According to a report from the good fellows at Transformers At The Moon comes a report that Takara Tomy has been pursuing copyright and trade mark infringement violations made by various Thrid Party product makers that include such entities as Crazy Devy, Head Robots, iGear, Perfect Effect, TFC and others. The report states that Takara Tomy have made requests to these entities to stop making these items. Read the Full News Story Here

As cool as the stuff is, there's a difference between an accessory and unlicensed figure. I suppose Takara is making an example of these companies even with the accessories.

Then I'd like to say

"fuck you"

to Takara...

And I'd like to say either tone down the language or use a spoiler wrap :)

probably cause they are doing a better job than tak/tom...

Good for TakaraTomy. Bout time someone went after iGear, at least. :tflaugh

 

I suspect they're clamping down on the accessory bits, on account of being unlicensed & sold at 'retail' shops, as opposed to licensed for release and sold at events like WonFes.

lesson learned... :emo

So they want to go after third party companies but won't do a thing against the people that make G1 KO reissues? That's nice, take down the people working on original products and not the ones making knock offs. :roll

The funny thing is... how many times has T.T said they were going to do this? And yet these companies still exist. From a business standpoint, it's completely baffling that TakaraTomy doesn't see the business opportunity. Have they invited these makers to get a license and make factory authorized figures? Probably not. Why bite the head off a cash cow? Especially when that cash cow isn't knocking off currently distributed figures (for the most part).

I don't understand why they don't collaborate with these 3rd parties? I get going after the companies that are down-right making KO's. Developing add-ons or kits that go with the "OEM" figures shouldn't be something that gets shut down. To me they help fuel their sales by making them.

Seems like they just can't meet all the needs / Demands by themselves for the fans, so why not let them or team up? Sometimes when you don't have a box to think outside of you get better stuff.