Nov
16th
2015
Want a Book? · 3:22pm Nov 16th, 2015
How many of you prefer reading from a good old-fashioned paperback book? Despite the amount that I read online, actual books are still my preferred format, and it's the same for many other people. That's why A Different Perspective is now available in paperback format! It even includes all the illustrations, although sadly only in greyscale.
It's available right now directly from the printer - Createspace : https://www.createspace.com/5852429 - and soon from other regular retailers for $25.95
I'm hoping to order this pretty soon.
And while I love the color illustrations for the fic here, grayscale works, too.
This is relevant to my interests!
Need to finally read dis!
Neat cover
Sweeet!~ I'd totally buy a copy if I had the money!
Is this legal? Like. Does Hasbro give any fucks that you're making money off them by selling a pony based book? (which they've practically copyrighted the word itself)
Also. Would like to buy it if it is legal and you can provide creds. Although haven't read the story yet, I've been wanting to get a hold of physical Fimfiction for quite some time now.
Oooh Very cool indeed!
Damn I need a job, and fast.
HEHEH I'll take FIVE! well at least one signed by you ^^
Ordered!
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Have you ever set foot in the dealers' den of a Brony con? They're chock-full of people selling fan-created pony arts and crafts, very little of which (outside of a handful of dealers reselling blind-bag figures and such) is officially licensed in any way.
By the strict letter of the law, no, that sort of thing isn't legal (it's trademark infringement, if nothing else) — but Hasbro is content to turn a (mostly) blind eye to it, since such things are limited in scope and, because they're primarily marketed within the fandom itself, not likely to affect sales of the officially-licensed merchandise. (Indeed, by continuing to keep the fandom active and engaged, fanfic and fan-art helps increase such sales to a certain extent, which is why most companies tolerate it.) They're far more concerned about other toy companies manufacturing hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of bootleg knockoffs of the toys and dumping them in the general retail market by the cargo container-load, than they are about a fan-created novel that might sell a hundred copies within the fandom and earn its author just about enough profit to buy a month's groceries.
3550351 Plus, a person actually wrote it. That takes time and money. By the way, I don't think it's actually breaking copyright. When it comes to literature the laws vary. I'm pretty sure that a story has to have primarily no relevance to said copyrighted 'thing'. And since this is basically an AU in comparison and the only thing being of any relevance to MLP is names, certain words, cutie marks, places and that's it. Which judging by the size of the novel, would only make up...say limited relevance in legal terms. Now if the author was to claim it as a MLP book and marketed it without Hasbro's permission, then it would be an issue.
Could you imagine if someone copyrighted fantasy themes? Lord of the Rings, Harry Pothead and all the shit related would become illegal and the person who successfully copyrighted it would own it. Pretty much a similar scenario here. Of course, it's completely different when it comes to animations and games on the Internet, which is why we see stuff get taken down from time to time. Although, that's just some new jackass in the legal division or Youtube itself.
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That's why I mentioned trademark infringement, not copyright infringement. A lot of people (erroneously) use the terms interchangeably, and say the latter when they mean the former, but they are very much not the same thing.
With limited exceptions, one cannot copyright a character, or a genre, or a common word like "pony". Just the name "Twilight Sparkle" is not copyrightable; nor is the concept of a talking unicorn, or even a talking purple unicorn. Even "Twilight Sparkle, a puple unicorn who lives in a library" can't be copyrighted, in and of itself. It can, however, be trademarked – but the application of trademarks is more limited in scope, and what constitutes infringement often hinges around how likely the supposedly-infringing item is to be confused with the original. (Which is most likely what got Jan Animations in trouble; he was too good at mimicking the official art style, to the point that someone coming across his animations on Youtube could easily assume they were produced by Hasbro or DHX.)
At the end of the day, it's a judgement call on the part of the trademark holder: "How much is this likely to impact sales of our own product?", "How likely is this to be confused with our products, and how likely is it that such confusion could damage our company's reputation or cause us to lose the trademark entirely?", and so on. And of course, when dealing with something that has an active fandom base associated with it, like MLP, Star Trek, Doctor Who, etc., there's also the "Is this particular thing really worth cheesing off the very same people who are currently giving us lots and lots of money because they love our stuff so much?"
Speaking of pony merchandise -- where did you get a Maud Pie? I didn't think they were out yet...?
3551009 Hee! Obviously you're wrong. I can't recall for sure if I ordered her or picked her up at a Hot Topic store, but you should be able to get her there.
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Nope, there's no evidence of her or Cheese Sandwich on Hot Topic's web site (currently, all they're listing are Princess Cadance and the two Discord variants, "normal" and "blue flu"), and the only ones listed on Amazon are the "mystery minis" versions. The only listings on eBay which claim to actually have a Maud in-hand are one guy who's actually shipping from Australia, and one who claims to have the "unreleased" clear-glitter variant ("only one of 3 in existence!") and wants $400(!) for it (yeah, color me skeptical of that); all the rest are "pre-order" listings which say they'll send it to you once they're released.
Looks like you guys Down Under got them ahead of us, for a change.
Y'know what's really crazy? At the current AUD-to-USD exchange rate, it looks like it'd cost me about the same to order Maud and Cheese from popcultcha.com.au down there, and have them shipped to me halfway 'round the planet
, as it would to get them from Hot Topic here whenever they finally become available... and that's with shipping, even! 
(ponders this for a moment...)
They will be mine. Oh yes... they will be mine.
3552409 AH! That's right - I did order them from Popcultcha. No wonder it was so much easier and cheaper!
And yes, I have Cheese also.
Book arrived from CreateSpace. Boy, it is a thick tome! The cover looks very cool.
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Would you believe that I had to work hard to cut down the size? When I initially dumped the document into my book template, it was about a hundred pages more!
Anyway, glad to see that you got your copy of the book. I hope you enjoy re-reading the story and catching the errors that we missed after all the previous read-throughs!
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Heh -- well, as it turns out, not only did it end up costing me about the same to get Maud and Cheese from Popcultcha and have them shipped up here, but there's still no sign of the Maud Pie figure on Hot Topic's site here in the States!
(Although they have Cheese Sandwich now, finally... go figure.)
3594826 Apparently Maud is showing up in some stores, but it's weird that she isn't available online yet. Perhaps the pre-order crowd took all their current stock set aside for online sales?
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That's certainly a possibility; it wouldn't surprise me if some of those eBay sellers are actual employees at Hot Topic stores or warehouses, and they just bought them all up as soon as they hit the loading docks...
Ah well. Mine seems none the worse for wear for her trans-Pacific journey... Then again, it's Maud; nothing fazes her anyway.
Will this be available in hard cover ?
3686618 Sorry, no. There's insufficient demand for me to go to the effort of making one available at this time.