Will Steve Jobs action figure bite the dust of'¦ Apple legal?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 04 January 2012 20:49

Opinion and Analysis

A new year and a new Steve Jobs action figure has appeared'¦ and has semi-disappeared, via the site appearing not to load, but has just loaded after a very, very long load time.

If the idea of an uncannily true-to-life action figure of Steve Jobs appeals, you might never be able to own one - unless you make it yourself.

That's because two companies have now tried making action figures or dolls of Steve Jobs, and while one of those companies is no longer seem doing so after hearing from Apple's legal people, reports of a company called InIcons selling a new Steve Jobs action figure selling for US $99 and to be delivered in February have appeared online.

Leslie Horn's article in PC Magazine entitled 'Another Steve Jobs Action Figure Makes Its Debut' has a description of the realistic Steve Jobs figurine by InIcons.

Ms Horn noted in an update that InIcons' site appears down, and in trying to load the site myself, it only loaded after a very, very long wait. The report also noted that Chinese company MIC Gadget, which tried a similar tactic last year, heard from Apple's lawyers, and naturally, they aren't selling Steve Jobs figurines any more.

As the UK's Telegraph noted, Apple's lawyers did state in the MIC Gadget case that: 'Mr Jobs has not consented to the use of his name and/or image in the Product. Unauthorized use of a person's name and/or likeness constitutes a violation of California Civil Code Section 3344, which prohibits the use of any person's name, photograph or likeness in a product without that person's prior consent."

The Telehgraph also has a picture of the realistic action figure in question, and it's clear that when you look at their work, a lot of effort has clearly gone in to deliver a very lifelike work of art.

Steve Jobs was still with us at the time of the first figurine, but if you're mass producing someone else's likeness without their permission or that of their estate'¦ a protest in some form from Apple may well arise again, something that speculation over led to suggestions that is why InIcons' site is seemingly offline.

Checking the site for this article and seeing the super long load time in action, the site might also be down due to an overwhelming global surge of traffic from people interested in the story and the action figure.

The site was stuck at '6 out of 10 items completed' for a very long time while  displaying a blank screen, yet showing viewable HTML and the text that should be there when clicking on 'View Source'.

After some more delay, the browser finally punches past 9 out of 10 items completed to show the site loaded properly and a slideshow of figurine closeups, suggesting that if Apple Legal has been in contact, its efforts are yet to have the desired effect.

That said, an extremely slowly loading site doesn't inspire confidence that things won't be shut down sometime soon, so the cautionary advice of caveat emptor always applies to those who are tempted by the unusually accurate action figure.

Continued on page two, please read on'¦