Talk:Third party

Now waaaait a minute: I'm new enough here that I normally wouldn't question an admin (that's what the heart means, right?), and it would be nice to have a database for third party products that we don't have to wade through fan sites to find, but is classifying them this way on this wiki really a great idea? That is...you're not TRYING to bring the hammer down by bringing them up on the radar, are you? Not making assumptions, just pointing out a potential consequence.

I'm especially unsure about calling them "knockoffs". It's actually kind of easy to draw the line between KOs and 3rd party: A KO copies some part (at least) of the real deal EXACTLY through reverse molding or a stolen official mold, while 3rd party stuff is entirely original sculpts that look like they're trying to emulate something TF-ish. A "rip-off"? Yes. A knock-off? Well, a lot of people call them that, but does that make it true? People call improperly-colored "test-shots" of action figures "prototypes" all the time, but that doesn't change the fact that a prototype of a toy is strictly a piece that has been sculpted, glued, etc. before the first molds are cast: no amount of term misuse can change that any more than it can make a pterosaur a dinosaur, even if 99% of people don't care about the difference.

If you do consider KO = 3rd Party, then I can't dissuade you, but then where's the line between 3rd party stuff and wholly original fan creations being sold on Ebay? Yeah, I know, "Everyone knows the difference here", but that's just like a judge saying "I know indecency when I see it": not exactly a standard that holds up in law books, or a comprehensive wiki. So how does 3rd party not = custom? 3rd Party stuff is mass produced? Then what about unlicensed garage kits, made in someone's home instead of a factory? Or a fan who casts a mold of their original sculpt in case the first one breaks?

Furthermore, if any toy that "looks like" a particular TF despite not sharing any molding is a Knock-off, then so are the 1984-1985 Select Convertors toys Wheels, Chopper, Zardak, Crawler, and Morphus, because they "look a lot like" Roadbuster, Whirl, Jetfire, Barrage, and Ransack. Yes, they were done from molds legally licensed from Takotoru, the same company that did the bigger toys of the same characters which were licensed by Hasbro, but that effectively got Hasbro into some legal trouble as far as those designs' uses in fiction for almost 20 years, hardly a clear cut case. As far as the effect in stores in the mid-'80s, those Convertors would be knock-offs brazenly sold on the same shelves as TFs, according to the definition on this page. Is any contributor here a lawyer who could explain the difference?

No, I'm not defending actual knock-offs as legal. The only reason they continue to exist seems to be that Has/Tak largely consider them not worth the resources it would take to pursue legally, hence there's been relatively few crackdowns. But I.P. is a tricky enough business that you can't just say something that looks kinda' like something else is a violation.

Or did you get some inside dope from Hasbro attempting an "official" definition of 3rd party toys as KOs?

Sorry I went so long, but this issue needs a LOT of discussion if it's going to be addressed with sufficient consensus on this wiki, right? Bumblevivisector 13:14, 28 April 2013 (EDT)

Yeah, I kind of agree that defining them as 'knock-offs' is a tad weird, considering the term is indeed typically taken to mean 'unofficial version of a HasTak figure from stolen moulds/casting/whatever', although I suppose it could be argued that intellectual property is what's being knocked-off? As to 'putting them on the radar', Hasbro is almost certainly aware that third-party stuff is a thing that exists, and they have taken action before, but only when they're directly affected - the two occasions that come to mind are them cracking down on those iGear Coneheads that were based on HasTak's MP Seeker mould, and them asking BBTS(?) to delist that 3rd party WFC Omega Supreme, 'cause it was being released close to the Platinum Series Omega.

I think that seeing as the wiki covers fandom phenomena, we do need to acknowledge that 3rd party stuff exists, and that the page as it is is about the right level of detail. And if anything, it gives us somewhere to point the people who turn up and are all "gee why isn't City Commander on G1 Ultra Magnus' page guys?". Jalaguy 14:44, 28 April 2013 (EDT)

What I meant by "on the radar" was more general public awareness. I've found that "3rd Party" is a concept that even many Transfans who aren't active toy collectors just plain don't get. The more people who know about this situation but have no interest in such products, the more likely Hasbro will get confused complaints. The main crackdown I was thinking of was KOTOYS.com, which, if a poster on Seibertron is to be believed, was the result of a detailed complaint. Hasbro does listen to their fans after all.

And yes, this wiki does need to acknowledge the situation somehow; I'm mostly concerned about us getting the definitions straight. I hadn't heard about that Igear crackdown, but weren't those Coneheads actually KOs of the MP Starscream mold with remolded heads and kibble? See, we all forget where the lines are for specific products once in a while, which is why we need consensus on exactly what KOs and 3rd party products are. If a toy is an entirely original mold, but just "looks like" a TF, saying that it was made for the purpose of ripping off Hasbro is kind of like speculating about authorial intent without hard evidence to back up your claim, right? All the manufacturer has to do is avoid copyrighted and trademarked terms, then deny allegations. I may buy Valkyrie or Delicate Warrior because I always wanted a toy that actually looked like G1 Arcee, but those toys don't look exactly like Arcee did in TFTM, so whether they are just imitations of Arcee or other characters with their own personality is in the mind of the buyer; purely subjective. It is entirely possible for someone to dislike Arcee for being a weak character, but project a better personality onto this Valkyrie entity. Anyone who says those toys are supposed to be Arcee is technically just stating that an unrelated toy = a TF via fanwank. Legally no different that a kid drafting his Megazord into the Autobot army to attack his sister's Monster High dolls. Any toy that's clearly an unauthorized molding of a Has/Tak product, on the other hand, is, empirically, an illegal knock-off.

I'd actually been toying with making obtuse 3rd party references on pages for characters or gadgets that have no 3D representation, for the benefit of confused users who saw something they think is an official, say, Autoscout:

"No, there has never been a toy of this thing, and certainly not two. You might have seen toys that sort of look like it, but there is no such thing as a Transformers Autoscout toy. If you want a TF cassette that turns into a little ground vehicle, you'll have to settle for this guy. (link to Grand Slam)"

But that would just be for relatively short pages. G1 Arcee actually has a lot of toys and merchendise, just not the accurate toy she's deserved for over 25 years, so the lack of a TFTM Arcee toy in her list speaks for itself. Bumblevivisector 15:49, 28 April 2013 (EDT)

The Convertors were (possibly, it's actually not totally clear who Select were) legitimately licensed toys, licensed from the same rights-holders as Hasbro. Third-party toys are not licensed by anyone and the rights-holders aren't seeing a dime. Those are not the same situation. Also there were tons of actual knockoffs of Transformers and every other Japanese robot toy being sold throughout the '80s and even up until a few years ago. I'm sure you wouldn't suggest that the straight-up bootleg Takatoku Valkyries Walmart was selling weren't knockoffs.

This wiki does not acknowledge third-party IP theft toys because, along with many other reasons, we aren't interested in being shut down by Hasbro because we're advertising for people who rip them off. Are they likely to do it? Probably not. Could they do it? Not for that, no - instead for the massive amount of fair-use skirting we do (and our own unauthorized use of their IP, albeit solely to promote their properties).

Incidentally, I was going to post suggesting this page shouldn't exist at all, because I knew it was going to lead to a lot of slippery-slope attempts to increase the presence and acceptability of third-party toys to this wiki. I still don't think it should exist independent of the knockoff page. It's all just attempts by people to make money off something they didn't create.

Also also: the idea that these IP-infringers that they just accidentally happened to make nothing but toys that happen to all look like characters from Transformers and we can't know otherwise because they used a halfassed fake name is beyond stupid. If they weren't trading on the value that Hasbro has spent thirty years and uncountable money accumulating for Transformers, they would make more legitimately NEW products - and the fanbase would buy those with the same glee they buy knockoff Chromedomes and Insecticons and Arcees. -LV 16:05, 28 April 2013 (EDT)

If this page should even exist (and that's a big if), most of that second paragraph needs to go. It's nothing but conjecture. We should also definitely not be linking to that third party wiki at the bottom. -Shellspark 16:14, 28 April 2013 (EDT)

More existential angst than it's worth. Goodbye. --Monzo 16:22, 28 April 2013 (EDT)

Oh sure, NOW you guys get all talky and discussy. Where were you when I needed you??

On the level of legality, I fail to see any meaningful distinction between knockoffs (copying Hasbro's physical designs) and 3rd party toys (copying Hasbro's intellectual property concepts). As LV says above, they're both rolling off of Hasbro's work, and really, that's that, innit? If we wanna just roll this all up under the Knockoffs page, I'm totally cool with that. If we wanna make it even more minimal than what I sketched out, that's cool too. But to nuke the content entirely, based on its illegitimacy? If we do that... I see no valid reason to stop there. The knockoffs page should go as well, based on the same line of reasoning. And I think that would be a loss for the wiki.

If there's a reason to spare one and slash the other, please spell it out more clearly, because I'm not seeing it so far. -- Repowers 23:29, 28 April 2013 (EDT)

I think it is worth acknowledging the growth of third-party toys on the general knockoff page, if for no other reason that the umpteenth time someone shows up to be all DOG YOU GOTTA TALK ABOUT THESE SWEET THIRD-PARTY TOYS, we can point them at our existing super-limited coverage. (Also, "third party" isn't even an accurate title for a page, since we have countless licensed third parties represented on this wiki, from Seven and Marvel through Scholastic and 3H.) -LV 08:54, 29 April 2013 (EDT)

To be fair, "Third party" seems to be the term most widely understood by fans to mean "a non-licensed company made a toy that looks like a Transformers character" so I can see the logic of having it here. It's what people would likely search for. --abates 16:29, 29 April 2013 (EDT)

Surely the answer to that is to have a page primarily about licensed third parties, with "Unlicensed third parties" as a section at the bottom. - SanityOrMadness 23:01, 29 April 2013 (EDT)

Yeah, if this is going to happen every time someone creates a "3rd party" page, it's natural not to have one at all. For all my defense of their existence, they don't deserve a page on this Wiki. I just happen to like the current market situation: Hasbro and Takara are doing better than ever, and 3rd party companies are filling some gaps that neither of them ever will. I don't wanna' rock the boat, and neither should other 3rd Party fans, so why put them next to official stuff?

But we do need the Knock-Off page to explain that the existence of knock-offs doesn't make them legal, right? And Breakdown's page mentions his Botcon 2004 Action Master toy for the express purpose of explaining that it's NOT official because Botcon wasn't official that year right? And the Knock-Off page mentions 3rd Party stuff to explain that it's also not official, but also not the copied Has/Tak molds that most people consider KOs to be, right?

Well, I think that should be the precedent: mention 3rd party stuff only where it's necessary to clarify that it's not TF stuff, keep the mentions as brief as possible, and no pics, ever. Maybe not even insinuate their existence. Rethinking my Autoscout example above, if I do it, I'll just say: "Neither Hasbro or Takara has made a toy of this thing to date." That way we're not documenting anything unofficial, and any confused fan can deduce that the Autoscouts from Igear and the "Gear of War" set they might see on Ebay are not real. The end.

I'd have added that sooner, but I thought Monzo deleting the actual page would nix this too. Bumblevivisector 21:29, 29 April 2013 (EDT)

Well, there's a simple solution to that... make "3rd Party" a redirect to the Knockoffs page. Gives searchers what they're looking for, and trumps any future page re-creation. -- Repowers 22:44, 29 April 2013 (EDT)

Updates

This page need some updating there are other licensed third party companies that haven’t been listed yet.