Feel free to repost this story anywhere you want! :) I cheerfully grant it to the public domain insofar as it lies within my ability to do so. That means it's yours too now!
Transformers doesn't belong to me...yet.
"It won't be long before Hasbro starts losing business," Starscream mused, eying the pile of fanfics spread out across the golden floor of the Autobot base. "Let's hope they don't try to take the fan community down with them in a frenzy of lawsuits."
Thundercracker shrugged. "The fanbase won't die any more than you and Prime did. Besides, I can't remember Hasbro sending out any cease and desist letters lately. In fact, the company's downright laid back about fanfics compared to some. What are you so worried about?"
It was another average day in the Transformers metaverse, a place outside of canon and fanon alike. In this strange not-a-universe, worst enemies supped together and watched the activities of their fans with genial bemusement. Their initial horror had long ago faded to resigned acceptance, and rather than bewailing their portrayals, the transformers merely gave a cynical chuckle. Megatron himself had even begun writing fanfics that parodied the activities of his demented admirers.
"It's more serious than you realize," Starscream said, standing and pacing, as was his wont when he thought aloud. His hollow heels sent echoes around the chamber of the command center.
This attracted the attention of a knot of G1 transformers gathered around Teletraan watching the twins play War for Cybertron. The motley group included Optimus Prime, Rumble, and a dark Shattered Glass version of Skyfire.
"How bad could it be?" Skyfire asked.
"Bad," Starscream said. "We all know that Hasbro makes most of their money from toy sales, right?"
A grumble of agreement rose from the group. No one had forgotten how Hasbro had slaughtered half the G1 cast just so that they could replace them with new faces—and new toys on the shelves. As for the tears wept by children across the world as they watched their favorites die, this was a sad but necessary sacrifice to ensure that the company got in the Christmas sales.
"I don't think any of us have forgotten about that," Optimus said solemnly.
"Well, what if there was a threat to Hasbro's toy income?" Starscream said.
"What income?" Skyfire said. "It's been 28 years and I still don't have my own toy. They aren't even trying."
"But surely you can't be saying that fanfiction is a threat to Hasbro," Rumble said, holding up a story where the word "transform" was misspelled in three different ways. "The fans don't make any money off of it. At least mine sure don't."
Sideswipe shook his head without turning away from the game. "Think about it. Fifty Shades of Grey used to be a Twilight fanfic. The author changed the names to avoid a lawsuit, then published her fanfic for real. It was a megabestseller, and now the author's rolling in moola. ...Oh, and there was that author who self published her Star Wars fanfic on Amazon. That was up for like a year before the Star Wars people found out and had it taken down."
Starscream nodded. "The fans might be choosing not to make money off their work, but these days anyone can publish their fanfic 'for real' at the push of Amazon's submit button. Sooner or later people are going to want to read their fanfics on a Kindle, and it only gets worse from there. But what I was actually getting at is-"
Sunstreaker burst in gleefully, "It means someday there's going to be a biography about me! My fans will buy a million copies! In hardcover!"
"What fans?" Sideswipe asked innocently. Sunstreaker jabbed him in the side with an elbow.
"Dangerous words, Sunstreaker," Starscream said, chuckling. "People who say things like that end up slaving in a Chinese toy factory."
"Let him dream," Thundercracker said. He crumpled up a fanfic and tossed it over his shoulder. "All I can say is, maybe these slaggin' lazy writers would actually finish some stories if they could make a buck off it. I know I'd pay a few authors to finish their fics."
A clamor of agreement rose from the group. The transformers had long believed that there were some fanfic authors that deserved to be hunted down, chained to their computer, and fed on stale bread and water until they finished their stories. Alternatively, perhaps if readers could shove one hundred dollar bills down the author's throat, it might spur them to greater efforts. But of course offering to pay for fanfics would be illegal, even on a voluntary tip system.
Starscream, unwilling to allow anyone else to enjoy the center of attention for long, continued, "We all know that you can freely download just about every Transformers series you want on the interwebz." He accentuated the 'z' with the ease of the true netizen. "Not to mention a bazillion Transformers mashups, parodies, and Flash cartoons. In short, copyright control is as dead as SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA. And that's my point-"
"Wait, I don't think copyright is dead," Thundercracker said. "Remember what happened to those Trainsformers crossovers with Thomas the Tank Engine and Opthomas Prime? Those videos got like twenty million hits, and then the company that owns Thomas had it taken down."
Starscream shrugged. "There are already several new 'unofficial' copies of Trainsformers posted on Youtube by...concerned parties. Enforcing copyright is like playing whack-a-mole with a hydra."
"Yeah, but still."
"That's my point," Starscream insisted. "The situation is impossible to contain anymore. And what's more, the fans are getting organized—I mean literally, there's now an Organization for Transformative Works which advocates for legal recognition of fanfics under the US fair use doctrine. And in Canada, the government just passed a bill which makes non-commercial fanfics legal as long as you credit the author and don't steal their market share."
"Fanfic legalized?" Sideswipe made a face. "That's like legalizing... I don't know...marijuana. Or gambling."
Starscream grinned. "Copyright is taking hits all over the world. Have you heard of the Pirate Parties that are sprouting up? They're actually putting politicians into office."
"Pirate Parties?" Sideswipe said, giving an incredulous laugh. "Like, 'yo ho ho and a bottle of rum'?"
"No, no—think movie piracy. The Pirates are a political party who say that copyright should only last five years from the date of a work's creation," Starscream explained. "Think of it—if that policy had always been in effect, all of us who starred in Season 1 would have been out of copyright as of 1989—meaning fans could have been legally writing fanfics about us for the last 23 years."
"That's...weird," Thundercracker said. He tended to picture his fans as small edible rodents in the time of the dinosaurs—scurrying creatures who trembled in the dark underbrush as giant saurians roared their anger at copyright infringers in the distance. To most fans, the idea of venturing boldly out into the sunlight without fear of being sued into bankruptcy by a megacorporation was well-nigh unthinkable.
Starscream nodded. "Believe it or not, there was a time when US copyright lasted only fourteen years long and fanfics were legal. Now copyright lasts for the life of the creator plus seventy years and fanfics have been outlawed. Disney kept on extending the copyright length so that they could keep control over Mickey Mouse. But people like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington didn't see anything wrong with fanfics."
"It's all about the money," muttered Optimus. Of all the assembled group, the Prime was the most weary of watching governments pander to corporations while ignoring the needs of the people they were elected to serve.
"But you keep distracting me from what I was trying to say," Starscream scolded. "Let's face it—fanfic and piracy are no threat to Hasbro. Even if fans were crowdsourcing their own Transformers series on Kickstarter, it wouldn't matter one bit because Hasbro gets all their money from toys, not videos or books. What do they care about a few tens of thousands of illegal fanfics? It's the toys that make them money."
"But what else could threaten Hasbro's bottom line, if not for piracy?" Skyfire asked, puzzled.
Starscream deliberately paused for effect. When he felt that all optics were focused on him—just the way he liked it—he said slowly and clearly, "3D printing."
Blank stares greeted this announcement.
Starscream began to pace again. "3D printing," he said, holding up a pedagogical finger, "is the wave of the future. It's been called the next Industrial Revolution. Essentially, it's a new technology that allows anyone to create a Transformers action figure at home just like you would print off a piece of fan art from DeviantArt on your laser printer. And I don't mean one of those cheap figurines that Hasbro churns out to satisfy the seven year olds. I'm talking Masterpiece Starscream quality with moving parts and fully articulated joints, no assembly required." He wriggled his fingers to demonstrate.
Now the stares were skeptical.
"Paper transformers?" Sideswipe said, closing the game and looking at him aslant.
Starscream laughed and shook his head. "No, nothing to do with paper at all. A 3D printer prints in plastic—or metal, or bone, or chocolate, or cookie dough, or gold, or wood, or sand—or even living cells. You can use it to make shoes, toys, clothes and houses. They're trying to build kidneys and hearts with it. NASA even wants to make a moonbase. But let me explain." The Seeker held out his hand like a piece of paper and poked it as though making dots all over it. "You know how an inkjet printer deposits drops of colored ink on a page to form words and pictures? Well, suppose you replaced the ink with hot glue?"
Everyone pondered this for a moment.
"Wouldn't you just get messy blobs of glue everywhere?" Thundercracker ventured. "That's how Skywarp's projects usually turn out."
"No, because the glue would be deposited in very, very small drops," Starscream explained. "And it would be a special kind of glue that dried instantly."
"But how do you get a kidney out of glue?" Sideswipe asked.
"Just fill the glue gun with stem cells instead of glue," Starscream said. "You can print in any material you want with a 3D printer: chocolate powder, sawdust, cake batter, powdered gold, etc. Doesn't matter, as long as it can be extruded out of a tube in liquid form and solidified quickly."
"I suppose that for a transformers toy, you would want to print in plastic," Optimus mused.
"Exactly. Molten plastic, to be precise. You just print out a layer of plastic drops, then raise the printhead a smidge and put down another layer of drops on top of the first layer."
"So you keep adding layers of drops and it gets higher and higher?" Thundercracker said.
"Right. You deposit plastic until you've built up a whole 3D shape layer by layer out of tiny drops of 'ink.' It's sort of like how water droplets form stalagmites in a cave drip by drip."
"So you could make letters that literally stick out of the page," Skyfire said thoughtfully.
Starscream nodded. "You can make all kinds of things with a 3D printer. With the push of a button, you can make a bust of Yoda, for example. Or suppose you wanted to print out a scale model of the Eiffel tower? Just download the 3D model from one of the online websites devoted to 3D printing and presto—you've got a handheld tower."
"Why haven't I heard of this before?" Sideswipe asked. "Surely they'd be making hood ornaments or something by now if it was that easy?"
"3D printers are just beginning to get cheap," Starscream explained. "Up till now, only people like Wheeljack had them, but now anybody can buy one."
"How cheap, exactly?" Sideswipe asked.
"Depends on the quality. Your average 3D printer costs about as much as a laptop," Starscream said. "And right now only the expensive ones can print in color. But in two or three years..." He shrugged meaningfully. "They're trying to create 3D printers that can print 3D printer parts. When that happens the devices will start breeding like Insecticons. They'll spread as fast as cosmic rust in Megatron's brain." Starscream glanced around to make sure said persona-non-grata was absent; there was some mutual dislike that existed even in the metaverse. But Megatron was away at the weekly meeting of his writing circle.
"So you can really print toys on these things?" Rumble asked, crossing his arms and looking uncertain. The confusion between his toy and Frenzy's had left him somewhat apprehensive about the whole subject of action figures.
"Sure. In fact, they already have." Starscream went over to Teletraan, found a free monitor, and Googled "Thingiverse." The others gathered around the screen.
"What's this site?" Rumble asked.
"This is the 3D printing hub of the world," Starscream explained. "If you type in 'Transformers' on the Thingiverse site search, they've already got several pages of homemade Transformers figures up for people to print. Plus some ready-made Autobot and Decepticon logos for your car." He smirked. "Notice how my action figure already has more likes than Megatron's, even though mine has only been up a week and his was put up last year."
"Big deal, the model of Optimus' head has you tromped," Thundercracker said. "And besides, according to this comment, your model fell apart like a toothpick tower when the supports were removed."
Starscream glowered at his wingmate. "That was only their first attempt!"
"I see they made a robot that transforms into a 3D printer," Skyfire remarked.
"No offense, Starscream," Sideswipe said, "But those don't look like competition for Hasbro. Actually, they look like they were made out of recycled milk jugs."
Starscream was undeterred. "They might have been. You can convert milk jugs into 3D printer plastic. But right now 3D printers are in the 'black and white TV' stage. If you want a high quality full color Transformers toy, you have to order it from a 3D printing service. But take a look at this."
Again Starscream typed into Google, his fingers ticking out the phrase, "This 3D-printed robot walks, shoots, and transforms like an Autobot." He clicked on the first article that popped up.
The webpage displayed a picture of a sleek-looking black Autobot toy with a body shell fabricated on a 3D printer.
"I've seen better," muttered Sunstreaker.
"Watch," Starscream said, playing a Youtube video embedded in the article.
Untouched by any human hand, the black Autobot transformed into a car. And drove around. Then it transformed back into robot mode, clambered to its feet, and walked around. Then it shot a missile out of its arm. The actions happened seemingly without human intervention, a sort of Toy Story enabled by remote control. Optical sensors embedded in the toy recorded what the Autobot saw and relayed it to a smartphone, allowing the fan who was remote controlling the Autobot to see everything the toy saw.
There was an moment of silence. It was the Transformers toy version of the moon landing.
"As you can see," Starscream continued blithely, "Hasbro has some competition. Do you think fans will be satisfied with Optimus Minor when they could have that?" He turned to Skyfire and grinned. "You can finally have your own toy. And you can even have it printed in solid gold! Heck, every kid can have their own Unicron, Fortress Maximus, and Trypticon toys!"
"My toy could be pure gold?" Sunstreaker shrieked.
"Not in my ear!" Sideswipe snapped, jamming his elbow into his brother's side.
Starscream closed the browser and leaned up against the console. "The real question, of course, is what Hasbro will do when they figure out that their toys can be pirated just as easily as their TV shows."
"Cease and desist ahoy," muttered Skyfire. "Will I ever get my toy?"
Starscream just coughed something that sounded like "There's cough already a 3d printed coughcough physibles category cough on cough the Pirate Bay coughcough." In a milder tone he added, "Given the fact that things on the internet are hard to control, I'd say you'll have your toy yet."
"So you think Hasbro is in trouble?" Thundercracker asked.
"I haven't even told you the worst of it yet," Starscream said. "There are these things called 3D scanners."
"3D scanners?"
"You remember when Laserbeak took a holograph of Prime so that Megatron could make a clone of him? That's pretty much how 3D scanning works. You take a Transformers action figure, put it in the scanner, hit the photocopy button, and viola—you now have two Transformers action figures, complete with serial numbers and Hasbro's original trademark symbol. And all for the cost of a few recycled milk jugs and water bottles."
"Hmm...that does sound like a recipe for hoards of bootleg Transformers," Skyfire said.
"Yeah, but just think how easy it would be to replace lost missiles and broken parts," Sideswipe said. "You could just clone a dozen more pieces to replace whatever broke. No more hunting around on eBay."
"No more hunting around at Walmart, either," Starscream said meaningfully. "Once one person uploads a scan of Masterpiece Starscream and posts it on the internet, everyone in the world can download the design and print it out at home—in customized colors to match their favorite OC Seeker."
"Wait—so you could could use 3D printing to make a toy of your own OC character?" Rumble demanded. "Or—or—make a better toy of me?"
"Sure," Starscream said. "Your fans would have to learn 3D modeling, but there are plenty of free programs that they could use to make their own OCs."
"So in other words we'll be swimming in femme Seeker toys," Sideswipe groaned.
"The price one pays for progress," Starscream said, smirking. "I personally can't wait to see what my fans come up with. I've been needing a show-accurate toy for years. The stupid toy designers always make my blue too dark."
Thundercracker looked at him with a piteous expression. "Awwww, pooooor Screamer! The blue on his $70 Masterpiece toy is too dark."
"Poor, poor Starscream," Skyfire murmured. "How terribly you must suffer."
"How do you ever survive?" wailed Rumble.
Starscream gave the cassette a friendly nudge with his toe that sent the small mech flying across the room.
"But what happens to Hasbro when everyone can make their own toys out of milk jugs?" asked Thundercracker, frowning. If Hasbro went out of business, where would new TF stuff come from?
"The same thing that happened to the post office, the recording industry, the newspapers, and the publishing industry when e-mail, iTunes, blogs, YouTube and Amazon came along—shrinkage," Starscream replied euphemistically. "They'll either fight to death against pitiful six year old 'toy pirates,' provoking massive public outrage, or else they'll adapt to the new marketplace conditions by producing things that fans can't easily make themselves. Like a Transformers MMO with new content every week, for example. But I'd guess their toy sales will never be the same again."
"When you say 'toy pirates' I get a shiver down me spine," Sideswipe said.
"Me too," Starscream said, "Me too."
The transformers observed a moment of silence. Progress could not be stopped, and that was a good thing. But they had a feeling that Hasbro's Transformers empire was in for its biggest challenge yet, and this time its greatest enemies lay within. With SOPA, PIPA and ACTA dead, how could the TF-loving fans—or rather, the copyright-infringing fanfic pirates and toy thieves, hardened criminals one and all—be stopped? If anything, the thousands upon thousands of illegal, unauthorized derivative works (collectively termed "fanfiction," "fan art," "filks," "mashups," "kitbashes" and most ominously of all, "custom builds") proved that the average fan didn't give a hoot what the copyright law said. It seemed that somewhere far, far away, the transformers could hear the sound of hundreds, thousands, millions of inkjet—no 3D—printers, working busily far into the night. It was the beginning of the end for the great toy empire. As one, everyone turned to Optimus Prime for wisdom to see them through Hasbro's darkest hour.
"Serves them right for killing me off all the time," Optimus said.