Suggesting changes to marketplace rules - moderators please read and comment

Site Discussion Team Discussion
1

Hey guys,

Rob Potts from Hard Hero has his panties in a bunch over some statue customs being done by a guy in Dubai who has posted his Work in Progress pics in our forums. The contention from Rob is essentially that the guy is making unlicensed statues and indirectly promoting them through our forums.

I’ve looked at this in detail and reviewed each of the guys posts which you can see by checking his posts here:
http://thundercatslair.org/forums/search.php?searchid=202395

I’ve reviewed our forum rules and we don’t allow the bootlegging of licensed materials but our focus is on books, recordings, DVDs etc.

I’ve considered what Rob has said and concluded the following:

  1. The guy in Question (MFA20000) has commissioned statues be made for his personal collection and has posted pictures of the works on our forums. This is perfectly fine.
  2. The guy on his own blog is offering copies of his statues for sale which is illegal in the US and for which WB and Hard Hero can pursue him legally.
  3. The guy has at no time tried to solicit sales of his customs on our forums and he’s complying with the spirit of our forums and the rules as stated on our boards.
  4. We have no reason to remove his posts as they’re awesome commissions and he’s not stepping over the line, he’s just sharing pictures with fans.
  5. Any sales he makes outside of our site and forums is his own business and not our problem.
  6. Our rules don’t really consider customs and commissions of licensed statues and toys so I propose we amend our marketplace rules as follows to be clear in our policy and to be able to respond to future concerns from Rob Potts or anybody else who takes issue with what fans are posting in our forums:

FOR STATUES AND CUSTOM TOYS

  • We don’t allow any solicitation of unlicensed kits/commissions for statues, toys or other copyrighted merchandise. In the spirit of this fan site, sculptors and artists of all experience levels can show their pieces. You are welcome to display commissions that you have purchased for your personal collection.

  • Sculptors and artists may show pieces they are working on which are a new or original creation, which are created for a licensed company or which are for non-commercial display. Nobody should advertise or solicit unlicensed pieces they are creating. Remember that this is a fan site not a commercial enterprise. If other fans like your work and want to ask about purchasing them, they should contact you via PM. Any discussions that then take place outside of these forums is your business.

  • If you’ve commissioned somebody to create a custom toy or statue for you and you wish to show WIP, final products etc. you are welcome to do so here. However we will moderate or delete posts that solicit a kit or copies as we don’t endorse the sale of unlicensed product.

I’ve let Rob know that we’ve reviewed the rules at statueforum.com and we’re looking at adopting similar rules (those I’ve posted above). I’ve pointed out that MFA20000 hasn’t solicited on our forums and that his attempt at sales has only taken place on his own site which we have no control over. Essentially this guy has obeyed the rules that statueforum.com has in place which Rob suggested we look at.

I promised Rob we’d watch this guys future posts to make sure it doesn’t look like we’re encouraging illegal sales (which we’re not).

I realize there are sensitivities for the team after our recent huge win when we posted the leaked script, around unlicensed or unapproved contents on our site. We’re on good footing here but I want to be responsive to Rob’s concerns as he’s been a great partner for the site. At the same time we have to balance the best interests of fandom and those who want to share awesome examples of fan/custom/commissioned art. I think we achieve that through the proposed rules.

Let me know if you have any suggested changes, if I hear nothing back I’ll put the text into the marketplace rules by Monday the 15th.

Cheers,
Mark

2

Chris here…

Hey Mark, thanks for bringing this to the team’s attention! :slight_smile:

My comment off-the-bat is that I think Rob’s overreacting to the posts that have been made, and I agree with a lot of the things that you’ve said, I think the guy who has made the customs has acted within the spirit of the rules of this site.

My other comment is, having seen the Panthro statue in question, I think the reason Rob is sensitive on the subject is because it blows Hard Hero’s statues (pre-Mumm-Ra) completely out of the water! :wink:

Having read over the changes that you’ve proposed I think they seem very reasonable, however, I might have considered softening the tone of them just a tiny bit, so that the intent of the wording is still the same, but it comes over as slightly less heavy-handed. (I’m not suggesting that the wording of these is especially heavy - just that it might be worth easing it down a fraction more.) :slight_smile:

IMO when Neil created the original Forum Rules for these boards he hit the nail bang on the head with the wording of them - avoiding the over-moderated, heavy-handed approach of He-Man.Org, but still setting out clear guidelines for how people are expected to behave over here. :slight_smile:

On this subject, whilst obviously I think this is something that all of us ThunderCats Lair mods would be hot on anyway, if we add this, I’d like to see the wording of it extended to include advertising of any non-licensed ThunderCats merchandise - so, including things like t-shirts, mass produced (i.e., non-commission) artwork, fan made DVD sets, etc., etc. :slight_smile:

Hopefully this characteristically lengthy post from me is of help, anyway! :wink: Basically I support completely the principles being discussed here, agree that we should address Rob’s concerns (even though I think he’s overreacting), but would consider taking a slightly softer tone in the wording - and, I’ll support 100% whatever we ultimately decide to do! :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile:

3

I’ve slightly amended them, let me know what you think:

[B]FOR STATUES AND CUSTOM TOYS

  • We don’t allow any solicitation of unlicensed kits/commissions for statues, toys or other copyrighted merchandise on the forums. We certainly encourage sculptors and artists to show their pieces off. You are welcome to display commissions from your personal collection, but please do not discuss where or how you bought them as advertising and trading non licensed products is not allowed.

  • Sculptors and artists may show pieces they are working on which are a new or original creation, which are created for a licensed company or which are for non-commercial display. Nobody should advertise or solicit unlicensed pieces they are creating. While we do not encourage the purchase of unlicensed product, what members do outside of public discussion has nothing to do with us.

  • If you’ve commissioned somebody to create a custom toy or statue for you and you wish to show WIP, final products etc. you are welcome to do so here. However please do not discuss the origin of said product.

ThundercatsLair respects the copyright holders and supports development of new licensed products. With the developing Hard Hero statue line, we feel we should be much clearer on the rules.[/B]

and for once and maybe the first time I disagree with Chris! :o Hard Hero bought a (likely) expensive license… why should some person (however brilliant his work is, which indeed it is!) sell statues out the back door when a company has invested a lot of money into them and has much more to lose. So I certainly see the concerns and I’m glad they have been brought to us.

Obvoiusly we can’t control other sites and their practices, but it is a good idea to make crystal clear our rules on custom statues and toys :wink:

4

Chris here…

First of all to say that I agree with the alterations that Neil’s made to those additions, I’d be happy to see those implemented! :slight_smile:

I think my thinking on this is that surely Hard Hero’s statues should be so unbelievably amazing that people should just be buying them anyway - or, even if there’s another line of statues, Hard Hero’s should be so great that people want to buy both! :wink:

I think part of the problem here is that the response to Hard Hero’s statues (pre-Mumm-Ra) has been so lukewarm for such expensive products, they really can’t afford for anyone to think there’s a better option than their products, even if that option is unlicensed.

That said, if it was just a case of Rob blowing the whistle that there were unlicensed statues being sold through these forums (which there weren’t - but had there been), I definitely agree with the broad principle that we shouldn’t be allowing the sale of unlicensed TCats products through these forums, not just because of Hard Hero but also because of WB. So, I’m happy to give these new rules a seal of approval. :slight_smile:

Could I also suggest that if the forum rules are updated, somebody changes the titles of the sticky threads to say “UPDATED 03/14/10” (or whatever), so that forum members who are already signed up over here can see the changes that have been made? :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile:

5

Thanks for the healthy discussion guys, I put Neil’s language into the two Marketplace sections and the Customs section of the forum boards.

Cheers,
Grizz