Blogger: http://blogofpony.blogspot.com/2013/02/is-hasbro-trying-to-kill-fandom.html

This has been an...interesting last couple of weeks, to be sure. So far our fandom has weathered Alicorn Twilight, the Friendship is Witchcraft and episode takedowns, and now Fighting is Magic has been Ceased & Desisted out of existence. And with this perfect storm of madness, a harsh line of thinking has begun to take prominence:

Is Hasbro trying to kill the Brony fandom?

Here's my answer in a single word: no.

The issue at hand isn't that these actions were done, but rather the timing in which they happened. Fans haven't had a chance to breathe before being tossed some new spore of madness, and without the time to get over whatever just occurred, things are going to start breaking people down. So let's just...look at the drama we've been handed and see what we can make of it.

Derpy's Gone

During the latter half of Season One and all through Season Two, Derpy was a fairly common background fixture of the series. One of the first things the fandom did was give her a name and identity, heralding many, many more to come. And the show's creators seemed to like her, so much so that she more or less became a mascot of the older fandom.

But then Derpygate happened. The show's staff took things too far and gave her a speaking role. They demanded that they use Derpy instead of Ditzy to pander to fans. Nobody told Tabitha St. Germain that she was a girl, and she voiced her as a boy. The scene unintentionally showed her as a mentally handicapped nuisance who casually destroyed town hall while making Rainbow Dash's life hell. And people were upset...that others were taking offense to this purely innocent act of pandering. And when Hasbro had the scene altered because people were legitimately offended, everyone went absolutely insane, as if their own child had been taken away and deemed “wrong.”

And that's really the crux of the issue. The fandom as a whole is kind of Derpy's mother. We created and nurtured her in fanworks, and her promotion to official status was like a child growing up and moving out to bigger and better things. So when something happens that threatens them, everyone goes to war to defend her. And when she seemingly stopped appearing in Season Three, everyone believed that she had been axed by Hasbro entirely.

Only that's not the case. She isn't in the show right now because...well, Derpygate. It wasn't the terrible scene that confined her to exile, but the fandom's whiny, death threat-laced response that would propel such a thing. Furthermore, much of Season Three's storyboarding (which was when Derpy was placed into scenes in Season Two) was done during the height of the controversy, thereby rendering her a total minefield.

But look beyond the show, and she's everywhere. WeLoveFine is still selling her shirts. There are Derpy collectibles, and she's apparently in the next fan favorites collection, along with several other background characters like Lyra and Octavia. She's still on official merchandise, so...why is she dead? Oh, that's right, not all the fans who watch the show look at the merch.

So no, Derpy is not dead. And if she is gone forever, so what? It was a nice gesture, but we as a whole kind of bit the hand that fed us. Does her presence or lack of presence undermine the show? Does it make the jokes less funny or the stories more contrived? No, it doesn't. The show isn't about Derpy, and we need to realize that, while it hurts to see what happened, it's not as important as many make it out to be.

The Episode and Abridged Series Takedowns

The fandom's early belief was that Hasbro didn't bother taking down episodes because they didn't care whether or not the show was profitable. All they were interested in were the sales of the toyline. And to a degree, that is true, but most certainly not anymore.

The Hub as a whole has been struggling to make itself known since it rose from the ashes of Discovery Kids. The fact is that it needs viewers and ratings in order to remain a viable option for Hasbro and its stockholders. (In fact, the Hub was apparently close to being axed by shareholders in its first year, but managed to hold on because it had a few hits like FiM, Pound Puppies and Transformers Prime.) And now that the show has proven to be very popular with a lot of different audiences, Hasbro needs to market the thing for all its worth. Thus, it has to sell the show into different regions and markets, including oversea ones, and...

Well, what it comes down to is the legal issue of defending their trademark. Technically, Hasbro doesn't have to block anything to keep a hold on their copyrighted characters, settings, and properties. But if they allow derivative works and illegal uploads to happen, despite knowing full well that they're going on, then it damages their legal ability to defend themselves should something more serious happen down the line. Throw in Google getting the rights to sell episodes for the Android, and you see the legal mess that is.

As for the Abridged Series, all of them are illegal. I have to say this again: all Abridged Series are illegal. While they are in some ways works of parody, they don't fall under the actual qualifications for Fair Use, which is to educate and inform the public. Simply taking out the audio and replacing the entire thing with a different script, characters, and setting effectively makes them a derivative work, and thus grounds for removal.

And on a personal note, that's actually why I never got into any of the FiM abridged series. Stuff like Dragonball Z Abridged and Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series are clearly parodies; they take the same characters as in the shows, flanderize them, and use that to mock the poorer aspects of their series while telling many of the same stories. But The Mentally Advanced Series and Friendship is Witchcraft simply sub in their own characters with the same names, or outright replace them as is the case with Sweetie Bot. So yes, that is a whole other mess of worms and I can understand why Hasbro had to take them down.

Fighting is Magic C&D

Okay, I admit. I overreacted yesterday. I should not have made a post like that, especially after the mess with the documentary. (Which isn't on this list because Hasbro had nothing to do with its shutting down.) But at the same time, this wound is still fresh, and a lot of fans are still up in arms over waiting for two years only to see the project die.

Well, here's the thing: Fighting is Magic was illegal since day one. Mane6 apparently never even tried to get the license from Hasbro, or negotiate with them, or do anything to appeal themselves to the corporation. And when the game starts reaching professional quality and gets pimped out at EVO, there is a real legal problem Hasbro has to deal with. It's...a mess, to say the least.

But, as many fans have pointed out, there are precedents for alternative resolutions. Capcom published that Mega Man vs. Street Fighter game, and the KQIX project got shut down twice before making a deal with the copyright holders and changing their name to The Silver Lining. So why can't Hasbro do that? Well, a couple of reasons:

A) Both of those franchises were effectively dead when it happened. Capcom has expressed zero interest in continuing Mega Man in any capacity, and just allowed the fan game to shut up angry fanboys clamoring for something to do on the franchise's anniversary. There was zero interest in another King's Quest as well. Since the franchises were effectively dead, that means there was only a token legal hassle to work through.

B) Both cases involved their creators eventually reaching out to the rights holders and finding workarounds. So far, Mane6 is trying the same thing, but we'll have to see how that develops.

C) Both of those works were well within the boundaries set up by their respective franchises. Fighting is Magic is about the Mane 6 beating each other up. Not a villain, not mooks disguised as them, but each other. So yes, Hasbro might take issue with that.

And in the end, Hasbro really didn't have a lot of alternatives. Again, not acting in a legal capacity could hurt them down the road. But why didn't they act earlier? Because most of these projects die out within a matter of months. It's the same reason Hasbro isn't going to shut down Equestria Daily or pursue every single piece of fan work; they simply don't have the money and resources to do so. Even Disney, copyright police that they are, don't go after everybody. It sucks that they had to go after Fighting is Magic, but as said before, there are possibilities. Plus, Lauren Faust has offered to work with them on original characters, something they had brought up as a backup plan in case things went south, so there's always that.

It sucks, but...it's the law. Write your Congressman/Congresswoman and get it changed. Write Hasbro and calmly tell them why they should take other options with Mane6. But it's really just a fangame, and in the grand scheme of things, it's nothing of incredible importance.

Alicorn Twilight

Oh boy, this again. The thing that REALLY kicked the storm off.

There's really not much more I can say on the subject that I already haven't, other than that apparently the decision wasn't solely made by Hasbro's toy department, but rather by the staff trying to find some way to liven up the show after three seasons. And admittedly, this season has a few marks of staleness on it. Most of the friendship problems have already been run through, and it's hard to do episodes like Season One's with the characters developed as they are now. I can remember actually being pissed when Justice League became Justice League Unlimited because it marked a total change to the series, only to end up enjoying the latter even more after I gave it a chance.

But here's the thing: Hasbro did not make Twilight an Alicorn to drive us off. They weren't even thinking about us. They were looking at little girls, the show's actual demographic, and what they might like. Just remember that, okay?

Conclusion

So, with all this, how can I say that Hasbro isn't trying to get rid of us? Besides the above, there are a couple of arching reasons:

Hasbro is very, very large - Hasbro is not just a single boardroom of business people stuffed away somewhere. It's a massive web of companies and manufacturers, marketing and legal firms, and various media branches. And quite often, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Just because the show's staff supports us doesn't mean legal will, or just because marketing wants to make products for us doesn't mean that the manufacturers will do a good job of it.

Hasbro is making stuff for the older demographic - Things like the ComiCon Derpy from last year, the WeLoveFine shirts, and the fan favorites boxes are very much aimed at the older demographic as well as the little girls. The trading cards and comics are packed full of references to fan material and background ponies. They're even experimenting with an older demographic with another IP this year, although just how that will work out is up in the air.

Hasbro has given us a lot of leeway - It's easy to forget that Hasbro could be clamping down much harder than it has. Archie Comics has banned fanfiction of their characters. Disney sues anyone and everyone under the sun. Fox will take down your YouTube account if you have a .0000004 second soundclip from Family Guy on a video. And yet, all Hasbro has really done is shut down one or two fangames, removed episodes from YouTube, and attempted to expand their toylines to reflect newer markets. And yes, contrary to popular belief, everything we write for this site is illegal. Equestria Daily technically isn't (they just report news and provide links to content), but they are still allowed to remain up. Just...something to remember.

Hasbro doesn't care about you - This might sound like it's flying in the face of what I said, but it's true. Hasbro has stockholders to please, toys and games to sell, and money to make. They do not sit in a big room, rub their evil hands together, and plot new ways to destroy the Brony fandom. They aren't out to please you, but they aren't going to destroy you either.

So, what am I getting at here? There's a lot of legal technicalities and issues running around FiM these days, and it might seem that the fandom is trying to be wiped out. But that's not the case. It's more an unfortunate series of timings that have caused this disaster and nothing else. It's a sucky situation, and I understand why many are angry. But none of this really feels like anything worthy of throwing the show away like others have. I'm still angry over Fighting is Magic, but boycotting the toys and show aren't going to get it back. And Hasbro isn't out to get us or undermine us; they just have to make sucky decisions every now and then.

I am not defending Hasbro. I'm just saying we all need to take a chill pill and relax.