YES. Resoundingly so. Especially knowing they’re without a doubt violating copyrights at the same time. As there’s NO WAY IN HELL anyone can argue that ANY American cartoon company would consent to have their work used in this capacity.
DO NOT attempt to twist or apply what I’ve said here in any way to graphic arts. As I’m speaking strictly to the cartoon aspect, as you’ve laid out out here.
YES. ABSOLUTELY.
But your “lion face” point of reference for an example, was decidedly weak-sauce hon. Lol
As you’re having to “apply imagination” to subject matter that’s at best correlative. Not an almost 1:1 image as is blatantly recognizable with respect to the Minions being discussed in the original message.
Now the grey matter area (Star Wars, etc) is still bad enough, and given the copyright/IP violations there, wouldn’t be happening anyways IF existing laws were being enforced…
But that’s a WHOLE other thread, and as such, isn’t really a viable “target” in this discussion IMO.
You don’t have ANY such cartoon motifs legally evident in any tobacco products, why anyone would think it’s acceptable here, or should be any different, is beyond me. That was settled almost two decades ago (in the US). I know, some aren’t old enough to have been there. But there it is.
If you want to do grown up things (like smoke tobacco, or chew, or snuff, etc) then one should BE an adult (to start with), and ACT adult with respect to adult items.
There’s a time and place for novelty items. But THIS IS NOT one of them IMO.
Not taking sides in this discussion but what do you people think about this. Is this dangerous, attractive to kids, do accidents happen and have you ever heard a peep from government officials and their ilk about it?
@Josephine_van_Rijn
I totally agree with your view about the candy colored pharmaceuticals, but actually there is a reason they do that. You see when a big pharmaceutical company develops and makes a new drug available to the public, they copyright or patent or whatever that drug, including its color or color combination. So when a different company comes out with a different drug, that company can’t put it in an orange and black capsule (for example) because the first company has already used that color combination for their drug. So they will put it in a cotton candy pink capsule and then copyright that.
I’m not saying that’s the responsible or “right” thing to do, but that’s why you see so many bright “fun” colors on pharmaceuticals.
I’m sure the reason vape vendors come up with all these great looking mods and tanks is because they have to compete in an ever growing market and want to stand out.
We all know that the fear mongering about vaping has nothing to do with kids and their safety and yet we start fighting each other over it.
There are even groups fighting over using V2 or DX because of safety issues which is laughable compared to what is in cigarettes.
This is exactly what they want us to do, divide and conquer.
Keep your vapegear out of reach of children like you do with anything else that poses a danger to them like medication, cleaning materials and guns for instance.
Go tell gun toting Americans they can’t buy a toy gun for their son and grab some popcorn.
It doesn’t matter what the vapecommunity does, they will always find another excuse to want to eradicate it and the reason is economic and nothing else.
We have to stand together and expose them for the hypocrites they are instead of infighting over the so called problems they come up with.
They don’t care about the children, not ours and when you look at their policies they apparently don’t care about their own either.
I think in this matter, it’s about avoiding even the appearance of “evil.”
Are we all adults who should be allowed to make our own choices about things? Yes. Can adults have fun and like brightly colored, candy flavored, cartoon inspired things? Yes. I love minions, I have a minions t-shirt, too and wear it proudly in public. In a perfect world, I’d totally buy one of those Pixy tank things.
The problem is the battle we are currently waging with the FDA and big government who are grasping at straws for any excuse they can come up with to shut down the money-stealing vape industry. There’s no problem with candy colored pills because the FDA isn’t trying to shut down Big Pharma, and there’s not a problem with cartoon-branded merchandise because nobody is going after them with a vengeance either. The sad truth is that the vaping world we live in isn’t perfect and we do have enemies. We have to be careful NOT to weave the rope they’re trying to hang us with.
My daughter is 11 and she knows not to mess with my stuff and she’s known since she was little because that’s my job as a parent. To me, saying that companies should responsibly market something meant for adults so it isn’t attractive to children is saying that it’s the job of corporations to parent our kids. And that goes off into another entirely different conversation involving politics, regulation, and whether the government should be making decisions for us. Should we as adults be the ones responsible for our decisions and our children? Absolutely. Are most adults capable of doing that? Probably. The problem comes in with the parents who clearly aren’t. Then it becomes do we “punish” the many to save the few or let nature take its course? I’m glad I’m not a politician so I don’t have to make those choices for others.
The way i see it is clearly that parents have the ultimate responsibility to watch their kids and teach them not to touch any vape gear what so ever but in a good world it would be nice if these companies wouldn’t design stuff that after all not only attract grown ups but also children, that way the parenting becomes a little bit easier in that department at least.
And yes everyone is gunning for the vaping industry whether it is small or big players or consumers, we are all in the sights of government agencies, legislators and not to forget tobacco and pharma.
I think we all need to take our collective responsibilities when it comes to these matters and all do what we can to prevent products like these to hit the market. And if they do hit the market we need to do what we can to make them disappear as soon as possible.
If we as consumers boycott certain products there’s no money to be made on it and we all know that money is all that matters for anyone that put a product out on the market.
People saying i like it and i think it is cool about this minion atty is ok as long as that opinion isn’t broadcasted publicly on open forums. If that happens that opinion is gonna be noticed by the people out to shut down vaping and that isn’t anything we want to happen. You can all be certain that they screen ELR and other vaping forums on a daily basis to find something they can use against the vaping community in order to shut it down.
Like JoJo said, i think minions are cool and i have enjoyed looking at the movie and stuff like that but do we really need products like that in the community? If anyone asks me it would be a total NO FUCK THAT…
I miss Joe Camel. I got a lot of cool stuff using those Camel Cash C-Notes. Now I think about how many packs I smoked and money spent. One C-Note per pack, 5000 C-Notes for the Joe Camel pool stick…
Due diligence and parental responsibility, absolutely NOT the governments job!!! I agree with with you. I started smoking and most of my friends not because of a silly Camel, it was thought to be cool, that is it. The regulations of the time nor the ones today rarely stop someones desires.
Understood @Sprkslfly - not pertaining to the graphic arts or independent illustrations. Working in the field, any “cartoon character” depicting copyrighted characters used in any capacity without the artists consent is strictly prohibited by law unless the image is public domain.
However, in regards to packaging, vape merchandise & accessories in the vaping industry we should be careful to depict any such animated, cartoon, or illustrated style - whether that be for the masses or for ourselves such as customized devices? Correct?
So you are saying that as a collective group images on vaping devices and accessories that directly depict animated characters from well known TV shows, movies, & comics should be off the market? Or images of cartoon characters & illustrations in general?
Correct. Any mass marketed retail item would fall under licensing, and by default, should not be done. Primarily because the Feds made such affiliations (cartoons & tobacco) illegal roughly 30 years ago. (It’s been longer than I realized. Time flies)
Incorrect at best, but definitely could border on grey area. If you take for example, something someone builds on their own, as a one-off device…the same law(s) do NOT apply. Kind of like the way tattoos of such images are able to be done.
But if a permanent template was made (for example) then I believe that in itself would be sufficient to show intent to reproduce more…and as a result, could open oneself up to legal recourse.
I’m no lawyer mind you. But the above is my layman’s understanding, of how it would and would not apply.
Ok…so help me, please. The yellow cartoon thing is a “minion” and a “minion” is some kind of kid thing? …and that tank is supposed to look like the “minion” thing? @Leilani much respect, my wife is an artist and I’m proffesorish. . .would you really buy a crap-looking reproduction like that? That tank looks like a piece from Picasso’s soiled-underpants period. I’ve always thunked you wuz a classy broad, but we gotta find you a better repro. . .
Honestly guys, I don’t have a kid of my own and they are pretty hard to capture. . .but that’s another topic. So anyway, the minion thing…that doesn’t look like the tank thing…to me. I dunno, who knows how a kid sees it. But if a kid sees an adult vaping, I think that makes the device seem much more appealing than the color or design. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong and, I think like Leilani iiic, it’s a healthy debate to have.
Honestly I doubt any of us have anything to fear from the FDA except higher prices. The same will apply to our next vices as well. Market forces will prevail, children or not. They will also pry my vape from my cold dead paw.
We all want to protect kids, so keep your vape stuff away from kids. Problem solved as well as possible imo. They will still see me vaping, at minimum. Self-censoring to avoid harsher punishment? Screw that. Didn’t protect kids from the ravaging effects of rap or metal music and all the millenials seem to smoke despite Joe’s disappearance. . .so put the weeble thing on the tank, but dammit have some respect in your work!
