How Can There Be Unauthorized Playing With Toys?
from the where-are-the-lawyer-toys? dept
Playmobil makes plastic toy people figures. You'd probably recognize them if you saw them. I know I had a bunch as a kid. Anyway, according to the company, you can violate its intellectual property by playing with them (and then photographing the results) in an unauthorized manner. No, seriously. Ramon Casha alerts us to the news of a series of lawsuits in Malta against people for trying to sell the plastic people figures set up in an unauthorized manner. Now, there is a separate issue here. Apparently, Playmobil has at least some of these plastic people assembled in Malta, and part of the issue was people somehow getting access to stolen bags of Playmobil people parts and selling them. In that case, it's fine to charge people with theft, if there's evidence that they stole.However, the lawsuits seem to target the people who took these toys and set them up in an "unauthorized" manner (such as depicting violent scenes) and charge them with intellectual property infringement. That seems a lot more difficult to accept. Assuming that the figures had been purchased legally, and then the owner created these same scenes and tried to sell them on eBay, would Playmobil still have a case? How can the company presume to tell people how they can or cannot set up the toys in their possession?
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Filed Under: toys, unauthorized
Companies: playmobil
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Why do they...
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Re: Why do they...
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They cannot. Not with any sanity, anyhow. That's like Braun suing me for using my razor to shave my wife's legs and use a picture of that to try to sell the razor used. Once I buy it, I can do anything with it I want because it is now my property.
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http://www.delongwine.com/news/2009/03/31/playmobil-wine-bar/
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Re: John
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Legal standards
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Re: Legal standards
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Re:
It's where the falcon is from, of course.
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Re: Re:
fyi, malta is a tiny island south of sicily (i hope you know where THAT is... it's at the tip of italy's booth at the south. ie malta is about in the middle of the mediterranean sea.
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Barbie had the same (sort of) problem
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=12402
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Unauthorized Playing???
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Malta
It's near where cretins live...
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Re: Malta
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=cretin&searchmode=none
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Intellectual Property
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090618/1950315285.shtml
The value of 24 songs does not equal 1.9 million dollars. They should make her pay 24 dollars for the mp3's which she should have gotten off of Amazon with a small fine and send her on her way.
Greed is a powerful thing.
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Quite in line with everything else.
The US Congress should immediately pass a new law (to be in line with international community, of course!) about sharing toys, razors, dinnerware, etc as well as taking pictures of such (all) things.
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Streisand Effect
They have no idea what they are bringing on to themselves.
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Not unauthorized
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So i guess
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Nope, you can do anything you want with things in your possession - but when you show them off in public, or attempt to profit from them in a way that is negative to the product, you may have crossed a line.
It would sort of be like turning spam into something that look like dog droppings, and selling it with the SPAM name. At some point, a line is crossed.
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Re: #22
"How can the company presume to tell people how they can or cannot set up the toys in their possession?"
Nope, you can do anything you want with things in your possession - but when you show them off in public, or attempt to profit from them in a way that is negative to the product, you may have crossed a line.
"
Ummm - I don't think so. I bought it, I can do what the f**k I want with it. I can resell it, I can paint it green and take pictures of it, I can make erotic montages with it.
The issue here is not "intellectual property", it's physical property. Once a vendor has sold it to me, then they can't tell me what to do with it. I bought it, it's mine! Their right to control the product ended when they sold it to me.
And as for "turning spam into something that look like dog droppings, and selling it with the SPAM name."
AFAIK, that would be trademark infringement. You're purporting to sell something that (although it includes SPAM) is not solely SPAM. If you listed SPAM as an ingredient instead, you'd be totally within your rights to do that...
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Uh-Oh
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Has anyone here (including Mike) read the article?
Both Mr Difesa and Ms Cutajar pleaded not guilty to handling stolen property, tampering with Playmobil toy characters without authorisation, circulating the manipulated toys and breaching copyright on the company trademark on and before March.
Several people have commented along the lines, I bought it, I can do what I want with it. Yes, and no. If you bought the items from someone who acquired the items legitimately, then you can do whatever you wish with them, within limits (more on that in a moment).
On the other hand, if you bought stolen property, it does not matter whether you thought they were legitimate or not, the property will be confiscated from you, in nearly every country in the world. Even if you were unaware that the property was stolen, in general you are not permitted to retain the possession of stolen property.
The principal crime throughout this article was the stealing of the toys from Playmobil, as is pointed out several times.
Now, once the toys were stolen, all sorts of interesting things happened (or appeared to happen, since the article was vague).
First, the toys were "tampered" with, meaning that the toys were assembled in a way inconsistent with their original intent. If you purchased the toys legally, disassembled them and reassembled them in whatever way you wanted, then there is little Playmobil could do to stop you, UNLESS, you were foolish enough to market the toys using Playmobil's name.
Since the article CLEARLY states that one of the crimes was a trademark crime, I have to assume that one or more of these foolish people continued to use the name Playmobil in connection with their stolen property. Naughty, naughty. You are permitted to use a trademarked name when you are selling legitimately purchased products produced by a company and resell them. However, if you DISASSEMBLE the products and REASSEMBLE them into a form NOT OFFERED by the company, YOU HAVE NO TRADEMARK RIGHTS. Duh. Even a moron in a hurry should know that.
Side note: The article says "breaching copyright on the company trademark." I am unsure what that means, because I have never heard that usage before. I thought trademark was trademark and copyright was copyright, and never the twain shall meet. Of course, given the relative ignorance of many reporters regarding intellectual property, it is possible that the reporter got it wrong. Worse, the Playmobil representative may have mischaracterized the offense. Unless Malta somehow mixes the two in their laws.
So, to the extent this article points out an intellectual property issue, which seems to be a trademark issue, it appears to be the use of a trademark to deceive customers into thinking that the "innovatively" assembled toys were products of Playmobil. Not a very smart move, especially when you stole the parts to make the toys in the first place.
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