Anime Herald

Postmortem: The Harmony Gold v. Hasbro Saga

Added 2018-03-11 17:45:59 +0000 UTC

Before I begin, I apologize that I was late on this. There have been a few things in the daily life that I've had to address - I want to talk about them, and I will when the time is right. x-x But for now, I thank you for your patience.

Original Titles:

Author: M. Ferreira

Thi swas one of those articles that kind of came and went as a blip in the anime world. And, really, why wouldn't it? This was a dispute between a toy giant and the fairly-reviled Harmony Gold. Hasbro is a company that rakes in more than half a billion dollars in profits each year, while Harmony Gold was the kind of the copyright trolls at the time for their treatment of Macross. And, well, yeah. The buzz from this one was pretty limited at sites like ANN, Crunchyroll, Fandom Post, and the like.

Personally, though, I took a pretty keen interest in the story, for a few reasons:

1) This was local. Hasbro is based on Pawtucket, so this immediately became a Rhode Island centric story - something of a rarity in the geek world, unless we're talking about a certain con I can no longer attend.

2) Harmony Gold has always had a reputation for hubris, and this was clearly a case where they were biting off more than they could chew. Deep down, I really wanted to see where this went.

3) It revolved entirely around Robotech and Transformers. As an '80s kid, I have a deep affection for both properties. And, really, it was a good chance to get into that Transformers wonkiness.

This was spread across two articles - one for the initial filing, one for the inevitable "case dismissed" notice. I'll be approaching them separately, as they were separated by about three months' time.

Harmony Gold Sues Hasbro Over Comic-Con Toys

When this one dropped, I was instantly drawn to the material, as I had mentioned before. As with most legal cases, I ran straight into the court filings.

And in this case, the whole dispute was kind of funny. The background on this one stems back to Comic-Con International for the year.

At 2013's Comic-Con International, Hasbro produced a con-exclusive GI-JOE x Transformers set, which was based on the classic Marvel Comics franchise of the same name. Dubbed "THE EPIC CONCLUSION!" on the box, the set bundled in a limited edition "retro style" Autobot Jetfire, A G.I. Joe VAMP vehicle colored like Autobot Hound, Baroness, Decepticon Ravage, Snake Eyes, and Cobra Samurai dressed like Decepticon Bludgeon.

As with most Comic-Con exclusives, about a thousand to two thousand of these were made, and sold for $99, solely at the con. (Well, they did a small run after the final verdict, but anyway... talking about that specific moment)

The filing was made one week after the convention ended. And, in particular, Harmony Gold latched onto the Jetfire toy, claiming that it was willful copyright infringement. The license-holder claimed that they sustained "significant" monetary damage from the toy, and demanded both a full recall and a monetary settlement, lest this case go to court.

Now... on its surface, this *could* have had legs. However, I'm also a Transformers toy collector, and my Bullshit Detector started blaring at this case, mostly because of things that had been common knowledge among the collector communities at the time.

In particular, these are well-known bits of trivia among Transformers collectors:

In 1984, Hasbro held the license to produce toys based on Macross's VF-1 Valkyrie.
Since Macross wasn't a thing here and Hasbro didn't have a license for Robotech, they recolored the toy and integrated it into their Transformers line under the name Skyfire (later Jetfire).
Hasbro lost the license to the Valkyrie toy line in the 1990s. Since then, they've completely retooled Jetfire to closely resemble another plane Transformer: Skystriker.
Skystriker and the Valkyrie both borrowed heavily from the F-14 Tomcat, leading to profiles that were quite similar, but also legally distinct from one another.
Jetfire has been re-released using the Skyfire molds numerous times since the reissue.

Original Molding Jetfire toy. Looks familiar, don't it? (Source: TFWiki)

This was a case where I got to have some real fun, though, bringing in diagrams and models, while basically expanding upon these core arguments to make my own prediction as to where things would go in regards to court proceedings.

At the time, looking at the evidence, I was pretty confident that this would never see a courtroom, as Hasbro's case for their IP was far too strong. Harmony Gold looked to be in over their heads, and flailing for some form of control over their own brand which, as we saw, will officially be surrendered in 2021.

And, honestly, this was a case where Hasbro *did* dig out those old molds, it could have been a real case. But that's not relevant at this point.

2013 Comic-Con Exclusive Jetfire Toy (Source: TFWiki)

Harmony Gold v. Hasbro Transformers Case Dismissed

Given the intrigue that I had about this case, I had to follow up when the verdict was levied. And, while the final result wasn't particularly exciting (it was a mutual dismissal - no winners were declared, here), this became a fun case study into the "what ifs." Basically, I went to my old textbooks and sites, and created a bit of a thought experiment - "What if Hasbro and Harmony Gold went to court? How would rulings affect the world we live in today?"

This is where I could have some fun building out the expected outcomes, in the cases where Hasbro or Harmony Gold, outlining the basics of case law and precedents, and explaining how a ruling either way would cause ripples in the market.

Sure, it was just a simple wrap-up, but the subject matter of the case and the potential implications in IP law going forward made it too fun to pass up!