As many of you have noticed from a recent report on The Daily Dot, WhiteDove, famous for (among other things) selling a plushie to Lauren Faust, is being pressured by Hasbro to remove all information and deviations pertaining to the sale of plushies on her DeviantART account.
WhiteDove herself has confirmed that she was not singled out by the company, but rather that an unknown individual reported her to them. There has been a lot of speculation on the part of the fanbase as to why Hasbro would do something like this when they are not involved in the plushie market themselves. But the situation is more complicated than it would appear at a glance.
United States trademark law is crystal clear on the issue of IP defense. Once you become informed of a person or company profiting off of your intellectual property as WhiteDove was with My Little Pony, you are required to mount a defense against the offender. Failure to do so can and will result in the voiding of your trademark and all the protections thereof. The ramifications for this echo far, far beyond the sale of pony plushes. Hasbro has long been squandering an opportunity to make a huge amount of money by marketing an official plush, but their business strategies are their own. But even if they choose to turn down our money, by actively turning a blind eye to the sale of fanworks, they risk losing their capacity to market anything to us at all.
Thus far, there have been no reports of other high-profile plush makers being targeted, indicating this is not part of a larger-scale operation. But that doesn't stop it from sucking. All sympathies to WhiteDove for being the victim of very unfortunate circumstances.
