I originally visited Furtopia this morning to attempt to be the first Brony to comment on the new MLP:FiM episode, "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" here since I have been *extremely* excited about it since I finished watching the episode on HUB 50-minutes ago, but gosh darn it, it looks like the episode hasn't been uploaded to YouTube yet, and without having the episode available on my computer screen to be able to replay and replay and replay so that I can break down and analyze the episode down to the most obsessive detail, my comments about it will just have to wait.
That however does remind me of something that I have wanted to bring up in this discussion thread for a long time, and that is the suddenly much more active and offensive role Hasbro's legal department has suddenly been taking against sites either hosting or linking to complete
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic episodes. This renewed copyright enforcement campaign started off with a Death Star-shattering-Alderaan-sized-bang
when Hasbro, Inc. moved it's giant orbital friendship cannon of mass destruction against the website Pony Archive, and has been ongoing since then with a far more aggressive campaign against the hosting of complete episodes on YouTube. While not carried out by Hasbro, the destruction of Megaupload.com by U.S. and New Zealand authorities was yet another serious blow as that was where many MLP:FiM episodes were hosted. As a result it has become *much* harder to see these episodes on the web, and it is only through the effort of Bronies actively defying Hasbro and risking repercussions that we are still able to see MLP:FiM episodes on the web at all.
This is an interesting turn of events, as for the longest time Hasbro was extremely lax about fans hosting complete MLP:FiM episodes on the web, and I would argue that it was this very lenient policy that allowed the entire web Brony movement to form on the web in the first place. Now I happen to be extremely lucky with the fact that I have a cable provider that offers the HUB channel, but from what I have read over the past few months on Brony fan sites like Equestria Daily, there are many many Bronies who live in parts of the world where there is no television channel like the HUB or its few international partners broadcasting MLP:FiM, and there are even several countries out there where the iTunes store doesn't do business, shutting out that possible legitimate source for watching episodes in those regions as well. These Bronies relied on video upload sources like YouTube and Pony Archive to be able to see the show at all, and with these resources gone those Brony communities are being slowly (if inadvertently) cut off, which is a sad turn of events.
Now, I didn't start writing this post to argue the right or wrong about Hasbro's now more hard-line take-down policy of videos. MLP:FiM is their property, and they are free to enforce their intellectual property rights however they see fit. If they want to disallow the hosting of complete MLP:FiM episodes across the web I really don't have any right to complain. What I did start writing this post about however, is that I wonder how much further Hasbro will go with their enforcement policies from here. As of right now, all still seems to be more good than bad in the Brony fandom world-- sites like Equestria Daily are have so far been largely unthreatened, I haven't heard about any of the MLP:FiM derived game projects like "
Fighting is Magic" getting any threats, and Bronycon still seems to be getting a nod of approval, or at the very least a disinterested look of indifference, from the suit-wearing warlords at the top of Hasbro's corporate ladder. But I have to wonder, will things stay this way, or will the Brony community become more clamped down upon once Hasbro can find ways to monetize more things that up until this point the bronies have been traditionally doing?
To explain what I mean, fan-speculation has it that the reason why Hasbro has suddenly become far more interested in taking down uploaded episodes from the web lately is because they have started releasing retail DVD's of some of the show's episodes and made the show's episodes available for purchase on iTunes. In other words, Hasbro has now monetized recordings of the episodes, so now the act of fans uploading recordings of the episodes for free downloading or viewing is no longer O.K. Alright, that makes reasonable business sense, I guess. The danger comes in when Hasbro decides to monetize something else related to MLP:FiM. Take for example if Hasbro decided to start selling MLP:FiM video games commercially. I'm not talking about small flash-based games like the one that they currently have on HUB World. Instead, I mean large commercial games, such as releasing games for handhelds such as for the iPhone or the Nintendo3DS, or for consoles such as the Nintendo Wii or the XBOX 360, or even releasing MMORPG's based around the land of Equestria. In that case, would Hasbro's legal team start launching a legal assault against pre-established fan-made alternative games such as the before mentioned "Fighting is Magic," or other fan-made games that are in the works such as "
Equestria Tales," or "
MLP Online?"
The reason why I have suddenly become so concerned about this is because some time ago I myself started working on a large MLP:FiM-based project. Every year I try to make a New Year's Resolution that I am going to complete one large project out of my now absolutely massive Project Destiny Studios project database (because otherwise I have a great knack for starting interesting projects and then never finishing them), and for 2012 I chose to try to concentrate my efforts on "Project #88," which happens to be a huge MLP:FiM-based video game project. When I first came up with the idea for this project last Fall all was still right in the Brony world: the Pony Archive website was still alive and well, there were multiple bronies that had entire YouTube channels dedicated to hosting complete 1080p MLP:FiM episodes, and it looked like Hasbro was letting the fans do whatever derivative works based on MLP:FiM that they wanted, including selling fan-made merchandise such as custom made plushies, artwork, and repainted toys without fear of reprisal. I am normally very cautious about making fan-made works based on other peoples' properties that I don't personally have written permission to use, and as a result I haven't created any fan artwork of any movie and TV show characters for literally
years. I just haven't done it. I used to draw fan artwork of my favorite furry and cartoon animal characters from TV shows and movies all of the time, but has been 7-years now since I last have. However, the sheer amount of fan works being created around MLP:FiM, combined with Hasbro's lack of condemnation against it, was rather a rather relaxed and appealing environment. It caused me to lower my usual reservations about fan artwork, become caught up and deeply inspired by the brony movement, and start planning MLP:FiM-based projects of my own. The success and attention that some MLP:FiM fan artists have been getting along with
the advice given by a famous animator on his blog only helped to encourage me even further.
Now that Hasbro's legal department is showing that it does indeed have teeth and that it is not hesitant to use them, I am once again starting to become hesitant about continuing with my plan of making a large MLP:FiM-based project. It's one thing to draw a fan-drawing and be asked by your ISP to take it down due to a DMCA Takedown request. It's another thing to plan out an expensive game development project that I am going to be pouring my heart and soul into for the next 18+ months and then have *that* ordered to be taken down. That would be tragic. In addition, the fact that I have been told that there are already two existing MLP:FiM games that are similar in theme and game-play to my own game (but simpler and for different platforms) doesn't help my confidence with choosing to continue to keep moving ahead with my own project either. [I did come up with the idea for my game completely independently without ever seeing the others, but apparently the idea that I came up with for a MLP:FiM game was a natural one. I haven't seen these other games personally, as I have been intentionally avoiding them to keep them from contaminating my own ideas (and thus hoping to prevent people from accusing me of any idea-stealing through the "
Chinese Wall Technique"), but the fact of the matter is that even though I personally feel that I am probably building a far
better "mousetrap" for an as-yet untargeted platform, it still makes me wonder if I will still get jeered by the community for building another "mousetrap" at all, metaphorically speaking.] I have already thrown some money into this project, but I am not yet at the point of no return, so I am left scratching my head and mulling about whether or not I want to possibly consider abandoning the massive endeavor and move onto something else.
Now that you have heard my thoughts, I have to ask you for your own-- I know that there are others here at Furtopia that are writing MLP:FiM fan-fictions, drawing MLP:FiM fan art, and in at least one case actually selling MLP:FiM fan-made merchandise. Does anyone here share my concerns, or am I being completely hyper-vigilant here? I'm curious if anyone else here worries about their own brony endeavors or the really large fan projects like Equestria Tales and MLP Online getting turned on by Hasbro, or if I am the only person around here who sees these kinds of storm clouds possibly appearing on the horizon. Please let me know-- I would be curious to learn if anyone else has been picking up on any bad premonitions based on Hasbro's more recent somewhat-draconian behavior.