Hasbro Q&A session

[Space Commander]

We missed it

Nevermind, mate


SPACE COMMANDER

[jamarmiller]

depressing

[Commando]

Sorry for the necromancy, but can anyone tell me or furnish me with a link to any solid answer on what exactly Hasbro has the copyright on as regards the British lines, such as AF and the Red Shadows.
I noted that Sundance noted some assumptions about the Palitoy invented stuff. Can I suggest that we make up a factfile of non-Hasbro owned material?

[Sundance]

well, aside from Breaker, Tracker, Stalker, Blast Off and Steeler they probably don't have any copyright any more. failure to use the names in new toys will mean the trademarks will lapse.

and Tracker's debatable, since he was only released once in 1991. Hasbro lost the trademark on the Bumblebee name in only a few years in the 1990s, during the Beast era Transformers for example...

[Commando]

Cheers man, well it sounds feasible. I suppose just because the Devil's Due gang used some of the Red Shadow ideas doesn't directly mean Hasbro has any ownership now. As you say, if it is a case of renewing the rights, then it seems doubtful Hasbro have any to use. Then of course, comes the life-defining question: does that mean AF is up for grabs?
I wonder why the Devil's Due guys came up with the Red Shadows at all? I mean they could not have been known in the US before then, maybe it was so simple as a writer's idea to use some UK spin-off as they saw it. Certainly the Joe fans over the pond seem to think the Shadows are theirs, even the short shallow Hasbro reply seems to me to show that they regard the Shadows as part of the American lore now.

[The Baron]

Without wanting to sound arrogant, I imagine that someone at DDP stumbled across this site while researching Joe history.

We thought about taking on the name for ourselves last year, but I put the brakes on the project. It would be a serious investment with probably very little interest outside of the forum. IMO the smartest move is to convince Hasbro to promote a new enemy faction, backed up with the DDP angle.

If we can make that happen then, had we copyrighted the name, we would be the ones preventing Hasbro from proceeding. We could very well have ended up shooting ourselves in the foot, as it were.

It has also been brought to my attention that Hasbro own all Palitoy IP, as was evidenced by the 40th Anniversary Action Man

[Sundance]

well, there your getting into the murky world of tie in licenses and ownership.

see, when Marvel had the rights to GI Joe and Transformers, any characters they created automatically became copyright to Hasbro. for example; Bongo the balloon bear or Professor Appell from Joe comics or The Mechanic in Transformers.

The same applied to Marvel UK. Hence why Death's Head's first appearance was in a one-page strip printed in Marvel UK comics other than Transformers. Once he was established as a Marvel UK owned character, Hasbro couldn't claim copyright on him when he did appear in Transformers. This is why they were then able to use the character in Doctor Who, Dragon's Claws and so forth.

So, the question now is, did DDP have a similar license agreement with Hasbro? The second question then is, did any of the actual Pallitoy characters appear in DDP's Joe comics? if they're all original like Wilder Vaughn, Dela Eden and Red Scream then Hasbro owns them, but won't own Red Wolf, Red Laser, Red Jackal, Black Major or Baron Ironblood. Hasbro may well own the Red Shadow name once more, because of its use in DDP.

such i have learned from discussions with tie-in writers elsewhere and from Comic Book Legends Revealed on comicbookresources.com

[Dave Tree]

So, the question now is, did DDP have a similar license agreement with Hasbro? The second question then is, did any of the actual Pallitoy characters appear in DDP's Joe comics? if they're all original like Wilder Vaughn, Dela Eden and Red Scream then Hasbro owns them, but won't own Red Wolf, Red Laser, Red Jackal, Black Major or Baron Ironblood. Hasbro may well own the Red Shadow name once more, because of its use in DDP.

It has also been brought to my attention that Hasbro own all Palitoy IP, as was evidenced by the 40th Anniversary Action Man

I think the quote from Baron pretty much covers it Sundance.

However that does not mean it's a bad thing, it means that there is an opportunity to include within future lines, just as there have been crossovers with MASK in the present line.

Dave.

[The Baron]

I assume Sundance was typing at the same time I was.

But yeah, petitioning Hasbro once the movie hullabaloo is over makes more sense to me, they already have the production, distribution and promotion arrangements in place.

US fan interest in both the range and this site has been consistently on the rise ever since the DDP resurrection.

[Commando]

Doh! Now I am confused, it went from Hasbro has no rights over any AF except for a few common names
to
maybe they have some copyright due to the inclusion of some names in the recent comics
to
Hasbro own Palitoy anyway, so they can do what they like and we can't.

I suppose if I were to be interested in resurrecting AF with some crazy ambition of my own, the safest bet would be to reinvent it with loose connections to the original mythology rather than recreating/reconstructing the originals. Would anyone agree with my madness?