Accidentally Buying a Copy: What Should They Do?

I think saying it is all the re casters fault and leaving none of the blame on the consumer is the same thing as saying that it's all the puppy mills fault for selling the puppy in the first place and the buyer has no responsibility to do research before buying the puppy. Which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If there is no demand then there is no supply.

That isn't to say that people who buy recasts on accident should be shunned. I personally just don't think the blame should be SOLELY on the re casters. Even myself, if I bought a re cast and then found out later, I would take blame.

 

Omg, that's such a painful situation. I was thinking of this before, too.

I don't see any fault of that possible buyer, if as you said she did not know what she is buying. That's why i think recasters still exist. There are newbies who don't know much about this obnoxious acts of dispespect and greediness.

So the deed is done, she's penitent and confused etc. But what's the point in getting rid of the recast? For me there's no need to do it. She's not able to sell it now anyways, that's important, she has to keep it.
For me an utopic 'faith in humanity' resolution could be if she tells everyone she was not aware of what it was and doesn't know what she should do, and people would see she's sorry and it was not her intention and would forgive her, but not forget, mean everybody will know that exact doll and know it's a recast, but since everything is done already, they could accept that doll. The doll itself has no blame or responsibility for what was done. It's pretty much an inanimated object. Beloved object though.
But this probably could not happen. Idk if owning recasts is illegal, too. Not making or selling. Like, if you got it by accident. Like, do you become a thief if you just own it, not trying to sell and don't show pictures of it or anything.

If i got a recast i'd personally be furious about the fact those people be stealing sculptors hard work and committing theft and making profit out of it, not about spending my money on non-original product. It's a justice thing.

But that's all just my imagination, i've never been in a situation like this. I may be wrong. Personally when purchaising a doll i wouldn't buy anything from a store/company i don't trust.

 

Recasters won't make dolls without demand. They're in it purely for the money and it makes no financial sense for them to recast a load of dolls and just hope that people buy them.

If people stopped buying recasts on purpose there would be fewer recasts sneaking in to the secondary market. The people who really need to quit it are the greedy, selfish people who create demand for recasts. Recasters like making money and if they started losing money because they were getting fewer and fewer orders for recasts the recasters would stop and move on to something different. It wouldn't be hard to stop recasting, it just depends on the selfish few to get their act together and stop ruining the fun for the rest of us. Cut off the money from the recasters and they'll soon stop.

I have nothing but sympathy for people who come by recasts by accident. It's not their fault that someone who was too lazy to save up for the legit doll they wanted bought a recast for cheap and then sold it as the real thing later on.

On that topic, the actual turnaround time for someone responding to their invite & creating their account here and getting their account checked and approved by a moderator is within 48 hours (perhaps 3-4 days if registration is set to Open.) That's pretty fast. And if people don't know a DoA member to get an invite the moderators will invite them if they send an email to [email protected]. I often think that the people who complain about how hard it is to join this forum haven't actually tried to join at all and are just repeating something they've heard from someone else because it's actually pretty fast and easy to join these days.

 

I'm actually going to disagree, because I find this thinking symptomatic of the same thought process that leads people to buy recasts -- instant gratification. "I wanna join DoA! Wait, what do you MEAN I need an invite?? What do you mean I need to be approved? I wanna post NOW! This is sooooooo haaaaard, why do you make this so hard, you're a bunch of elitist meanies because you're making me wait two whole days omg and I want to post NOW and look at the marketplace NOW!"

I will be totally honest and say that a lot of my o____________O over the idea of anyone dropping hundreds and hundreds of dollars without doing a lick of research stems from being jobless and only getting extraneous cash four times a year when my student grant refunds come in. I can't even spend ten bucks without research and budgeting, so I freely admit my viewpoint is skewed thanks to that.

 

Perhaps it's a mixture of two attitudes!

 

Honestly I see how people can "hate" the fake and the knock off dolls but I can also see from the girls point of view, If it were me buying the said doll from the company and becoming attached to it then I would be molten lava red from people accusing me of doing things that I wouldn't have dreamed of in the first place if i had known that they were fake. I understand that the company puts alot of work into these dolls and that they have a right to their sculpts and so on but as it has been mentioned before possibly countless times is that the companies put them out into the world, just like Coach, Gucci, Armani. You don't see those companies getting their panties in a twist do you? It seems to me that alot of people who are preachy about the originals and the non originals or "recasts" are so high an mighty about themselves then you are no better than those people who make snarky comments and so on about the knock off purses or clothing. why cant we all just agree that its not how we are brought into this world, it is how we make our lives after that matter (see what I did there? it was a know quote that seems to have went well with dolls :-) ) so I say we should accept all of those people no matter what, if their doll is a recast accidents and so on happen, but should we treat them like less of a person for making a mistake? I agree that it is an "off topic non asian so on doll" but I believe that even recasts should have a place in this world, because they have a person that loves them. It doesnt make them any less special because they are "Recasted" it just makes them different. #acceptance #IhateHashtags

 

I agree and I dissagree.

I agree that the person should be forgiven for buying a recast. Consider it lesson learned and then replace it with ligit Doll.

But I don't agree with the comment in bold. It is acceptance of recasts, which is not what the Hobby needs. Acceptance of Recasts will only cause more people to buy more Recasted dolls.

Just because a person loves an item doesn't make it a less fake.

 

I would do my research and buy a real one to replace it, it's a doll-mold that I love. Even if the real one costs more, I would replace it with a real one because I was raised to know that stealing is wrong and bringing a real BJD home would be even more satisfying after the mistake of buying a fake.

 

I find it very, very difficult to believe that anyone who actually legitimately cares about this hobby and the artists that make it possible could ever like recasts, or find "beauty" in such obvious detritus.

Stealing is wrong. Nothing will ever justify theft. Period.

Also, I suggest you read this thread and educate yourself as to the reality of legally-produced "knockoff" fashion items vs. illegally-produced bootleg copies of another person's intellectual property. I assure you, there is no comparison, and I also assure you, there is no high-and-mighty involved in pointing out that IP theft is pretty much screwing this hobby over.

My faith in humanity is continually being eroded here.

 

Silveronebec: Well, I'm one of those high-and-mighty persons who absolutely HATES recasts, who owns only originals (and I had to save quite some time to be able to buy them) and who wouldn't hesitate to trash her doll, no matter how expensive, if she found out it was a recast.

If you think hating recasts and wanting them destroyed is a high and mighty attitude, I'd say you better think again. Recasts are illegal. If hating illegal things is high and mighty in your eyes, then sorry, I don't think there's any way you and I might ever agree on recasts. (And I guess I actually CAN be high and mighty about recasts because, well, I don't own knock-off fashion or accessories, I don't own illegal downloads, when I watch movies or TV shows online, it's on legal streaming sites and most of the stuff I listen to on Youtube, I either already own or end up buying most of the time.)

If a person accidentally buys a recast and asks me what I would do with it, I'll tell her/him I'd try to get my money back and/or report the seller and - provided customs or the police don't ask for it - destroy the doll. It's their decision whether they'd do that or not (I'll reserve the right, though, to think they're doing the wrong thing if they choose to keep the recast, but that's just my personal opinion and if they'd really rather have a cheap and possibly dangerous - for your health - knock-off than the real thing ...).

If a person buys a recast ON PURPOSE, I'd reserve the right not to talk to them anymore or tell them in no uncertain terms what I think of that (and also think of them in any way I like - it might not be as free a world as it used to be but my thoughts still are my own and I can think whatever I want, thank you very much). And call them out on their crap once they start listing all those so-called arguments in favour of recasts (which, imo, aren't valid).

 

Yes, you do. Just because it isn't in the news it doesn't mean that nothing is going on. Intercepted shipments of knockoffs are routinely destroyed at ports all around the world. Big brands do protect their trademarks and copyright. It's just a very expensive business to keep sueing and posting legal challenges. Armani can afford to do this, they're a worldwide brand, Fairyland (a far smaller scale operation) can't.

Recasts don't have a place 'because they have a person that loves them', I think that's taking anthropomorphising too far. Dolls don't care if they're legit or recasts because they're not living beings and they have no feelings at all. I empathise with the feelings of a person who finds out their doll is a recast, but the recast doll itself is nothing to me, and if I found out one of my dolls was a recast I would be so angry and hurt and I wouldn't think twice about destroying the fake and demanding my money back.

Recasts are only beautiful because the legit doll they are copied from is beautiful. If you want some of that beauty in your life buy a legit doll!

 

I will admit, the "well the big companies clearly just let IP theft happen so everyone needs to stop complaining" mentality boggles me. So what if we don't actually see what's being done to prevent counterfeiting? The important thing is that it is being done. I also think we may be looking at that mistaken viewpoint again, where "clothing item inspired by designer item and/or trend and legally produced" is being confused with "clothing item deliberately designed to exactly copy designer item and sold as designer item". They're two very different things.

 

Hang on, this is going to go off topic a little, but it has me curious now that knock-offs have been mentioned. When everyone threw a fit because Leeke released Mikhaila and the art body looked like a sculpt from Dust of Dolls, does that make her a knock-off? There are clear differences, but so many people protested and were certain that the design had been stolen.

 

Leekeworld's Mikhaila was likely inspired by Dust of Dolls' work, in the same way that Volks was inspired by antique jointed dolls when they created Super Dollfie. It's been acknowledged that Leekeworld attended LDoll Festival (in Lyon, France) when Dust of Dolls attended and took notice of Dust of Dolls' Puns, but they also paid attention to work by other European sculptors as well. Mikhaila can't really be called a copy or a knock-off, the doll was in a completely different scale to the dolls Leeke was accused of copying from Dust of Dolls (Mikhaila is actually bigger than Puns,) and if Leekeworld's Mikhaila is considered a knock off there are a few other dolls who should be in that category also, in my opinion.

If you consider that the large hips, small bust and inverted hip joint is quite a common trend amongst European BJDs is it so weird or forbidden that an Asian BJD company could adopt the same trend? People don't assume that the European BJD makers are rampantly copying each other even though styles are strikingly similar from sculptor to sculptor, but immediately assumed Leekeworld were copying when they deviated from a more typical 'Asian' style and created this doll with a more European aesthetic after Leekeworld attended LDoll Festival and saw how popular dolls with this aesthetic and body shape were.

I think what upset people more was the notion that a larger company was copying ideas from a smaller company; Dust of Dolls is only two people, but Leekeworld is hardly a giant corporation either, and how can you encourage and support other people using the same aesthetic as you (as the European BJD makers do) but at the same time condemn a foreign BJD maker for joining the same trend? People obviously liked the large hip-small bust look and it's an enterprising company that expands it's products to capitalize on what's popular as well as making their traditional products.

 

The other day I was sitting there trying to find a head that will match an idea for a character I want to do. So many heads, so many companies, comparing all these various sculpts. What I found interesting and very relevant to this discussion is how many of those sculpts greatly resemble each other across vendor lines. Do you know there are at least a dozen sculpts that I could find that look similarly enough alike for my concept to work and yet they are all made by different companies? That's a lot of sculpts. I do see small, minor variances, and I think that's intentional, but I'm also seeing a lot of similarity, way too much for chance, I think. From what I can see a lot of the BJD companies are pretty busy knocking each other off and yet they're the first ones to complain when someone else does it to them. I do want to be sympathetic, but it's really hard when I see them doing that.

Also when I see them blatantly making dolls with popular celebrity faces and calling them "inspired." I love Iple dolls, but I think you'd have to be blind not to see that they very often take a famous person's face, offer up their "interpretation" of it, then sell it sans any though that it might be borderline wrong. People will say "Oh but it's not illegal to make a doll that is inspired by someone." and technically it might not be, given where the companies are that are doing it, and their laws but do you really think that someone like say Brad Pitt finds it "okay" when they see their face used for a BJD doll sans licensing fees? Yeah, I'm talking about Iplehouse Luo. Pitt is not seeing one dime of the profits made from it but put a photo of Brad Pitt over Luo as some have done and it's pretty obvious who "inspired" the artist, now isn't it? They're also totally ripping off Micheal C Hall, with their Dexter and of course I could mention others as well.

I've mentioned this before but licensing of images for toys and dolls that's a very complicated process and some of the major doll makers have actually been sued for not going through all the steps necessary to get permission to do it. Yet, BJD makers take someone's face, copy it 90%, and sell dolls all the time and no one ever thinks that's wrong? When it comes down to it I think it's all wrong. I think that permission for any close resemblance to a real person should be asked first, that knock off recast dolls probably should be illegal, but I also think that some of the very people who are squawking the loudest about being ripped off are some of the biggest offenders themselves and that it's very hypocritical of them to rant and rave about recasts when they're cranking out dolls that are blatant rip offs themselves. Yes, it's a much smaller number usually than say with a popular Barbie. But it's not always that small. Some dolls they're totally unlimited and they probably sell thousands of dolls over time with those faces when you think about it.

I don't own a recast, yet. I'm not sure I ever will but I'm not going to sit there in judgement of people who do. I can't. It just doesn't seem fair to me. Not when I can see so many manufacturers doing things like this. I just cannot get that upset over recasts when I can see that's a general practice across the entire industry not only to copy from each other, if only indirectly, but to actually borrow famous people's faces sans permission to use as face models for their dolls. There's a lot of copying going on and it's not just the recasters doing it. When the doll companies that complain own up to that and stop doing it themselves then I think they'll have a right to squawk, but otherwise I just think it's a bit hypocritical.

 

Magkelly, if a rival business sees that their competitor is doing well selling a product that looks a certain way they would be daft not to create their own version of something that looks similar but isn't identical. This happens everywhere from the world of ceramics to scented candles to nail files. There are loads of plastic dolls in the world in a similar scale and proportion to Barbie, but when you buy a Sindy or a Bratz or a Monster High or Disney Princess or some random dollar store plastic doll you are never put under the impression that you're buying a Barbie.

As Hobbywhelmed pointed out, recasts are never sold under an alternative name, they are always sold as a Volks X, or Iplehouse Y, or Fairyland Z. If someone was selling a plastic doll called Barbie, Mattel would sue them before you could blink. If someone was using Barbie moulds to make a plastic doll, Mattel would sue. Most BJD companies cannot afford to sue, especially an international lawsuit. They're really expensive and even the largest BJD companies are not that large.

It is well known that doll sculptors take inspiration from each other, otherwise innovations like double joints, mobility joints, jointed hands etc etc wouldn't have spread! They know their market and they know what buyers like. If you want your business to fail don't do any market research! If you want your business to succeed, pay attention to what your competitors are doing and what people are buying. It is a really dumb company that doesn't see what consumers are buying and comes up with their own spin on what's popular, whether it's double-joints, wide eyes, slim nose or whatever. You may be seeing dolls that look similar, but you're not seeing dolls that are identical from one company to the next - and if you are, report them!

This inter-business market research is not the same as recasting. It is copying, in a way, because you're taking a popular element you know has worked for another sculptor, but because you're doing it your own way and it isn't identical, it isn't strictly copying. My point with my own post was that either we acknowledge that all doll companies, eastern and western, have an eye on what their competitors are doing, or we don't, but don't get outraged when one company takes inspiration from another and ignore the fact that several other companies are doing it at the same time.

It isn't the general shape of a face or body that can be copyrighted but the exact design. It is illegal to make an exact or near-exact copy of an Unoa (for example) as recasts are, but it is not illegal to admire Unoa and take the elements you like and sculpt your own doll that looks similar but isn't the same.

The other thing you may want to consider is that some BJD sculptors studied with or worked for some of the big name doll companies before branching out and starting their own 1 person studio. Their dolls will naturally look similar to dolls currently on the market because their sculpting style will be similar to the master or sculpting house they worked for. There was a big hoo-hah a few years ago about dolls emerging looking very like larger Unoas and people were crying copy all over the place, but the reason for the similarity was because the sculptor studied with Gentaro Araki and branched out with her own designs. Her designs had an Unoa feel because that was the sculpting style she was taught. Araki has also put out information on how to sculpt and I know that people who's dolls have been sculpted using his techniques come out looking Unoa-esque because the source material obviously references existing dolls and the techniques used to create those dolls.

Using companies' market research and inspiration from each other as justification for acceptance of recasts is ridiculous.

 

Sorry, magkelly, but your whole argumentation, to me, sounds like the argumentation of someone trying to convince themselves (and others) that it's okay to buy recasts. Which it isn't.

 

I just had a friend tell me that a doll I got is likely a fake, she thinks she saw it online as such. I didn't buy it, I traded for it, but I think the person I traded for it had bought it thinking it was real. The friend who spotted it and I are checking it out. I'm just sick about it. I'd offered the doll to someone else in trade because I found I don't like this size for this sculpt, but I can't send that to anyone now unless it can be proved 100% that it is a real doll and I don't know how to prove that in a way that would ever be solid. There's nothing I or the person I got it from can do (assuming she didn't know and until I know better I'm going to assume she didn't), the original seller was from Europe. If they had been from the US, they could be charged with fraud (or in MN theft by swindle which is a gross misdemeanor, says the officer of my university police). I have no idea what to do with this thing now. I could demand the trade retracted and then I would be stuck with clothes for a doll in a size I don't have, but then someone else is stuck with this doll too. My only thought right now is that I should paint it up and give it to one of the child shelters on the Rez, but I'm worried it might find its way back into circulation somehow. (Being real, it is not probably going to ever happen because most people don't have internet on the Rez or even know what a BJD is but still I am worried.) If I do give it away, I will have to find a way to mark it inside the head so that it is known to be a fake. Tonight I will be researching backward. Most people want to know how to get stains off a doll, I want to find a way to mark 'FAKE' on the inside that will never come off. Maybe Sharpie?

I can only think it must be something picked up subconsciously, that it is a fake. The person I got it from didn't want it because it was too little for her, I didn't want it because even though I love two other sizes of the sculpt this one was just not for me even though it was the size I did want, and even the original seller didn't want it. I am just glad it was noticed before I sent it to someone else. I did not know. No way for me to be able to tell. I am freaking out so bad about it right now that I just want to cry. It is an awful, horrible feeling inside and I would not wish this on anyone. Some people may buy them on purpose, well and good for them, but some people out there are jerks who sell them as real when they are not, and it is just awful to be on this side of it. I am mad. I am thankful it was noticed before it did any damage except to my feelings. I am sad. I am sick at heart. My trust has been hurt and that is a very bad feeling.

 

Gali, I'm so sorry to hear that, that's a terrible situation to be in. (But when you say your friend "thinks she saw it online as such", that's pretty loose evidence; what research/evidence have you got that it might be a copy?) There's unfortunately only one real way to ensure the doll never enters circulation again, and that is to destroy it. Without doing that, there's no way to be absolutely certain the doll will never be sold to an unwitting consumer. You'd also have to mark both head and body (maybe carve it in? X-Acto knife and sharpie?), because we all know how often those get split up over the course of dollie events. Since this is a trade and Paypal won't enter into it, I don't think you're required to destroy it, but it really is the only way to keep anyone from ever buying it again.

I'm really sorry to hear you had to deal with this. This is a pretty clear-cut example of the damage recasts can do to this hobby -- they kill trust, enthusiasm, and confidence.