Four Horsemen Studios Mythic Legions

Damien said:
To be fair, we don't actually know that the 4H didn't get one. It's basically a form letter and it takes a law firm like twenty seconds to fill out. They could have been sending one over at the same moment that the stuff was going down on social media. Hard to say. But Doc is also right that whatever works -is- what's most effective. If yelling works, you saved the cost of a lawyer and still got what you wanted.
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Yeah, for all we know they got the letter, which I'm 100% sure the RS folks have on standby to send any time. (Not a knock on them defending their IP, either, cos EVERYBODY wants to put a Red Sonja knockoff in their project these days.) Or alternately they got a DM that said "guys, don't make us send a C&D and cost us both money, huh? Cut the shit.")
JakeEkiss said:
Wait, WHAT?
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I cannot confirm nor deny the truth of it, just that this was the prevailing word on the street. I actually had the same reaction you did. (Hockey fan fic involving real players was huge too for a while, too, to the point some of the players were uncomfortable having themselves written into someone's sexy romance novel without their consent. There was a big blow up about it a few years back - I actually find the Stucky fan fic rumor funnier and less malignant.)
 
@Damien I would hope there was something more involved than acting like a Man Baby on social media. Then there's the Horseman, did they open themselves up to more issues from anyone else with a grievance?
 
docsilence said:
Yeah, for all we know they got the letter, which I'm 100% sure the RS folks have on standby to send any time. (Not a knock on them defending their IP, either, cos EVERYBODY wants to put a Red Sonja knockoff in their project these days.) Or alternately they got a DM that said "guys, don't make us send a C&D and cost us both money, huh? Cut the shit.")
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Exactly. The 4H may be thieves, but they're not idiots. They knew exactly what they were doing. If the actual license holder takes notice of you, you need to back off. Whether they send a C&D, threatened one privately, or even just the fact that they were clearly publicly unhappy with what you were doing. At that point, you've got no choice but to back off or you are -daring- them to sue you.


mrboshek said:
I would hope there was something more involved than acting like a Man Baby on social media.
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Why?
Like I said; if it works, it works. Acting like a man baby on social media is cheaper than the hourly rate of an IP lawyer, who is 100% going to charge you a minimum of 2 hours to fire off a form letter they filled out in about 6 minutes. And the result is exactly the same either way; the offending party gets the message that you're pissed. As I said above - it really doesn't even matter what the exact interaction is. Once someone committing IP theft is made aware the license holder isn't happy, they're daring that person to sue them by not fixing the situation.


mrboshek said:
Then there's the Horseman, did they open themselves up to more issues from anyone else with a grievance?
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I mean, yes and no? 'Yes' only in the sense that their absolutely ridiculous response to the situation (pretending they didn't know what they were doing - idiots) probably put more eyeballs on the entire thing. Which means more opportunity for other license holders to take notice of what they're doing. That kind of bullshit does get publicized more, and the next time the Red Sonja guys are in a meeting with the Conan guys, maybe they bring it up. Or they don't. But 4H definitely now put themselves a bit more at risk of being noticed.

'No' in the sense that they've been committing IP theft forever and they've always been the exact same amount of open to retaliation by the IP owners. This situation doesn't make them more or less culpable for other IP theft than they already were before the situation.
 
A reasonable company would take this as a warning shot and knock it off, especially because they've got an outrageously loyal fan base. They don't need to do a Ram Man homage anymore to sell $500 sets of action figures. But we'll see.

My favorite ever case of FAFO with IP law was a guy who ran Jedi lightsaber classes for money. Disney sent him like, three? C&Ds, and the last one said if you don't stop it, we will ask for our licensing fees in court and win. The guy thought they were bluffing.

They won, of course. He got hit with like a $1.8 million bill. And if he'd just said he was doing laser sword space ninja classes, Disney wouldn't have ever caught wind of it. It was calling it a lightsaber that got him in the shit. There's dozens or even hundreds of small vendors who sell laser sword knockoffs and they never get dinged. It's all about how far you FA before you FO.
 
docsilence said:
A reasonable company would take this as a warning shot and knock it off, especially because they've got an outrageously loyal fan base. They don't need to do a Ram Man homage anymore to sell $500 sets of action figures. But we'll see.

My favorite ever case of FAFO with IP law was a guy who ran Jedi lightsaber classes for money. Disney sent him like, three? C&Ds, and the last one said if you don't stop it, we will ask for our licensing fees in court and win. The guy thought they were bluffing.

They won, of course. He got hit with like a $1.8 million bill. And if he'd just said he was doing laser sword space ninja classes, Disney wouldn't have ever caught wind of it. It was calling it a lightsaber that got him in the shit. There's dozens or even hundreds of small vendors who sell laser sword knockoffs and they never get dinged. It's all about how far you FA before you FO.
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Yup.

I mean, stuff like that DOES bother me ethically. Because what are you protecting? He's selling a thing you do not sell and have no interest in selling, so there's no -legitimate- case you can make for lost revenue. This is the part of IP law where it's just "this is designed to allow large corporations to crush anyone they want, any time they want, for petty bullshit reasons."

BUT, we also still do understand that this is how the law operates. So if you're gonna be a fucking idiot, I kind of have a real hard time feeling bad for you. Especially when the 'big bad corporation' (and I put that in quotes because of the situation, not because they're NOT bad) gives you like 2 or 3 chances to just stop it with no consequences. They couldn't have been much nicer than that and they certainly didn't -need- to be.

If the Red Sonja guys were actually smart, they would have pretended not to see anything and waited for the figure to finish being sold through - then gone back, said they just noticed this infringement, and demanded the licensing fees for using their character.
 
Damien said:
Yup.

I mean, stuff like that DOES bother me ethically. Because what are you protecting? He's selling a thing you do not sell and have no interest in selling, so there's no -legitimate- case you can make for lost revenue. This is the part of IP law where it's just "this is designed to allow large corporations to crush anyone they want, any time they want, for petty bullshit reasons."

BUT, we also still do understand that this is how the law operates. So if you're gonna be a fucking idiot, I kind of have a real hard time feeling bad for you. Especially when the 'big bad corporation' (and I put that in quotes because of the situation, not because they're NOT bad) gives you like 2 or 3 chances to just stop it with no consequences. They couldn't have been much nicer than that and they certainly didn't -need- to be.

If the Red Sonja guys were actually smart, they would have pretended not to see anything and waited for the figure to finish being sold through - then gone back, said they just noticed this infringement, and demanded the licensing fees for using their character.
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Yeah, honestly, being a man-baby online is annoying but it's actually doing 4H a favor. They could lie in wait, gather a bunch of evidence, and then take them to court. "Hey dickhead cut it out" is cheaper for everyone.

And as I said upthread, IP law is deeply fucked, and benefits the big companies more than anyone, but as someone who had to send a blogger a personal request, NOT a C&D, to STOP POSTING MY BOOK CHAPTER BY CHAPTER ON HER FUCKING WEBSITE because if I didn't tell her to take it down I was weakening my claim on my own intellectual property, very few people want to whine online but we're legally required to do it.

BTW, her reason was "I think my followers will love your book, I'm just sharing it because I want them to see it." Babygirl, tell them to GET IT FROM THE LIBRARY FFS. I don't even care if they buy it, I just need you not to weaken my IP claim, goddamnit...
 
Damien said:
If the Red Sonja guys were actually smart, they would have pretended not to see anything and waited for the figure to finish being sold through - then gone back, said they just noticed this infringement, and demanded the licensing fees for using their character.
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I think at that point the Horsemen would have fought back. They wouldn’t have had benefit of the name recognition they didn’t use so it would have been a costly fight for either side. Possibly they could have spun it into actually licensing the character under the Infinite Legions banner and made an accurate version of the character. Heck, that still could happen. I wouldn’t be surprised if they try as a peace offering and try to get on the good side of the IP holder and let everyone get something out of this.
 
Yeah, then it becomes a legal fight neither side wants to pay for - there's only so many companies that can afford a protracted legal fight and the money you might make off it won't be worth the money you spend in court. The RS folks won't want to risk weakening their position by losing an argument about red-haired 90% nude warrior women being specific enough to RS.

There's a reason why we have the "LEGALLY DISTINCT XYZ" meme kicking around.
 
Buttmunch said:
I think at that point the Horsemen would have fought back. They wouldn’t have had benefit of the name recognition they didn’t use so it would have been a costly fight for either side. Possibly they could have spun it into actually licensing the character under the Infinite Legions banner and made an accurate version of the character. Heck, that still could happen. I wouldn’t be surprised if they try as a peace offering and try to get on the good side of the IP holder and let everyone get something out of this.
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That's fair. But at the same time, I guess it depends on who has better lawyers and who is more confident. It's always possible the 4H would have settled and given RSC a piece of all the sales -specifically- to avoid the potential of going to court and losing a lot of money. Give a little to avoid the potential of losing a lot, as it were.
That being said, I'm realizing that I don't even know who owns RSC or how 'big' they really are. I'm pretty sure they're just one of the many sub-divided down corporations owned by someone that owns a lot of stuff. So they very well may have enough money to go hog if they really want to.


TheSameIdiot said:
Meanwhile, the comments on 4H's Instagram post about lowering the price are about how classy they are. Let's back up a step, folks. Why did they have to remove those heads in the first place?
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As a monolith (NOT as individuals), I really dislike the 4H fanbase. A lot. They twist themselves into knots to suck Cornboy's dick.
Also, why is no one talking about the fact that 4H value two heads at 10 entire dollars. Which means the OTHER two heads are worth 10 dollars. Which means the entire base body, armor, and all the weapons/accessories are only worth 20 dollars. That lets you do some math on future releases, doesn't it.
 
Buttmunch said:
I think at that point the Horsemen would have fought back. They wouldn’t have had benefit of the name recognition they didn’t use so it would have been a costly fight for either side. Possibly they could have spun it into actually licensing the character under the Infinite Legions banner and made an accurate version of the character. Heck, that still could happen. I wouldn’t be surprised if they try as a peace offering and try to get on the good side of the IP holder and let everyone get something out of this.
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Honestly, I’m more confused why they haven’t ever licensed characters like Conan and Red Sonja.


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Once again why I spend all my action figure time here and not out there on social media. Fans in general are insufferable. 4H fans are insufferable because they're sycophantic but stumble into a Marvel Legends thread and there's just palpable, illiterate rage. Thinking of that Tommy Lee Jones line about groups of people in Men in Black...
Damien said:
Also, why is no one talking about the fact that 4H value two heads at 10 entire dollars. Which means the OTHER two heads are worth 10 dollars. Which means the entire base body, armor, and all the weapons/accessories are only worth 20 dollars. That lets you do some math on future releases, doesn't it.
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Probably because I'm pretty sure 4H pricing involves a blindfold and a dart board. I feel like an idiot saying it since I literally just got a box full of their stuff I paid for two years ago sitting in my kitchen to open tonight, but I'd be surprised if they have a definable logic to their pricing. The base figures for the upcoming kickstarter are 29.99.

But also, I think it might be cool if we somehow had some inside baseball knowledge about action figure pricing. I was thinking about that ordering Savage Crucible stuff a few weeks back - was it the soft goods and the chain that added 8 dollars to the Frazetta figure's price, or was that a licensing fee? It felt fair but knowing why would have been legitimately interesting. How does volume or material types impact a $37.99 Monster Force figure versus a $27.99 Classified figure with roughly the same amount of materials? I wish I had the connections to write, like, a full-on research paper about it.
TheGillMan said:
Something, something, free milk, cow, something, something...
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I mean, yeah, this. Nobody's going to voluntarily pay for something they used to get for free unless it's ad-free streaming.
 
I have no problem with artists defending their IP, even if the "artist" is the company that owns the IP. The same rules that are supposed to keep Disney from taking my book and turning it into a movie without my consent applies if I try to take Disney's characters to promote my business without their consent. It is brutally hard to create any IP that people even pay attention to, let alone want to steal or use for their own purposes. The IP owner, no matter the scale of an individual or megacorp, gets to decide how they want to use their creation.

Even without the law, it is just ethical.
 
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