pic: Team 604 -- 2010 Teaser #3

[Bannanakin]

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[the man]

That was day a day one idea a transformer robot from another planet

[BEEKMAN]

epic

Wow. I really can't wait to see these in person at SVR!

Your team never ceases to impress with their polished style!

[MWB]

hahaha i saw those being made by ryan... he didnt look to happy

[wilsonmw04]

Not to be a downer, but you know you are violating copyright, don't you?

[RyanCahoon]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

Not to be a downer, but you know you are violating copyright, don't you?

Fair Use?

Originally Posted by RyanCahoon

Fair Use?

Fair Use.

No profit is being made from the depiction. Plus, it's by an educational institution.

[MWB]

arent they also redrawn?

[Tom Line]

You are using a trademark of the Hasbro company. Using a trademarked logo is far more complicated than using the name of something, like "Transformers", and is subject to far more strict "Fair Use" policies.

Fair use for copyrighted materials is there so people can use it to cite items in a research paper or to mention them in a novel to make it more reaslistic. For instance, to say someone is driving a Ford, or eating a Hersey bar.

You would have a very very hard time demonstrating in a court that you aren't contributing to trademark dilution by putting those on a robot. You'd have a very hard time convincing a court that putting those ON your robot had some educational purpose. (There are any number of other shapes you could have machined to teach the same thing).

I wouldn't have said a word about it except for the people who immediately claimed "fair use". This is not an application for fair use. There is no valid reason to have those logos on your robot. You are neither sponsored by Hasbro nor do you have their endorsement. It makes absolutely no difference that your team is affiliated with a high school. You still don't get to use a trademark without having a very valid purpose.

That said - those are absolutely incredible looking. I hope you don't take them off your robot, because I frankly don't think anyone is going to raise a stink about it. I wouldn't have even the first clue how to machine them, and the polish is beautiful. Nice job!

[wilsonmw04]

I think it's a great technical accomplishment. Personally, I wouldn't allow my team to do this because of the "P" in "GP." If we are training out kids to work in a professional manner, we must educate them on the proper use of trademarks and copyrights. Just as an English teacher shouldn't accept a plagiarized paper for academic credit, we shouldn't accept something that could get a "real" business in hot water just because of the cool factor of the idea.

As Tom has stated, this is not fair use of a copyright or trademarked item. What you are defining with your "no profit" statement falls more into those things in the Creative Commons area of intellectual property.
Whatever you decide, best of luck this season!

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as for commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching or scholarship.

That being said, I'm not a lawyer, and I don't think anyone else in this thread is. So let's leave the legal-ese out of this, eh?

It's still a really stylish gearbox.

[p8blr]

Yeah, this is probably the most awesome gearbox I have ever seen.

[Chris is me]

The logo has enough subtle differences that they could make a case for it, and if it's seriously an issue that Hasbro pursues, they can just file it off.

[V_Chip]

Rad.