Some of these circumstances include (but are not limited to) research, news reporting, teaching, reviews (such as you would find in newspapers, websites such as Kotaku, etc.), internet search engines, and parody. While I certainly agree with you in that video games can be art (and are classified as such), a derivative work having artistic merit does not classify it under Fair Use principles.įair Use allows LIMITED use of copyrighted material without requiring express written and/or verbal permission from the rights holders under certain circumstances (assuming that it also falls within a four-factor balancing test). It seems that you misinterpret what Fair Use entails.
While it’s true Asus’ product trademarks were not in the same category as Hasbro’s, it was rather cheeky considering the immense popularity of Michael Bay’s movies in China and Taiwan, as well as the fact Hasbro currently produces an Emmy-award winning series called Transformers: Prime. Last year Hasbro lost a case against Asus over their Transformer Prime tablet.
Sadly, there are many, many manchildren fans who defend these “fan toy companies” because apparently if Hasbro doesn’t make exactly what you want, right NOW, you evidently have the right to engage in bootlegging. Basically, nobody would care about these toys if they weren’t ripping off Transformers wholesale. Of course, I’m no legal expert so I might be talking out of my arse.Ĭurrently, their Transformers brand is suffering from dudes in China and Japan making unauthorised toys based extremely heavily on Transformers characters. I assume it has to do Hasbro having to fight bigger infringements upon their properties, and the potential for the weakening of their case if they let too many things slide. While Hasbro is (as Mike said) pretty lenient about fans, they still need to be seen to protect their IP, even if the alleged offenders aren’t making a buck off of it. None of them have actually been taken to court to date. A number of my friends have received them, then contacted the company in question reminding them of fair use listing out the grounds for their non-compliance with the request. Often it is done by the legal teams without actual consultation with the copyright owner as the result of a contracted mission of attempting to be seen trying to protect the copyright. C&D letters are quite commonly issued by major companies to the creators of fan-based art and projects with very little legal backing, secure in the knowledge that the individuals cannot afford to defend themselves should it go to court. Actually, it could be argued they are technically within their rights to utilise the likeness of the ponies under fair use, specifically creating an artistic or satirical piece that is not intended for profit or commercial use in any way, that credits the copyright owners for the creation of the actual, and that is sufficiently different from the actual that it cannot be mistaken as being from the same authors.