Mane6 got hit with a C&D letter from Hasbro.

http://www.mane6.com/2013/02/not-all-wonder-is-endless.html

If anyone don't know what this game is, it's a fighting game with My Little Pony characters.

I knew about this 2 hours ago

Just look at what Lauren said to ManeSix

Xch3l said:
I knew about this 2 hours ago

Just look at what Lauren said to ManeSix

Kudos on her for helping like this. They went this far and have her support, they should do this

That sucks. They C&Ded that MLP card game too, but I figured that Fighting is Magic would be safe.

DrHorse said:
That sucks. They C&Ded that MLP card game too, but I figured that Fighting is Magic would be safe.

I wonder if artists that make fanart will get a C&D too :/ Probably not. *crosses fingers*

What do you mean with safe?

CamKitty said:
Kudos on her for helping like this. They went this far and have her support, they should do this

Ikr. It's kinda dissapointing that after, what, two years?, Hasbro didn't said anything, and then suddenly, boom, C&D.

Xch3l said:
What do you mean with safe?

Just that Hasbro is unlikely to make a MLP fighting game themselves. With the card game they had their Magic The Gathering and official MLP trading cards to protect. In this case, it doesn't seem like Hasbro had any other reason besides "protecting their trademark."

DrHorse said:
Just that Hasbro is unlikely to make a MLP fighting game themselves. With the card game they had their Magic The Gathering and official MLP trading cards to protect. In this case, it doesn't seem like Hasbro had any other reason besides "protecting their trademark."

I see. I didn't knew that hasbro had a card game (man, I'm so out of this fandom)

IMO, fanbases are what make trademarks, and doing this gives some... uh.. bad score, so to speak.
*sigh* stupid marketing I hope Mane6 can still continue doing the game. I had the feeling that the game was going to a public release soon, since 'Shy was almost finished. Or mebbe that was H's plan: wait until the game was finished to stop it, and, like a house of cards and an annoying little sister trying to destroy all of your work with a single blow

You have to protect your trademark in order to actually own it. It's how trademark law works. If you don't protect it, legally, you don't care about it, and you can't do anything if someone infringes on it in a meaningful way.

http://www.inc.com/guides/201101/how-to-protect-your-trademark-from-infringement.html

null0010 said:
You have to protect your trademark in order to actually own it. It's how trademark law works. If you don't protect it, legally, you don't care about it, and you can't do anything if someone infringes on it in a meaningful way.

http://www.inc.com/guides/201101/how-to-protect-your-trademark-from-infringement.html

Of course they have to protect it! I never said anything against it. Mane6 wasn't selling the game (they didn't even accept money) it was like fanart, they were using the chars. Music, scenes, animation, even VAs were unrelated to DHX and were just volunteers (which imo, were better, in some aspects, than the original)

Oh, well, let's just wait and see how this continues...

Oh come on guys, Hasbro is going to make princess out of everypony. And princesses don't fight - they drink tea. It's only natural. Maybe they should change concept to tea drinking simulator.

What I don't understand is why Hasbro doesn't just sell Mane6 an official MLP license for the symbolic price of one trillion dollars one US$.
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretting sure that selling licenses of your franchise doesn't dilute any trademarks.

Unless this isn't about trademarks at all, but about keeping MLP girly and pink.
In which case, they'll be going after MLP porn next.

Gilda_The_Gryphon said:
Oh come on guys, Hasbro is going to make princess out of everypony. And princesses don't fight - they drink tea. It's only natural. Maybe they should change concept to tea drinking simulator.

Oh right rightrightright right! How could I forget my manners? *raises Pinkie* Am I elegant enough now?

Munkelzahn said:
What I don't understand is why Hasbro doesn't just sell Mane6 an official MLP license for the symbolic price of one trillion dollars one US$.
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretting sure that selling licenses of your franchise doesn't dilute any trademarks.

That could work

Unless this isn't about trademarks at all, but about keeping MLP girly and pink.
In which case, they'll be going after MLP porn next.

HELL NO!

Munkelzahn said:
Unless this isn't about trademarks at all, but about keeping MLP girly and pink.
In which case, they'll be going after MLP porn next.

What about porn with princesses, manners and tea involved?
Like post #273999

Gilda_The_Gryphon said:
What about porn with princesses, manners and tea involved?
Like post #273999

Oh dear, this surprised me *sips tea*

null0010 said:
You have to protect your trademark in order to actually own it. It's how trademark law works. If you don't protect it, legally, you don't care about it, and you can't do anything if someone infringes on it in a meaningful way.

http://www.inc.com/guides/201101/how-to-protect-your-trademark-from-infringement.html

You'd think with how violently overprotective furries are of their OC's DONUT STEELE RIGINL CHARCTER they'd understand this concept.

Munkelzahn said:

In which case, they'll be going after MLP porn next.

I've always wondered how people can make money off of commissioning copyrighted characters. Free fan art is fine but I think making money off someone else's character seems kinda illegal.

Rusteee said:
I've always wondered how people can make money off of commissioning copyrighted characters. Free fan art is fine but I think making money off someone else's character seems kinda illegal.

It is illegal. They just don't get caught. Hasbro can't shutdown most porn because it's too distributed and mobile; Hasbro can't shutdown YayPonies because it's not in a treaty nation. But all the law requires is that they go after infringers, so the court would be satisfied in any future case.

Courts understand you can't keep track of every picayune little shit that does anything anywhere, so they don't invalidate your trademark just because somebody in Hoboken printed a Pikachu on his school lunchbox, and by the same token, if a project like this were to have been quieter and smaller (i.e., not in a FUCKING CHARITY DRIVE), Hasbro, had they so chosen (and possibly was choosing), could have conveniently ignored it as "hey, there's so much stuff, we just didn't see it, really, honest, Your Honor" and it would have been fine.

But people got cocky, said "Hasbro will never shut us down! They wouldn't dare! We are too profitable for them!", and shoved it under their noses. Hasbro had no choice.

I wish Hasbro had chosen to license them instead of shutting them down, but nobody's really surprised: Fan stuff almost never gets licensed, ever. This is not unique to Hasbro.

"Bronies" were stupid, and now they got their toy taken away. Perhaps they might have learned a lesson about hubris.

Digital_Kindness said:
You'd think with how violently overprotective furries are of their OC's DONUT STEELE RIGINL CHARCTER they'd understand this concept.

There's a difference between making self-indulgent fursonas and creating genuinely original content. And a fan-made indie fighting game could in no credible way threaten the trademark claims of a corporation the size of Hasbro.

DrHorse said:
There's a difference between making self-indulgent fursonas and creating genuinely original content. And a fan-made indie fighting game could in no credible way threaten the trademark claims of a corporation the size of Hasbro.

Every great journey begins with a single step, and so it goes with trademark infringement. If they don't protect their trademark with this, then what's to stop people from taking greater and greater liberties with their intellectual property and genuinely threatening their trademark? They're protecting their IP and investment as is required by trademark law and as is intelligent to do.

DrHorse said:
There's a difference between making self-indulgent fursonas and creating genuinely original content. And a fan-made indie fighting game could in no credible way threaten the trademark claims of a corporation the size of Hasbro.

Except have the characters from your kid's show about friendship fighting each other.

Faust is being awesome with the original character offer, they should do that.

I was surprised Hasbro did not do this sooner.

Also, Foob seems to have made the main point from all of this very well. Read his post ^^

That is really really fucked up of Hasbro. Doing a C&D over a free game, after they had worked on it for over two years. What a bunch of fuckasses.

DrHorse said:
There's a difference between making self-indulgent fursonas and creating genuinely original content. And a fan-made indie fighting game could in no credible way threaten the trademark claims of a corporation the size of Hasbro.

ippiki_ookami said:
That is really really fucked up of Hasbro. Doing a C&D over a free game, after they had worked on it for over two years. What a bunch of fuckasses.

You have to enforce your trademark or you lose the legal right to it. That's how trademark law works. It doesn't matter if the offending party is making money using your trademark or not, they're still infringing upon it.

err...whats C&D?

-bloody acronyms-

AlastairWhitehall said:
err...whats C&D?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=C%26D

null0010 said:
You have to enforce your trademark or you lose the legal right to it. That's how trademark law works. It doesn't matter if the offending party is making money using your trademark or not, they're still infringing upon it.

And Hasbro knew about it since the beginning. They even used some of the original voice actors for the game. They didn't have to wait two years to pull the plug.

ippiki_ookami said:
And Hasbro knew about it since the beginning. They even used some of the original voice actors for the game. They didn't have to wait two years to pull the plug.

My guess is they figured it wasn't going to really go anywhere, and it didn't manifest as a credible trademark threat until all the work had been put into it. This is how trademark law works.

null0010 said:
It's how trademark law works.

null0010 said:
That's how trademark law works.

null0010 said:
This is how trademark law works.

Someone stick a quarter in null, this song is getting old.

Well that's just how trademark law works, ippiki.

ippiki_ookami said:
Someone stick a quarter in null, this song is getting old.

That's because people aren't listening and he has to keep repeating it.

Digital_Kindness said:
That's because people aren't listening and she has to keep repeating it.

I was listening.

She said: Google®©™ is a powerful tool that can make you an expert on intellectual property jurisprudence.

And I agree.

The point is, be annoyed that Hasbro didn't license them, not that they issued the C&D in the first place. And don't bother being too annoyed, because almost nobody ever licenses fan works, ever, anywhere.

Xch3l said:
I knew about this 2 hours ago

Just look at what Lauren said to ManeSix

She also Brohoof'd the Mane6.

She gave them an option, they should take it.

And not cry that the work starring not their characters got shut down. Maybe next time don't have the donation drive

Wow you guys are making a bigger deal out of this then the ponynet

2 pages = big deal :o

:P

Usually I don't like to revive old threads (but it feels so good!), so I'll just leave a heads up

Xch3l said:
Usually I don't like to revive old threads (but it feels so good!), so I'll just leave a heads up

Well that escalated quickly.

Xch3l said:
Usually I don't like to revive old threads (but it feels so good!), so I'll just leave a heads up

Best of a bad situation. Heck, crazy awesome from a bad situation. Lauren Faust is helping them. Pretty great.

so now it's going to be called my little horsie: friendship is awesome?

My Little Hasbro: Friendship is Lawsuits

Char said:
My Little Hasbro: Friendship is Lawsuits

My Litigious Pony!

I'll wait and see, but I'm not too excited. It'll have to be some amazing concept coming out of Faust's brain that's just as charming as ponies, because without a great IP to carry it, I can't be assed for yet another fighting game. I've already got plenty of those in major franchies that I'm already used to and like.

Well I was gonna say something, then Lauren ended up working with Mane6.

this is just too incredible for words

Thought I'd leave this in a MLP thread.

http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/21539233/bronies

Disturbed10k said:
Thought I'd leave this in a MLP thread.

http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/21539233/bronies

That has nothing to do with this specific subject. And fox never count for real news anyways

CamKitty said:
That has nothing to do with this specific subject. And fox never count for real news anyways

It has a surprising lack of slanderous lies and absolute stupidity, though.

I liked Howard Stern's bit about bronies better.

720p said:
It has a surprising lack of slanderous lies and absolute stupidity, though.

Maybe that's why it doesn't count for real news? In the eyes of a big media network, anyway. :p