By now most of you have probably read Kidrobot's newest blog post where they have defined how they feel about people customizing a toy they bought versus manufacturing their own versions of their property. Basically if you bought a toy and decided you had a bang up idea for your own creation, you can paint, sculpt, cut holes in, let your cat chew on, set on fire, or anything else weird you can think of to make it unique and call it your own. Now on the other hand, if you decide that the Dunny would make the perfect shape for you to cast up 100 of in resin, or wax, or monkey spit and sell as your own art, then there's gonna be a problem. Cause that's called copyright infringement. The same reason all those rappers get sued when they don't get permission to just rewrite a few words of a song and release it as their own. And Kidrobot is being pretty nice about it too, just asking you to contact them first so they can decide whether to give you the required permission or not. Most companies would just send you the standard cease and desist letter which may or may not be delivered by a heavy-set Italian guy carrying a crow bar (I'm from New Jersey, our courier systems are a little different). Are people gonna be butt hurt about this? Of course, cause there's the internet, which beyond cat pictures and e-commerce is really only good for complaining. But look at it this way: it's not only protecting the existing work of artists but it's forcing other people to be more creative, which is far from a bad thing. Push your own boundaries while respecting those that are defined by the law.
You can read their entire post by clicking here.
