Urban Taggers: Law & Order

The more I look at that logo from Urban Taggers, the more it seems like that dart on that head was fired from the fellas at Hasbro.  For several weeks, their doors on the blog have been closed, roped off by the Nerf Police who stand guard with their Elite Blasters.  I'm not trying to paint a stupid picture, but rather point out that whatever Urban Taggers has been showing us is already a product-to-be.  I don't understand what all the hoopla is about UT getting the inside scoop on new blasters and creating a lot of POSITIVE hype for them.  Nerf's advertising fellas haven't exactly delivered in terms of getting us news on blasters, as evidenced by products getting on shelves long before any sort of commercials are released or news from their "Nerf Nation" Facebook Page.

Pause has already reported on Urban Tagger's latest insight to their legal dilemma with Hasbro, which just makes me more frustrated.  I've dealt with folks in the legal realm and it's nothing to get excited about.  Quite the contrary.  Even if UT does manage to reopen the blog, there will likely still be a close eye on them that they'll have to consider.  Working under that sort of pressure could take the fun out of it which is, lets face it, the whole reason anyone has a blog or is in this hobby.  It's fun!  It's also fun giving back to the community, something UT has done so well over their 18 month trek so far.

This whole ordeal has had me thinking "Well, I broke the news about the Pyragon.  Why haven't I been maliciously attacked by Hasbro?"  First, my thinking is that I found the information legitimately off of Hasbro's website.  Secondly, when I released the information, I sourced where I got it from and didn't put my name on the photos I released.  Urban Taggers has always put their "Stamp" on their news and, while it has likely gotten them a lot of attention and kept folks from claiming the information as their own.  In doing this, ALL of the leaked information that Hasbro has their panties in a twist about has a direct line back to Urban Taggers.  In gaining popularity like that, they also made themselves very easy targets.

When I released info on the Pyragon, most of the folks who got the info that knew me or knew of this blog gave me credit.  There are other sites out there that have just taken off and run with the images that I posted about that.  At first, I kind of regretted not putting some kind of label on them to claim them as information from this blog, as it would've been great PR.  In light of this series of events, I'm kind of glad I didn't.  I'm not trying to make an example of Urban Taggers at all or to say that labeling their information was wrong/came back to bite them in the rear, but rather learning from this situation so other hobbyists and blog owners like myself don't get burned in the future.

I really do hope that UT escapes this without any major problems.  However, I'm having a tough time imagining that things will return to normal in the wake of Hasbro's legal team.  It's likely that one of the best sources of Nerf News out there could get snuffed, which is a shame.  Hasbro should be PAYING Urban Taggers for all the great work and reviews and PR they've gotten for their gear, not punishing them.  If we had decent news from Nerf about upcoming stuff, things would be different.  But they don't fill us in on upcoming blasters until it's pretty much already out there.  I hope, regardless of what happens after this settles down, that Hasbro realizes the support Urban Taggers gave them.