Save Our Fandom - Good effort or backfire waiting to happen?


Recently, and since the start of the year especially, the MLP fan community has watched project after project, many being long-standing staples of the fandom, become blinked out of existence, due to an ongoing series of cease and desist orders from Hasbro. In just the last few months, we've seen the likes of Princess Molestia, JanAnimations, and even FurryDakimakura fall to the legal banhammer. Some concerned fans have already begun preemptively archiving works by popular artists who might be next. To many, all seems lost, as nobody has the power to challenge the corporate might of Hasbro's legal team. Since yesterday's JanAnimation cease and desist a website called "SaveOurFandom.com" has appeared.

It's unclear at this time who started the site, or how effective it could even possibly be, but it offers those with concerns the chance to do....something. The site briefly outlines the "threat to the community" and provides an email submit box with a pre-written (but still editable) text area with a message to Hasbro. The prefilled message reads:

To whom it may concern:

I am contacting you today as a proud fan of the TV show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

Recently, I have started to see a growing trend of fan-created projects being forced to shut down due to Cease & Desist letters sent by Hasbro's legal department.

This concerns me greatly, because the fan community depends on this creative content being created to thrive and expand. These pieces of art are nothing more than free advertisement for the show. They bring countless new people to the fan base, where they watch the show and buy the toys, DVDs, clothing, and more. This creativity and expression should be encouraged, not stifled.

Our creative fans aren't nefarious or criminal. They're hard-working young people who put countless hours into projects that they're passionate about, but some of these projects never even see the light of day. This has a chilling effect on the fan base, and almost every artist wonders whether they'll be next to receive a "C&D", because Hasbro has no clearly stated rules for what is acceptable and unacceptable in the fandom.

As a fan, I love the show, and I want to see it succeed. I encourage the Hasbro team to reconsider its approach to sending legal threats to creators of fan content, and to establish clear boundaries for acceptable content that foster creativity and help the fanbase grow.

Thank you for your time.

The reasons laid out in the email echo the opinions of FDaki, one of the recent cease and desist recipients who said in an email:
"This is the real problem. Hasbro has no clear policy on what they are and aren’t okay with. IF I’d known that they weren’t okay with this stuff, we would never have made it in the first place, demand be damned."

Though the effectiveness of these emails is debatable (it's not even exactly clear where the emails are ending up, the form states "Hasbro's general information e-mail") they may assist more than one might expect. Yesterday, after the JanAnimations takedown Mike Vogel (a.k.a. mktoon)  responded to concerns on twitter.


Vogel is the "VP of development and scripted entertainment for Hasbro Studios", and so one might expect his suggestions to provide some sway, especially if aided by numerous direct messages (or so the line of thinking from the site goes) from concerned fans.
The following thread was started on 4chan, shortly after the site became active:


Many continue to debate the site's necessity and effectiveness, as well as the legality of many of the fan works in question, and the fact that this is >fan of the fandom material. This effort has been condemned by the majority as being ill-conceived, ridiculous and inviting of a terrible backfire. Still others believe that this is the "crest of a wave" that has broken on the shore, where the fandom has spread and will soon be sucked back to where it began.

Only time will tell.
Shit.


Comments (26)

  1. The rules for who has and who hasn't gotten a C&D this year seem pretty clear to me: they are cracking down on sexual content. After all the fuss PinkiePony made about sexual content in the fandom through DWM Hasbro decided to stop other sources of sexual fan content like dakimakuras and the Button Mash raping his mom videos. The only non-sexual content that was taken down this year was Double Rainboom, but that faggot stole the DHX puppets and passed them off as his own so it wasn't really fan-made content to begin with.

    I'd say this isn't really anything to worry about until Hasbro starts giving a shit about Snowdrop or the Mentally Advanced Series or something like that. It's regrettable but understandable for Hasbro to want to stop sexual content so that soccer moms don't hear about pervy bronies and forbid their daughters from watching the show.

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    1. Yes, because Button's Adventures was totally sexual.

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    2. Shadyvox was behind this youtube video (the original is obviously no longer up)

      https://e621.net/post/show/361025

      Button's Adventures was also specifically mentioned by PinkiePony in this DWM post

      http://downwithmolestia.tumblr.com/post/69829553843/boycott-buttonmash

      I don't know why Hasbro waited so long between taking down Molestia and taking down Jan (possibly they wanted to spread it out to reduce the backlash for PR reasons) by they both seem to be pretty related to me

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    3. Soooo... The VA for Button goes and does a thing, and therefore the the person who did the animations and writing and shit for Button Mash Adventures is held responsible?

      K. By that logic, Hasbro is just as responsible for the video you linked. After all, they are the ones who have the rights to the character design for Button used in that video.

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    4. It's exactly that kind of fucked up retarded cover-your-ass lawyer logic that caused Hasbro to send this cease and desist, yes. Hasbro didn't want angry mothers boycotting their show because their daughter found that video online

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  2. Simply put, you don't bite the hand that feeds. Hasbro does what it does and we adapt and move on. All this damage control is unnecessary and won't bring anything good.

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  3. >We had no idea that Hasbro didn't want us selling dakimakura with pictures of their characters on them for money
    FDaki is either the dumbest person on the planet or pretending to be.

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  4. I highly doubt anything will change. I'd be glad to be proven wrong, but I'm not holding out hope.

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  5. Saying it again: government needs to make fanart illegal. THAT will start a protest of UNSEEN proportions.

    THEN things will change.

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    1. sad but true..... i feel like the vast majority of people only act when they are directly threatened (that was the case with the first version of SOPA).

      Fanart is the reason why I joined most of the fandoms I'm in..... even if most of THAT said fanart is porn. APM and Lil Miss Rarity made me join the pony fandom.... because of that, Hasbro now has like 100-something dollars added to their profits because toys and shit I bought. Still cant wait for the day when uptight as fuck companies finally use enough common sense to figure out that fanart (this word encompasses everything fans make, not just painting a picture) brings in people that literally want to throw money at them. sad, didn't think they were this stupid.

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    2. Only until the next episode of American Idol/*insert show* comes out. Then everyone will forget and move on.

      ADHD en masse.

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  6. Anyone notice the last image where it says SaveOurFandom.com gets C&D'd? I ask because I am laughing at the site now being gone. That was one of the shortest lived fan protest sites I've seen.

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  7. The site and their Twitter seems gone

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  8. Probably the readers of Horse News, I'd wager.

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  9. oh, fucking great.... wayback machine doesn't even have it archived. fuck you hasbro. this lasted what, one fucking day? still, the amount of emails they got has to be in the thousands so its a start, i guess.

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  10. that safeourfandom site is the worst

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  11. Save Our Fandom - another group of people that have no idea how copyright works.

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  12. You want someone to blame?, Look in the mirror Bronies

    You brought this on yourselves.

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    1. How? Just how exactly did we bring this on ourselves? you're an idiot

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    2. You brought it on with the pathetic porn, fanfictions and the absolute shit you call art.

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  13. PinkiePony keeps drawing attention to the nasty part of the Fandom and as a result Hasbro is forced to take action, this stupid cackling cunt makes a big deal about it then soon a shit load of people will start to think Hasbro doesn't live up to their copyright system.

    essentially, there is no doubt they know of Flufflepuff, MisterDavie and whatever else, but can claim "willful ignorance" of their existence in court and act like they didn't know these existed however, if people draw attention to these videos, and some one says to hasbro "hey, why aren't you sending out Cease and Desist letters to these people" they have no choice but to send out a C&D or they'd look bad.

    In Any case we need to remember who's the brains and who's the brawns of My little pony.

    SPOILER ALERT:
    DHX is the brains. They're the better animators, writers, artists and songwriters, the part we love.
    Hasbro: makes the toys and deals with legal issues, but they pepper a little bit of art in between.
    Love DHX Fuck Hasbro, their toys are pretty shit anyways. Always have been awful at making my little pony toys.

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    1. Send a link to this PinkiePony...

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    2. Fuck you, you're just butthurt that they shut down your pony porn and that wretched shit you call "art". You have no understanding of copyright, so you can burn in hell.

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  14. Nobody but the other morons who are addicted to watching porn. You should call them zoophiles, because they really are. I really hope hasbro also sends a C&D order to derpibooru and the 4chan section of ponies, as well as those bronies spamming porn on youtube. Send the fucking c&d and report it/sue them.

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  15. we brony's care about the fandom and if you don't than why are you even on this site? if your not a brony all this shouldn't concerne you. i hate all the people like you who come on this site to say crap like that you shouldn't even be on this site if your not a brony! it's like saying black people can't go to school with the white people.

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