Saban Brands vs Chroma Squad
 

Here's the game in question.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...ese-style-supe

Here's the developers sounding off to their backers.

http://www.rangerboard.com/showpost....4&postcount=15

Sound off!

In that case, sue me for ModRanger. Sue Winston for Dreamranger. Sue guncannon109 for Kuraiger. This is the stupidest thing that Saban has ever done. The company thinks that cause they own the rights to adapt they can take money from those whose works are influenced by the source material and not their crapdaptions? I await the moment that the head of Toei flies to America and smacks Saban upside the head.

So the just of this all is that Saban is suing the people making Chroma Squad?

Not suing - threatening to sue unless Chroma Squad agrees to a royalties deal (ie: Saban gets 70%, Chroma gets 30%) that'll be written to continually reduce their profit as the game grows in popularity.

IE: The more games you sell, the less money you make, but you don't get sued.

Seriously?

I will never understand why Saban wants to go through all of this trouble for an indie game. There's no reason why Chroma Squad should have to agree to a royalties deal, especially when Saban had nothing to do with it. Saban may have the rights to Power Rangers, but that isn't Power Rangers.

But we'll see what happens.

This is just crazy. Why get involved in a project that has nothing to do with what Saban owns? Sure its an homage to PR, but why wanna take money from it just because it gives throwbacks to PR? Oh yes, because Saban/Saban Brands are greedy as hell.

Shouldnt by that logic Toei sue Saban because of PR, Masked Rider, Beetleborgs, VR Troopers? (I know Saban had permission for those rights from Toei anyway, but you get my point.)

What a bunch of money-hungry cock-suckers.

No because Toei gave Saban permission/rights to make those shows, so in the end, Toei also owns PR, Masked Rider, Beetleborgs, VR Troopers and even Dragon Knight. So it's not logical to sue the person you gave permission to.

its like all the anime that parody sentai in there show saban should sue them. this is god damn crazy.

Samurai Flamenco to be sued. "Well-produced homages will not be tolerated!"

What I meant. Just making the point that Saban will try to sue anything that resembles PR just to make money.

I remember back in 2010 when Power Rangers was knocking on Death's door, and I was happy hearing Saban Bringing the rangers back, but it seems Saaban doesn't care for the IP just the money they can squeeze out of it. I just hope the guys behine Chroma Squad are able to win this

Did harmony gold try to do something like this.

PR needs to die if this shit keeps happening. The show is better off left in the past if all we're getting is diet Sentai.

Yeah, there was an incident last year when Hasbro released a repainted/retooled Skystriker based on the Transformers character Skyfire as part of their G.I. Joe SDCC set.

Skyfire is in turn based on the VF-1 Valkyrie from Macross, and HG demanded either royalties or that everyone turn in their sets to them.

You can imagine how that went.

^Pay to see that shit.

There's no way this gets passed a judge.

To answer some questions that keep popping up about this (elsewhere):

- How can Saban Brands have any legal authority over a company in Brazil?

It depends really - if Saban Brands holds distribution and production rights of Power Rangers in Brazil, then they have legal precedence there.

- Why is Saban Brands even doing this in the first place?

Most likely Saban Brands has a license/contract with various game developers (Bandai-Namco for example), and this game may skirt close enough to being borderline IP infringement. To protect not only their own IP, but their license holders, they would thus intimidate a company like this group of guys with a lawsuit they know they can't afford in hopes of striking a deal with royalties.

(One could assume that something similar happened with PelleK, who was parodying popular Power Rangers songs and suddenly became Saban-endorsed ... now, is it endorsed, or is it another royalty deal that PelleK couldn't say no to due to legal expenditure ramifications? Would explain Saban's huge push on it lately - HE'S making the money, not PelleK)

- Why doesn't Saban go after the MMPR Film guys?

Well that's tricky. But the difference is there was no money being made off that fan film/webisode/whatever-it-is-now. Parody is totally legal as long as there's no profiting from it. Saban can (and should) cease & desist the MMPR Film project for using their terms, names, likeness, etc., without consent. He hasn't (because the FB page still exists with names, logo, trailers, etc.) and might be afraid of backlash from fans (the love/hate on that project is still 50/50 ... when I post negative things about it on Twitter or FB for TokuNation, I lose followers/likes).

Sucks for the developers that this game might not make it out. Fuck Saban and thier legal obligations. Chroma Squad didn't do anything wrong.

Unfortunately I can easily see what SB is trying to do become the norm for fan projects unless things change.

On one hand Saban recently regained his baby and wants it to rake in money regardless of how well it's made.

On the other hand this game is parody that is set as one for Super Sentai, NOT Power Rangers. I don't see Saban winning this case but if worse comes to worst he'll lose money on account of his willingness to bleed an indie publisher dry all because he thinks it's a borderline infringement of something he only does around 10-20% of the work for. The rest is footage from Japan redubbed.

Let's hope SB loses this case and gets it though his head we want a quality product. Suing people for a parody game isn't going to win him any favors.

Saban has no grounds doing this. The game has gone to decent lengths to differentiate itself from Power Rangers.

This reeks of a poorly-informed cash grab. I thought Chroma Squad is a game about Tokusatsu in general, though leaning more towards color coordinated teams like Super Sentai. Even then, it is still an homage and creatively different enough that it wouldn't be seen as infringing on Power Rangers in court... 'cept probably the dev(s?) don't have the time or money to take this to court and are so easily bowing to Saban's bullying.

This is some serious bullshit. I'd actually never heard of this game until this incident, but it looks pretty cool. It's too bad we might never get to play it now thanks to Saban. Reminds me of the same disgusting greedy behavior of Harmony Gold and King.

Why the hell would Saban get royalties for a game based on Sentai and even then more a homage then anything?

This is Saban simply making a threat. What they want is to scare the devs into paying them. If it went to trial who know if they could win.

The devs need to reach out to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for some help.

Solid advice. This appears to be IP-abuse and bullying.

So when does Toei catch word?

Keep on digging Saban, the grave is almost big enough for the entire board of directors. And maybe like in Evil Dead what will raise from the ground will be cleansed of all your evil - alternatively we'll grab the chainsaw and finish the abomination once and for all.

Hasbro laughed in their faces?

You're awesome. Also maybe of there is a big enough fan outcry saban would back off, but I doubt it.

It actually went to court. The lawsuit was thrown out and Hasbro celebrated by releasing yet another Jetfire toy :lol

And to add insult to injury they also included the faceplate of the original toy with the release. :lol

And gave gerwalk mode to whirl

So basically HG humiliated themselves and Hasbro poured salt on the wound?

I like it.

I love Hasbro

So how long before Saban sees these people cosplaying various characters at Cons and says "Hey... we could sue them to!" That's what it's comming down to. The only thing I see this being is a straight moneygrab childish "You can't have it cause we do" thing and nothing more. I'm just waiting, patiently, for Toei to slap him down. Imagine what would happen if Toei went and sued everything that looked like Super Sentai. They'd do nothing else.

Saban is honestly making me wish Disney still owned MMPR.

It's utterly depressing how little many of you know about IP infringement.

As a TF fan I'm all too aware. This is not the same as hasbro vs harmony gold, HG has been trying to sue anybody that went near macross for years, only problem is the didn't have the rights to macross, only a small part of the media. Saban's has distribution on PR in the west, same as Toei does in Japan/Asia. This is treading directly on the toes of some active licenses.

More than likely if saban's pursuit is successful they will block all distribution in certain areas, or force the makers to put in substantial changes. There are work arounds, but honestly I'd love to know what the hell people expect to happen when you steal virtually the entire concept of sentai/PR wholesale.

The power of the people is minuscule, we are mostly just nerds behind keyboards, you can tell yourself you will derail the juggernaut through force of will, but you won't, you'll keep buying the toys and watching the shows because that's what nerds do.

As shit as it is, saban has a duty to enforce it's ip protection, it's part of the deal. This game sadly got too close to the fire.

As for any other fan productions, soon as it becomes a major issue beyond some stupid artwork or YouTube vid, the hammer will drop there too.

It's just how it goes

The thing that keeps bugging me is that it's supporters seem to think because it's 'non-profit' that Saban Brands can't touch.
Legally Saban Brands can shut them down, I can't see there being that much of a backlash with so many angry comments on their FB wall about the delay and the lack of contact over kickstarter perks.

Also if a fan film states it's non-profit does mean Saban Brands can legally request to see it's accounts books to prove that the kickstarter money is being spent on the project itself and nothing else.
It's a practice that Paramount/Viacom have been doing for nearly a decade with all Star Trek fan films.
Heck many of them have had to declare to the IRS about thier own kickstarters about how much was made.

well arnt you a big bowl of sunshine

One thing people need to keep in mind is that this isn't Saban proper. It's their lawyers clearly getting a bit overzealous. The same thing happened with Hasbro awhile back, if you remember. I've known about this game for awhile, and they clearly don't have a case. The fact they're making this offer is proof.

Ayup. Not to mention that they have to be seen as legally defending their trademark/IP/etc., otherwise it could negatively impact future attempts to shut infringement down. Let one go and precedent could be set.

IP law is still mostly ridiculous, but the creators here seem to have reached a mutually agreeable deal, at least.

I can't find where it says this. The creators seem happy with the deal with Saban, and I honestly can't think anyone would be happy with the deal above.

At any rate, I just don't think something like this should even happen in the first place. This continues to show why IP reform is so drastically needed. Ideas are derivative, they build off each other so unless they specifically called it Power Rangers I don't think this should be a case. It's true that not enforcing it can sometimes weaken IP by making a concept generic, such as how Mega Bloks can do LEGO-like bricks without getting it trouble, but honestly I just don't think this is a problem. Why should a creator have sole access to an idea or concept anyway? Mega Bloks and LEGO seem fine alongside each other, for example.

If creators get sole access to an idea, people can't experiment, improve and compete. Lots of creativity comes from, basically, ripping off others' works.