The MLP Arena
Pony Talk => Pony Corral => Topic started by: Al-1701 on January 25, 2016, 03:26:30 PM
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Apparently one of the fonts used for My Little Pony was not theirs to use. They've been accused of piracy by Font Brothers Americas who claim "Generation B" is their intellectual property and want their slice of the very fat pony pie. Hasbro has essentially responded with "See you in court" and this could be a big suit give Friendship is Magic's financial success.
So, a little Hasbro court drama to start the year.
Along with the discussion, posting of Barnacle is allowed.
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All these years and they just now noticed? Yeah. Good luck with that crazy font people.
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I know. It is a font listed on Font Brother's website. The design is exactly like the font most commonly used by My Little Pony for just about everything besides the logo. It's the font "Friendship is Magic" is printed in. It's on Hasbro and Hasbro-licensed material. This has the potential to be a nasty blow to Hasbro.
However, it's been five years. They only bothered to check now?
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I know. It is a font listed on Font Brother's website. The design is exactly like the font most commonly used by My Little Pony for just about everything besides the logo. It's the font "Friendship is Magic" is printed in. It's on Hasbro and Hasbro-licensed material. This has the potential to be a nasty blow to Hasbro.
However, it's been five years. They only bothered to check now?
Some people are rather oblivious
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From an article on this "In addition, Font Brothers demand the destruction of all products and material which utilize the infringing font."
:shocked:
Seems like overkill.
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Especially since that means literally everything My Little Pony. Again, it's the front "Friendship is Magic" is printed in. Good grief, if they win on that front, they would have to pull the show.
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Wow the show has been going on for how long now and they just noticed? I don't think they would have to end the show just use another font, hopefully one they make up. They could use the G1 MLP font that would be cool.
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They would need to go back and re-edit that new font into all the previous episodes.
Does anyone know who decided to use Generation B as the defining font of this generation? Was it Faust?
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The weird thing is they acknowledged it as the "official font of My Little Pony" on their site. I think they are just after a nice fat settlement.
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Interesting . . . The font in question does look a lot like the one Hasbro uses on the back of G4 backcards a lot, but I am not font-knowledgeable enough to know if it's the same. Edit: Nevermind, Hasbro itself refers to it as the font in question.
Hasbro's marketing team are probably the ones who chose the font.
The other question is, do the Font Brothers HAVE the legal right to this font? Their website describes them as having "a library" of fonts. Do they personally design all the fonts on their site? Do they buy the rights to them from individual font creators? Or??
I'll be very surprised if Hasbro ends up changing the font. At most, they will pay the Font Bros enough money to make the problem go away.
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Font Brother's has acknowledged that Hasbro is allowed to use this font.
I BELIEVE that the whole argument is that they are not getting compensated for everywhere that the font is being used. Part of it is the font is being given out to third parties and third parties are using it.
(IE different companies making plushies, different companies making books, multiple companies making stickers...)
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Oh, snap! Hold onto your pony merch, guys -- it's going to get rare and valuable!
But seriously. This sounds like the kind of thing that will end up being settled out of court... though who knows? We may have a whole new pony generation over this.
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*gets on the rollercoaster!*
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[link removed ~ hathorcat]
Here is the official civil complaint. Basically, Hasbro did not buy the proper license to use the font to the extent they did. This font has become intimately tied to My Little Pony's current identity, which appears to be beyond the scope of the intent of the license they had recieved. Also, they have distributed the software related to this font without Font Brothers' permission. That would include to DHX for production of the show.
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Bring on G5! Bring on G5! :P
Seriously though, I would be deeply amused if this is what brought G4 to an end. Unlikely, but wild!!
How the heck does a massive company like Hasbro not triple-check all of their licenses and such??
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Upon information and belief, Defendant Hasbro has not purchased the special license
from Font Brothers which authorizes the use of the GENERATION B font software as a
resource for use on goods for sale and for distribution to third parties or in the creation of
its various HASBRO “My Little Pony” branded goods, products, and/or services.
Hmm . . . reading the court papers, it sounds like Hasbro purchased some kind of license, but the font company is arguing it didn't purchase the correct license for what the font was used for.
At present, the amount of such damages, gains, profits, and advantages cannot be fully
ascertained by Font Brothers, but are believed to be not less than $150,000.
Uh, that's it? I figured this was about millions of dollars.
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Bring on G5! Bring on G5! :P
Seriously though, I would be deeply amused if this is what brought G4 to an end. Unlikely, but wild!!
How the heck does a massive company like Hasbro not triple-check all of their licenses and such??
I have pleasant dreams that g5 will come soon and they will look like ponies and not make internet memes in every single episode.
Seriously though, it sounds like they're trying to take a bigger chunk of the pie
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so what you're saying is, i should go buy all the mlp fim episodes before they disappear off netflix again. i wonder if you own the digital titles if they can take those back or if it has to be in physical copies....
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While I have a feeling it will eventually all get sorted out, I can't shake the worry that this will cause the pearly translucent ponies to get recalled. It would be the second time I'm teased with the promise of official translucent G4s only to get it snatched away.
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The worst case scenario is that Hasbro redoes the packaging. The G4 ponies themselves don't have the font on them anywhere . . .
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That's only if they haven't already done them in the packaging. Tho I wonder what would happen with the already packaged ones. It would probably cost more to repackage them than they would lose if they just wrote it off as a loss so the ponies would probably be destroyed in the process. Ugh I really hope they can somehow settle this.
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Huh, that's crazy... I doubt this will go anywhere but it might have some kind of impact on the brand.
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Wow, coming into this thread I thought it's a mistype and it has to do something with the fan-made 'Equestria' font. Heh, this is getting very interesting.
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Upon information and belief, Defendant Hasbro has not purchased the special license
from Font Brothers which authorizes the use of the GENERATION B font software as a
resource for use on goods for sale and for distribution to third parties or in the creation of
its various HASBRO “My Little Pony” branded goods, products, and/or services.
Hmm . . . reading the court papers, it sounds like Hasbro purchased some kind of license, but the font company is arguing it didn't purchase the correct license for what the font was used for.
At present, the amount of such damages, gains, profits, and advantages cannot be fully
ascertained by Font Brothers, but are believed to be not less than $150,000.
Uh, that's it? I figured this was about millions of dollars.
They're using "$150,000" as a threshold figure. Certain levels of court require a complaint to be above or below certain economic levels. The actual amount probably won't come out until this reaches the courtroom or is settled.
This is apparently a case of software piracy. What Font Brothers does is buy the exclusive rights to make the files of fonts people create. They then sell licenses to companies and individuals for their use. Hasbro distributed Generation B to several third party companies which is software piracy.
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The statement that the owner of the rights to the font wants "all items destroyed" that use the font is just a usual thing said in such disputes (like a threat). In general, an issue like this is very likely to be resolved by a mutual agreement, where Hasbro will pay an amount XY and the rights holder will grant an extended license.
Licensing is a very complicated field, and mistakes happen all the time.
Source: I was a trained paralegal before I switched to the light side of the Force and stopped helping lawyers to make rich people richer. :lol:
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The statement that the owner of the rights to the font wants "all items destroyed" that use the font is just a usual thing said in such disputes (like a threat). In general, an issue like this is very likely to be resolved by a mutual agreement, where Hasbro will pay an amount XY and the rights holder will grant an extended license.
Licensing is a very complicated field, and mistakes happen all the time.
Source: I was a trained paralegal before I switched to the light side of the Force and stopped helping lawyers to make rich people richer. :lol:
Yep. Its all a bluff to get Hasbro frightened to want to pay to settle the issue. No worries, MLP isn't doomed, and this won't cause G5 to happen :)
And yeah, lawsuits take an extremely long time to get started. It could either be the fact of our slow legal system, or that they waited for the perfect time to strike to get the most money/best outcome from Hasbro.
Regardless, Hasbro will be signing a check. lol
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Maybe Hasbro should call upon the sea ponies since now they're in distress. :P
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Sounds to me like the font company is probably not making as much money these days and looking for some money. The suit looks pretty frivolous to me, but chances are they will get something in settlement.
People are so greedy sometimes.
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Sounds to me like the font company is probably not making as much money these days and looking for some money. The suit looks pretty frivolous to me, but chances are they will get something in settlement.
People are so greedy sometimes.
Yup.
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From an article on this "In addition, Font Brothers demand the destruction of all products and material which utilize the infringing font."
:shocked:
Seems like overkill.
What are they going to do? Raid every collector's homes and seize all the G4 merch? If they show up at my house to take my ponies, they will be met by my dad's shotgun!
sailorstitch
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From an article on this "In addition, Font Brothers demand the destruction of all products and material which utilize the infringing font."
:shocked:
Seems like overkill.
What are they going to do? Raid every collector's homes and seize all the G4 merch? If they show up at my house to take my ponies, they will be met by my dad's shotgun!
sailorstitch
They would probably just have any new products that haven't been packaged changed. If anything comes of this at all.
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The statement that the owner of the rights to the font wants "all items destroyed" that use the font is just a usual thing said in such disputes (like a threat). In general, an issue like this is very likely to be resolved by a mutual agreement, where Hasbro will pay an amount XY and the rights holder will grant an extended license.
Licensing is a very complicated field, and mistakes happen all the time.
Source: I was a trained paralegal before I switched to the light side of the Force and stopped helping lawyers to make rich people richer. :lol:
Yep. Its all a bluff to get Hasbro frightened to want to pay to settle the issue. No worries, MLP isn't doomed, and this won't cause G5 to happen :)
And yeah, lawsuits take an extremely long time to get started. It could either be the fact of our slow legal system, or that they waited for the perfect time to strike to get the most money/best outcome from Hasbro.
Regardless, Hasbro will be signing a check. lol
LOL - all of this.
This will be settled out of court by Hasbro happily paying Font Bros a tidy settlement as well as a tie up with them for having the "MLP official font" and perhaps a change to licensee agreements.
This kind of thing happens all the time with big brands. Payment after use (and once the big brand knows if its worth it) is pretty common.
Funny story but honestly something that happens to marketing departments and marketing companies - borrowed fonts, borrowed images, borrowed branding, borrowed themse, etc etc. :)