then again, this sort of thing is rather typical in Australia it seems. You'd think the internet was only recently introduced here with some...


Though it looks like Hasbro AU has done a boo-boo on this one if the story is getting around that far.


 

I also want to add, as someone who has dealt with Hasbro Australia for pony fair here.  They are a bunch of tight wads.  We tried to get them involved in 3 fairs.  The first fair they were really pushy about what had to be included for them to be involved.  We followed all their guidelines, and they sent us a small sign with the mlp logo on it.  The second fair they wouldn't even talk to us, and the third they said they only give things to charities and cut communication.  So this may end up being Australia specific.

Hopes of a fairly ok branch of Hasbro being here, dashed a little more.


ETA: Also, it is highly possible that the branch of Hasbro in Australia does not know about Taobao. Those 'is this legit?' questions are mainly fielded to the Facebook page and representatives in the US - which I'm pretty sure are to do with the US branch, and not the Australian one. While Hasbro US or Europe reps may say they pop in here from time to time, there has been no word whether AU reps visit any other fansites at all apart from the one mentioned in the story. They may have only noticed the fansite when the US branch told them to do something about these pictures of unreleased products on an Australian website. Who knows?

[NoDivision]

Also, it is highly possible that the branch of Hasbro in Australia does not know about Taobao. Those 'is this legit?' questions are mainly fielded to the Facebook page and representatives in the US - which I'm pretty sure are to do with the US branch, and not the Australian one. While Hasbro US or Europe reps may say they pop in here from time to time, there has been no word whether AU reps visit any other fansites at all apart from the one mentioned in the story. They may have only noticed the fansite when the US branch told them to do something about these pictures of unreleased products on an Australian website. Who knows?

This is such a great point. This is something that keeps being glossed over as well. People keep talking about Hasbro like it is one big unified entity, when really the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that this particular division doesn't know how taobao works. Even if they are aware of its existence, they might not understand the purchasing process. It's not really that outlandish for them to think that the guy might have more information about the seller.

[Dragonflitter]

Heck, it could be specifically the Nerf branch of the Australian branch of the Hasbro corporation that doesn't understand the existence of taobao... I very sincerely doubt the people in Hasbro who work on Nerf products in Australia are the same who work on the MLP products. This company is just huge.