- This topic has 73 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 17 years, 4 months ago by .
-
Posts
-
Well, I have an idea-while dealing and waiting on this legal stuff, which could take awhile, why not create and paint more unicorns and pegasus’? Like the gothic unicorn, or paint more of the limited edition male pegasus. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE????? Is it ok to post a squeak here? Ok here it is…. :squeak: !!
So that you guys can understand what is going on, here is an explanation of our legal concerns with the pyos. (Thank you for proof reading this, Emerald!)
The original artwork and patterns of decoration on Windstone figurines are copyrighted. That means nobody else can legally sell or publish dragons that have these specific decorations or anything substantially similar to these decorations. Some of these specific decorations that we have fought for, and protected (at huge expense) are things like: the use of colored spots on the Dragons, the placement of gold (metallic) markings, the coloration and the way it is shaded and blended. Basically everything that makes a Windstone dragon visually distinct from other dragons on the market.
If we allow anyone to use anything substantially similar to our copyrighted markings etc., ( I call this collectively “Our Look”) without a license agreement, we may be losing our protection of these things, even though the pyo’s are Windstones…so we are now put in the very bad position of having to police Ebay, and everywhere else, for PYO dragons that we feel are too similar to “Our look”. This can be subjective, which makes it even harder, since it can lead to misunderstandings and bad feelings towards us.
We are faced with four choices:
1) Ignore the problem and lose our protection,
2) Police the world for paint jobs that are substantially similar,
3) Stop selling any creature as a pyo that could be painted like one of ours (most of them), or
4) find a way to include a license agreement with each pyo creature that gives legal permission for it to be painted in a way substantially similar to a Windstone.
This seems like a no-brainer, however, we don’t know if handing out license agreements is a wise thing to do from a business stand point, since this would allow anyone to copy any of our patterns and sell them on a pyo. It could be confusing to a third party, who may not understand that it isn’t OK for anyone to paint any dragon in these colors and sell them… and that is where we stand. United and undecided..Melody wrote:So that you guys can understand what is going on, here is an explanation of our legal concerns with the pyos. (Thank you for proof reading this, Emerald!)
The original artwork and patterns of decoration on Windstone figurines are copyrighted. That means nobody else can legally sell or publish dragons that have these specific decorations or anything substantially similar to these decorations. Some of these specific decorations that we have fought for, and protected (at huge expense) are things like: the use of colored spots on the Dragons, the placement of gold (metallic) markings, the coloration and the way it is shaded and blended. Basically everything that makes a Windstone dragon visually distinct from other dragons on the market.
If we allow anyone to use anything substantially similar to our copyrighted markings etc., ( I call this collectively “Our Look”) without a license agreement, we may be losing our protection of these things, even though the pyo’s are Windstones…so we are now put in the very bad position of having to police Ebay, and everywhere else, for PYO dragons that we feel are too similar to “Our look”. This can be subjective, which makes it even harder, since it can lead to misunderstandings and bad feelings towards us.
We are faced with four choices:
1) Ignore the problem and lose our protection,
2) Police the world for paint jobs that are substantially similar,
3) Stop selling any creature as a pyo that could be painted like one of ours (most of them), or
4) find a way to include a license agreement with each pyo creature that gives legal permission for it to be painted in a way substantially similar to a Windstone.
This seems like a no-brainer, however, we don’t know if handing out license agreements is a wise thing to do from a business stand point, since this would allow anyone to copy any of our patterns and sell them on a pyo. It could be confusing to a third party, who may not understand that it isn’t OK for anyone to paint any dragon in these colors and sell them… and that is where we stand. United and undecided..But only on a PYO, and PYOs are Windstones. I am not understanding the negative ramifications of having a Windstone PYO look like a Windstone, cuz its still a Windstone.I think Ski it is because Windstone themselves didn’t paint the PYO and the pattern itself it copyrighted, if I’m reading it right. Basically, I think the PYOs being potentially painted similar to production Windstones open a window or a door in the copyright issue. Other people (NOT forum members – I’m talking the unscrupulous ones who have no respect for artists) could then say “but these PYOs aren’t painted by Windstone so why can’t this (hideous) copy I made be ok?” or some such thing.
Without trying to open up the whole fan fiction can of worms I think this is why, even if the author may be honored people like his/her world enough to write about it they CAN’T let people do it.
That’s just my take on it. Lord knows I’ve been wrong before.
And I have to admit I’d be ecstatic if the small SK came out as a production piece *ducks and runs*
ddvm wrote:And I have to admit I’d be ecstatic if the small SK came out as a production piece *ducks and runs*
i agree with you on this one. i would be happy if it came out as a production piece too.
we need to find a good hiding place! 😯
gryphondreamer wrote:ddvm wrote:And I have to admit I’d be ecstatic if the small SK came out as a production piece *ducks and runs*
i agree with you on this one. i would be happy if it came out as a production piece too.
we need to find a good hiding place! 😯
Glad I’m not the only one! 😉 *starts stacking Windstone boxes to hide behind*
skigod377 wrote:Melody wrote:So that you guys can understand what is going on, here is an explanation of our legal concerns with the pyos. (Thank you for proof reading this, Emerald!)
The original artwork and patterns of decoration on Windstone figurines are copyrighted. That means nobody else can legally sell or publish dragons that have these specific decorations or anything substantially similar to these decorations. Some of these specific decorations that we have fought for, and protected (at huge expense) are things like: the use of colored spots on the Dragons, the placement of gold (metallic) markings, the coloration and the way it is shaded and blended. Basically everything that makes a Windstone dragon visually distinct from other dragons on the market.
If we allow anyone to use anything substantially similar to our copyrighted markings etc., ( I call this collectively “Our Look”) without a license agreement, we may be losing our protection of these things, even though the pyo’s are Windstones…so we are now put in the very bad position of having to police Ebay, and everywhere else, for PYO dragons that we feel are too similar to “Our look”. This can be subjective, which makes it even harder, since it can lead to misunderstandings and bad feelings towards us.
We are faced with four choices:
1) Ignore the problem and lose our protection,
2) Police the world for paint jobs that are substantially similar,
3) Stop selling any creature as a pyo that could be painted like one of ours (most of them), or
4) find a way to include a license agreement with each pyo creature that gives legal permission for it to be painted in a way substantially similar to a Windstone.
This seems like a no-brainer, however, we don’t know if handing out license agreements is a wise thing to do from a business stand point, since this would allow anyone to copy any of our patterns and sell them on a pyo. It could be confusing to a third party, who may not understand that it isn’t OK for anyone to paint any dragon in these colors and sell them… and that is where we stand. United and undecided..But only on a PYO, and PYOs are Windstones. I am not understanding the negative ramifications of having a Windstone PYO look like a Windstone, cuz its still a Windstone. I know! I still don’t understand that part myself, but I guess it is a problem legally if we allowed people to use our color patterns and sell them. Selling and publishing is the issue.
Online pics count as publishing, from what I gather.
It is also an infringement to repaint a regular production dragon, to be a different Windstone color! Though restoration of damaged ones back to their original color is fine, and we encourage that.This legal stuff has a lot to do with Windstone needing to maintain a strong legal position to fight the bad guy copycat companies in court. These might be companies who have very clever, savvy lawyers. If there is ever a chink in our armor, we could be in for trouble, so we need to be very careful.
did you realize you were getting into all this before you released all the other pyo’s, particularly the small dragon one?
I think I understand it pretty well.
PYO are windstones…but different in the sence that they are not apart of the Windstone line that is painted…
but if some one bought the pyo’s and painted them like the production pieces…and then sells them, People who do no know windstones very well may think that the colorations are allowed to be used or that they are apart of the line of painted windstones..and then I would imagine that since the pyo’s are NOT apart of the already painted line, that people could start using the windstone look on other dragons and it would be harder to make a claim that the look is protected and not allowed to be reproduced since it is being used on the PYO’s.There certianly does not seem to be a for sure safe way to deal with it..and I really don’t like the idea of liscence agreement, that just seems quite a bit too risky.
At least that is some of what I understand from it.
Has there been trouble with people painting them as production pieces and then selling them?
gryphondreamer wrote:did you realize you were getting into all this before you released all the other pyo’s, particularly the small dragon one?
Kinda, though I didn’t know how difficult this problem would be. We are still just test marketing these things (we haven’t started selling them in retail stores the way we had planned at first). We needed to get a feel for what would happen with these, and if they would even sell.
I should add the fifth option to my list, that’s the one that we are doing now, which is only sell to people who we know and trust! This won’t be possible forever though, as pyos grow in popularity.well i have a little idea that may help a tiny bit somewhere… with the pyos, why not scribe “pyo” or “paint your own” in the same panel in addition to your signature and date? this would be a “permanent ” part of the piece and would really help to delineate pyos from production pieces. “pyo”/paint your own” could also be stamped on the felt in addition to the windstone logo. this doesn’t help against windstone-esque paint jobs, but it does mark them as different from normal production. 🙂 just a thought.
tfsculptures wrote:well i have a little idea that may help a tiny bit somewhere… with the pyos, why not scribe “pyo” or “paint your own” in the same panel in addition to your signature and date? this would be a “permanent ” part of the piece and would really help to delineate pyos from production pieces. “pyo”/paint your own” could also be stamped on the felt in addition to the windstone logo. this doesn’t help against windstone-esque paint jobs, but it does mark them as different from normal production. 🙂 just a thought.
The problem is with people painting ANY dragon with any substantial similarity to a Windstone. I thought of this too, but the issue can be with any dragon, not just PYOs. 🙁
Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.comoh ok. 🙂 i was still thinking of the whole delayed release thing of the keeper pyo, due to whatever copyright issues, or the little dragon pyo looking similar to other production dragons like the young, etc. i was just trying to think of a way to define them as different, even if someone illicitly paints them like a production piece… hmmm. what difficult stuff, but boy you have to protect yourself thoroughly otherwise you won’t have anything left to protect…
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
