Micro-licensing - the future of licensed product?

[Darklord Dave]

This article is about using a song in a YouTube video, but the idea can be applied to any situation where a creator wants to create a small creative product for a tiny audience using intellectual property owned by a big corporation.

Copy-Remix-Profit: How YouTube & Shapeways Are Inventing the Future of Copyright | Hunter Walk

 

[Wor-Gar]

So what's the actual cost of doing this?

 

[Darklord Dave]

So what's the actual cost of doing this?

It's virgin territory, so who knows? The article talks about music, but Sideshow has (or had) Star Wars and GIJoe 1/6 from Hasbro, not from the studio. I'm sure they paid a premium for that. But perhaps small custom companies could take out a micro-license from the license holder or from the original owner of the Intellectual Property (IP). Of course with figure customs there's the added problem of likeness approvals - and studios aren't likely to do all the work for a Master Toy License for a tiny amount of money.

 

[siquisiri]

With the way MW got hit, it looks like other that Chinese bootlegs, we gonna start seeing less figs

 

[SwedishHeat]

With the way MW got hit, it looks like other that Chinese bootlegs, we gonna start seeing less figs

Or, we'll see the same amount of figures that we did before they existed. . .

At least this way we know that licensors ARE actually watching, they DO care, but you need to keep your un-licensed customs within reason. They do see these things being made, and most of them are fans and can appreciate it, guys like Velvet Morning and Rainman, and you can reasonably say they ARE fans, and just do it for the art, and they keep it very limited, whereas Denny was making a business out of it, and it was affecting their ability to license properties.

Denny pushed the boundaries, and we all saw where those limits are. It's not like it's the end of the world.

But anyways to the topic at hand, I think YouTube is successful in this regard because the music industry is dying and is desperate for a way to stay relevant, and keep money coming in. They're willing to accept a way to receive less money for things and look at outside the box methods. I don't see that same thing happening in the licensing industry. With guys like StarAce taking on the Harry Potter license, and Asmus and ACI doing LOTR. I previously thought that really Sideshow was the only company around that would pick up licensed IPs. I thought the 1/6 hobby market was smaller. Or maybe it is that small, and there are more companies offering a wider range to a small market and everyone's selling much less now. Anyways, for those reasons and as Dave brought up, likeness approval, I don't see something like that moving forward in this area.

 

[yruh8n]

The problem you would have with this is expectations of the licensor. I spoke to someone who had approached a few celebrities about doing licensed figures and it did not go well. $10,000 up front seemed to be the average asking price, plus royalties. I use to collect garage kits and the exact same thing that is happening in 1/6th figures happened to resin kits around ten years ago. Lots of customers became dealers. Sculptors from other fields coming into kit sculpting to make some fast bucks. All they were doing was cutting a small pie into smaller pieces. I/6th scale figures are always going to be a niche market, with the exceptions being the very most popular properties (pretty much anything Hot Toys would license).

 

[Mr Walker]

With the way MW got hit, it looks like other that Chinese bootlegs, we gonna start seeing less figs

Huh. Have I missed something?



In regards to the OP, I say fat chance. Movie studios are notoriously short-sighted. Plus it's probably not worth their time.

 

[galactiboy]

It's interesting agreement that YouTube has reached, seems like a quite a few steps before it could be applied broadly to what we collect, but it certainly has promise.

Although I think the grey market figure makers will still produce and sell under the radar and take a chance on loosing money on one product then always pay a fee or percentage of all the runs.