Hasbro · 12:39am Mar 27th, 2014
In response to the C&D letter to JanAnimations, I sent the following letter to several executives at Hasbro:
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing to express my disappointment at the recent action by Hasbro’s legal department. This past week, JanAnimations, a respected fan-animator who has stimulated new interest in your brand and energized your existing fanbase received a cease-and-desist letter. Up until now, Hasbro has allowed those working within the confines of good taste and non-profit to post fan work of their intellectual property, and the franchise has done exceedingly well because of that.
Well, I’m turning off the tap. Our living room is already scattered with your stuffed toys, action figures and coloring books, but no more.
While the show was originally conceived as a marketing product, designed to generate a certain return on investment via the associated merchandise, it has grown into much more than that, as your bottom line clearly shows. Adults with and without children of their own have come to admire the show, often after seeing the incredible quality of the online fan-work (as my wife and I did,) and since Hasbro was kind enough to allow the fan artists, the animators, the fanfiction writers and the custom craft makers carte blanche to share their work online, we respected the company enough to give it our business even over competitors.
We have made a point to buy Hasbro toys even from other intellectual properties simply because we felt that the way the company treated and catered to the adult MLP fandom deserved our support. Neither Mattel nor Little Tikes had the same tolerance for or willingness to please older fans, so whenever we had occasion to buy a child a toy (and with families the size of ours, that is very often,) we gave our business to the company that we felt had the best ethics and set the best example for small children. By teaching children and adults everywhere values like ‘friendship,’ ‘tolerance’ and ‘kindness,’ ‘My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic’ has built a following far larger than was originally intended, and the show’s substantial following is based on those same values.
It’s hard to think of an action more counter to these values than what the legal department has just done. If the creators of ‘Sesame Street’ or ‘Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood’ burst into a child’s school and served legal action against a student for posting a drawing of Elmo on their Mommy’s Facebook, the effect would be much the same.
We liked Hasbro because we thought you were a company that encouraged creativity. The color-your-own pony figurines, the coloring and activity books, the phonics readers, the blank journals with Twilight Sparkle on them, all of these are products designed to bring out the best in your youngest fans, and before this, the Internet was proof that you brought out the best in your oldest fans as well. For mercy’s sake, Brony charities have organized blood drives, raised thousands upon thousands of dollars for sick people and bullied children and Bronies For Good even built a school in impoverished Africa! The Brony community is a bright and vibrant place of creativity and kindness, all because some bright and creative people were inspired by a good show and allowed by a generous company to share and direct that united energy for the greater good.
Generosity, incidentally, is one of the show’s key values. You might want to pay attention to the character of Rarity when you next screen an episode.
And now, with some of their favorite pony videos gone from the web, my wife and I have had to explain what happened to our little godchildren. We had hoped to share them with our own daughter when she is born this summer and to show her how it’s possible for people to teach themselves animation and grow proficient in the fan community before going on to careers in the production of the very cartoons they love, just as the show’s creator, Lauren Faust, did. If our daughter draws a picture of a pony and shares it with her grandparents, aunts and uncles online, will she then wake us up in the middle of the night, terrified that Cease and Desist lawyers are coming to get her? It was hard enough to explain this to a five and a nine-year-old without scaring them. Our newborn will simply have to grow up with the knowledge that the company who pays the people who make one of the best cartoons in the world, to put it mildly, aren’t very nice.
Childhood innocence is fleeting enough without having to talk about “My Little Pony” in terms of intellectual property and ROI. Please take a few minutes to straighten this out with Legal.
Thank you,
(Actual name and contact info)
P.S. If you were worried about JanAnimations’ work cutting into your profit margin, why not simply make special-edition toys depicting the blind Pegasus pony he designed, Snowdrop, or the background pony he has made so popular, Button Mash? So many of the children we know have asked for them because of the fan-made videos, and I’d be happy to buy several just to prove that fan-made content can be a profitable asset rather than a brand-identity liability. The story of Snowdrop in particular would also make an excellent children’s book.
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The immediate response I received back (which was marked confidential, not for distribution) was about a sentence long, and reveled that the executive in question had no idea what was going on, though he promised to look into it and get back to me. Today I got this:
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Thank you for reaching out.
We greatly appreciate the many MY LITTLE PONY fans around the world and we celebrate their passion and enduring support of the brand. Our characters and the socially relevant friendship messages in our storytelling have resonated globally because our core cast all have uniquely defined characteristics and personalities that fans of all ages can relate to. To the best of our ability, we are supportive of our fans and most fair uses of our intellectual properties. As enthusiasts of the MY LITTLE PONY property and the My Little Pony Friendship is Magic series, we trust that fans respect Hasbro’s need to protect the integrity of our shows and the corresponding intellectual property rights including the characters and other elements of the show that make it so beloved.
Very best,
(Name)
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So it looks like Hasbro had no idea what their legal department was doing, but after a few days of reflection, they've decided they're okay with whatever is going on.
So I guess that's it. All the toys, games and dolls I'll be purchasing for our daughter from here on out are going to be fan made.
And the sad thing is, I had honestly expected better.
At least most of the fan-made stuff is of a higher quality than what they put out.
I've always wondered why they don't offer some special kind of license that would allow organizations like JanAnimations to continue. They could preserve, and yes control to some extent, their IP while at the same time allowing creatives to expand the product line. If the license included some type of right of first refusal for new characters like Button Mash, Hasbro, third parties, and fans could benefit from the arrangement.
1958079
I absolutely agree. The rainbowfied line is a cheap way to literally slap a new coat of paint on previous designs and pretend it is a new product. It's very sad, and the reason I chose NOT to invest in Hasbro.
1978902
email that shit