So which is it Hasbro?...

[Coconut Breeze 14]

I call BS when Hasbro insists that they don't have the rights to their G1 MLP characters, besides Applejack, Spike, and Megan the human. (Who they have not used at all) I was at walmart and saw that Hasbro distributed G1 themed cups with some of the original 80's ponies. It is truly awesome. So, with that said, if they do have the rights after all why are they not revamping them to add to the current generation of the franchise? Firefly is one of the most popular old school ponies. They could make big money marketing her. For example.

Edited March 13, 2014 by Coconut Breeze

[Lucky Lass 528]

They may only have rights to the G1 ponies when it comes to sale items, and not as far as the new generation is concerned *shrug*
 

[Shift 4,274]

They don't have the rights to put them on the show, but they have rights to sell them.

[Scootalove 10,689]

I know revamping them would make sense, but from what I think Hasbro wants to move on to the current generation because it's better to leave the past in the past. They could make a lot of money, I believe they only own the rights to selling them as items.

[Andaasonsan 3,205]

I'm guessing the answer is "it's complicated". They own the overall My Little Pony brand, except the parts they don't own for some reason.

 

I'm pretty sure if they could, they would have used those characters. There would be no reason for them not to.

[ghostfacekiller39 23,860]

It isn't Hasbro's fault, it's clearly Makusu's.

 

Honestly, I'm a bit of a collector (exclusively of G4 ponies I will admit), and if I can recall, G1 was created by an entity separate from Hasbro; they purchased the 3 of them so they can sell them, given that a human most likely would sell to the youngins' and Spike and AJ are included in the show they originally planned to use for marketing reasons (which pretty much became the leading part of the line in the aftermath) and for no other reasons than marketing
 

[KarentheUnicorn 218]

It isn't Hasbro's fault, it's clearly Makusu's.

 

Honestly, I'm a bit of a collector (exclusively of G4 ponies I will admit), and if I can recall, G1 was created by an entity separate from Hasbro; they purchased the 3 of them so they can sell them, given that a human most likely would sell to the youngins' and Spike and AJ are included in the show they originally planned to use for marketing reasons (which pretty much became the leading part of the line in the aftermath) and for no other reasons than marketing

 

 

 

uh, no. G1 was not created entirely separate from Hasbro.

 

Bonny Zacherle, worked for hasbro, she came up with the idea for MLP, at first they were reluctant but later they decided to go with the idea in the early 80's. She's done a few presentations at the Fair where she explains how and why she came up with the idea for ponies. Originally Bonny wanted the 'ponies' to be the colors of real horses and ponies. It was actually another person at hasbro who initiated the idea to do them in other colors besides browns and tan, etc. At one of the My Little Pony Fair conventions Bonny brought her original pony toys she designed and they have actual horse colors.

 

Bonny will be a this years fair again I believe. And another special guest this year is going to be Liz Knight who started working at hasbro in 1981 and she was key in designing some of the most popular ponies from the original line. She left hasbro in 1987 but returned in in 2003 and in 2005, Ms. Knight became VP of Girls’ Toys and managed the team working on My Little Pony, Littlest Pet Shop, Easy Bake, Strawberry Shortcake, FurReal, CareBears, and Baby Alive. During this time, she worked closely with Lauren Faust as she wrote the new entertainment “Friendship is Magic”. The design team, led by Ms. Knight, created product inspired by Lauren Faust’s stories and reset My Little Pony for growth. In March of last year, 2013, Ms. Knight left Hasbro and is currently teaching at Rhode Island School of Design.

 

As far as Hasbro loosing they're right to the original characters. This has been debated in the collecting community as well. I personally don't know how much of this is true or what aspect of it is true. The loose of copywrite has honestly been floating around even BEFORE FIM came into existence.

 

Back during the 25th Anniversary of My Little Pony they remade the original set of 6 ponies, which included the original names and original color, and original body style, etc. etc. They also remade the original set of 6 Rainbow Ponies, which also were original names, colors, style, etc. So clearly they can remake the toys with same names and style. I'm not exactly sure what part of the loose of copywrite is just rumor, taken out of context or just something else and hasbro or someone is speaking double speak when the topic is brought up.

 

I don't know but either way My Little Pony has always been a hasbro product.

[Rarity Paige Belle 1,854]

uh, no. G1 was not created entirely separate from Hasbro.

 

Bonny Zacherle, worked for hasbro, she came up with the idea for MLP, at first they were reluctant but later they decided to go with the idea in the early 80's. She's done a few presentations at the Fair where she explains how and why she came up with the idea for ponies. Originally Bonny wanted the 'ponies' to be the colors of real horses and ponies. It was actually another person at hasbro who initiated the idea to do them in other colors besides browns and tan, etc. At one of the My Little Pony Fair conventions Bonny brought her original pony toys she designed and they have actual horse colors.

 

Bonny will be a this years fair again I believe. And another special guest this year is going to be Liz Knight who started working at hasbro in 1981 and she was key in designing some of the most popular ponies from the original line. She left hasbro in 1987 but returned in in 2003 and in 2005, Ms. Knight became VP of Girls’ Toys and managed the team working on My Little Pony, Littlest Pet Shop, Easy Bake, Strawberry Shortcake, FurReal, CareBears, and Baby Alive. During this time, she worked closely with Lauren Faust as she wrote the new entertainment “Friendship is Magic”. The design team, led by Ms. Knight, created product inspired by Lauren Faust’s stories and reset My Little Pony for growth. In March of last year, 2013, Ms. Knight left Hasbro and is currently teaching at Rhode Island School of Design.

 

As far as Hasbro loosing they're right to the original characters. This has been debated in the collecting community as well. I personally don't know how much of this is true or what aspect of it is true. The loose of copywrite has honestly been floating around even BEFORE FIM came into existence.

 

Back during the 25th Anniversary of My Little Pony they remade the original set of 6 ponies, which included the original names and original color, and original body style, etc. etc. They also remade the original set of 6 Rainbow Ponies, which also were original names, colors, style, etc. So clearly they can remake the toys with same names and style. I'm not exactly sure what part of the loose of copywrite is just rumor, taken out of context or just something else and hasbro or someone is speaking double speak when the topic is brought up.

 

I don't know but either way My Little Pony has always been a hasbro product.

Surely it can't be that difficult to find out who has the patents and copyrights to G1. That information, for obvious reasons has to be made public!

[KarentheUnicorn 218]

Surely it can't be that difficult to find out who has the patents and copyrights to G1. That information, for obvious reasons has to be made public!

 

As far as I know, Hasbro still owns at least some of them because during the 25th anniversary as I explained they remade sets of original ponies that they created back in 1982-84.

 

The art/drawings/logos on some of the G1 stuff that has been popping up lately (like the cup you are talking about) is from hasbro.

 

This is separate but I bought a shirt at Hot Topic that has the original sweet berry pony backcard art/images all over the shirt. It's the original hasbro artwork, I know because I still have the backcard art from the 80's. Pretty sure hasbro provided that to the company that made the shirts and such.

[Jammo 986]

We might get some of the older ponies as one-off characters. G4s take on them.

I don't think they matter much to Hasbro. G4 is now. It's what makes me money and as much as it sucks for retro fans I don't think Hasbro cares enough to look backwards when Friendship is Magic is the most successful this brand has ever been.

Edited March 15, 2014 by Jammo

[KarentheUnicorn 218]

We might get some of the older ponies as one-off characters. G4s take on them.

I don't think they matter much to Hasbro. G4 is now. It's what makes me money and as much as it sucks for retro fans I don't think Hasbro cares enough to look backwards when Friendship is Magic is the most successful this brand has ever been.

 

During G1 there was very little repeat of characters in the toy line. Unlike the G4 toy hasbro is simply makes the exact same ponies over and over. I personally do not buy every pony anymore because I don't need the same ponies over and over.

 

Every set hasbro released in the 80's had more original new ponies than it had repeats, in fact in the USA line alone over those 10 years of producing ponies there are only a few instances where there would be a re-release of the same character as a toy. If you didn't get the pony that year, then shame on you. I even wrote to hasbro back in the day, looking for a particular pony I couldn't find in store and they wrote back and were very sorry but they no longer made that particular pony anymore.

 

Frankly, as a G1 collector, I don't give a crap if they re-release characters from G1, in fact I actually don't want it. As a G1'er I would rather have a lot of new characters than just the exact same thing over and over. The G1 toy line was and is way more varied and interesting than what they've got going on with the G4 toy line.

[Jammo 986]

So I guess pony isn't like Transformers, where every iteration needs it's version of Optimus, Megatron, Arcee and Bumblebee?

Edited March 15, 2014 by Jammo

[KarentheUnicorn 218]

So I guess pony isn't like Transformers, where every iteration needs it's version of Optimus, Megatron, Arcee and Bumblebee?

 

I don't have very many transformers to speak to what they're doing over there, I do have a few that I obtained back in the 80's and I have bought a few favorites over the years, but am not a diehard TF collector.

 

G1 rarely had repeats. At one point they did offer some characters again by mail order but generally each set for the year (and there were many sets in each year line) had cool new ponies to own. We don't even want to get into the characters they released outside the USA you couldn't buy in stores here...to bad if you didn't know there were ponies made in Europe they didn't sell in the USA. I didn't find out about international G1 ponies till I got online back in 1997.

[Windseeker 546]

I don't know but either way My Little Pony has always been a hasbro product.

I believe Ghost was referring to the TV series, which was co-produced by Marvel Productions based on Hasbro properties.

[KarentheUnicorn 218]

I believe Ghost was referring to the TV series, which was co-produced by Marvel Productions based on Hasbro properties.

 

Sorry if it was a reference to the cartoon, but the thread seemed to be a mix of both stuff and show; plus I don't really see how the cartoon would have been completely separate regardless, there had to be input going in both directions due to character designs in toy and what appeared on the program.

[Darker 1,352]

At beginning I believed them. But now it looks like they're trolling.

[Jeric 46,878]

1. The OP doesn't understand the distinction between Trademark and Copyright.

2. Hasbro (and many companies) routinely do not renew 'B-property' copyright and trademarks

 

Trademark Questions? Click Here

 

 

How long does a trademark registration last?

The registration is valid as long as you timely file all post registration maintenance documents. You must file a “Declaration of Use under Section 8” between the fifth and sixth year following registration. In addition, you must file a combined “Declaration of Use and Application for Renewal under Sections 8 and 9” between the ninth and tenth year after registration, and every 10 years thereafter. If these documents are not timely filed, your registration will be cancelled and cannot be revived or reinstated. For more information see Maintain/Renew a Registration.

 

This happened in ALL of the major toy franchises that Hasbro owned.

 

:okiedokielokie:

 

I miss you Firefly!