Accidentally Buying a Copy: What Should They Do?

I have to say if I found out a doll that I had purchased was a fake I wouldn't look at it the same way again.

If I didn't destroy it I would likely mod the hell out of it so that it didn't look anything like the original (taking care to use proper protection). Drilling, gore mods - whatever took my fancy.

I would never sell it on again though knowing what it is.

I do think recasts mess up the hobby for the rest of us that have legitimate dolls. I have a very large amount of money invested in my dolls. I found out last year that a member I knew had purchased some recasts on her flickr and it stopped me dead in my tracks from ever dealing with her again.

 

Gali, I'm so sorry to hear that - it's really awful! I'm keeping my fingers crossed it'll turn out okay after all ...

 

Whirlwind night. The friend who thought they saw it online did some digging and found pictures of it where it was said to be a fake. The person I got it from didn't know, she was shocked and she paid me for my side of the trade, so I'm square that way but she's still out whatever she paid for it originally.

My tradee didn't want the doll back. We talked about it because I don't want to just destroy it or throw it away. I grew up very poor and to me that is anathema - wasteful. The idea we have is to carve FAKE into the inside of the head and headback so it couldn't be sanded out without sanding right through the head, and mebbe to glue eyes in with epoxy and then glue the headcap shut the same way. Where it's going, the kids won't be switching the eyes out anyway and if the stringing breaks, the doll will have lived out its natural life and can be disposed of or whatever at that point. The body is not a fake, because I'm told that it isn't a brand fakes are made of. It's going to be given to the children's shelter. That's something both my tradee and I can live with as an endgame for this fake.

As hurt as I am about this, I want some good to come of the doll. That will make me feel a little better. I'm not sure how I feel about my friend's associations with fake doll gangs, but I'm also glad she spoke up and looked out for me. She didn't have to.. out herself? or out this doll. When I said something sort of spiteful about why would fake doll gangs care two people (almost three!) were swindled, she said that one bad person made them all look bad, but she also pointed out there's scammers in the real doll groups as well and both groups react the same way about scammers. So that's good to know, at least. The scammer for me is now on the receiving end of some tenfold karma, because my friend is very angry. I feel a little bad about it, but not very much, because the liar brought this onto their own head.

 

I don't want to sound at all like I'm trying to minimize your problem but the phrase "fake doll gangs" makes me giggle because it gives me the image of a bunch of gangsters pushing counterfeit doll heads in back alleys.

That sounds like about the best way of taking care of the problem if you just can't stomach destroying it, although maybe you might want to carve or Sharpie something on the outside of the head/headback as well (just 'cause you can't see the inside if you epoxy it shut) and maybe glue a wig over? I think at that point someone would be really hard-pressed to be able to eliminate all the evidence and resell it. It isn't actively completely destroying the thing, but it is destroying any value it might have to anyone who might try to resell it.

On the other hand, this does kind of back up what I've always thought about recasters -- that the biggest problem is in the people who deliberately and openly buy recasts. There's your demand, right there. That's why recasts are being produced, because people are selfish enough to wish to purchase a cheap imitation instead of the real thing. If there wasn't an active demand for recasts, people wouldn't have any profit in making them, and as long as there's a profit in making them there's the chance of someone unwittingly purchasing a recast dishonestly labeled as the genuine article. There is, however, a certain irony in a recast group giving a shit about someone being swindled with a recast because "it makes them look bad". Buying recasts in the first place makes them look reeeeeeeeally bad so adding that on top of it is really kind of a minimal hit to their already-trashed reputation.

 

I'm sorry that you've been involved in something like this Gali. I'm not surprised that the original owner didn't want the doll back, but really the honourable thing to do would have been to trade back so that she could have targeted the person she bought the fake from in the hopes of getting her money back, and for your part you would have had your original and legit doll back to arrange another trade or sale. If the original owner had no idea the doll was a fake they are as much a victim as you, but in order to start to set things right they need to challenge the person the fake doll was bought from.

I agree with Tez. It does no one any good for pro-recast or recast sympathisers to be all up in arms about one of their number selling a fake as a real doll; their reputations are already so low to the ground that one of them scamming someone doesn't have any great effect. If those people had any morals whatsoever they wouldn't be buying recasts at all - if people didn't buy recasts in the first place there would be no recasts with which to rip honest people off.

 

I think the idea of carving FAKE outside on the headback and giving the doll to the children's shelter is a great idea. As said, it won't be able to be sold again and some good will come out of a bad situation as i'm sure those kids will appriciate it.

 

Good idea, maybe across the back of the headback on the outside as well. That way it would be covered by a wig and not bad for the children playing with it but if it was ever to be sold, it would be obvious. Gluing the wig down I don't like so much because I think since the little wigs you can buy in toy stores for those teenage dolls seem to fit, it might be fun for the kids to be able to change the hair. Since they'll be sharing it, maybe having different hair would make each of them feel more like it's "theirs" while they were playing with it. I'm guessing, but if it were me, I would have liked that.

Sorry about 'gangs'. ^.^; English isn't my first language. I didn't mean negative by saying that. Though the image of people in trench coats with dolls inside like the guys in NY who are all "Hey Lady Wanna Buy A Watch?" kind of fits for fake dolls too, I think. ^.^

My tradee is going after the person she got the fake from, but since they are in Spain, she doesn't think much will come of it. Paypal would say destroy it. (I do not know if Paypal was involved but that is their policy about fake things.) I did not trade a doll. I only have one and he is not going anywhere. I traded doll clothes that I made, so mostly I was out time and materials, but the tradee has paid for those now.

I do not judge. I don't know why someone would buy a fake doll but maybe they for some reason can't. I know I can't save up for a very expensive doll because life seems to watch my bank account and bite me if there's too much money in there, but I've chosen to just have less expensive dolls. But I am also not someone whose heart is set on one doll brand or sculpt. If I was, maybe my choice would be different if I loved it so much and couldn't have it otherwise. I can't say, that's not me, but it's not my place to judge anyone. Even the best people make bad choices sometimes in life, but that doesn't necessarily make them bad people.

What makes me mad is that this could have been bad. If I had posted pictures of the new doll when I got it, I'm sure someone would have noticed because my friend sure did when she looked at the head. I'd get banned and lose this community, and I understand that rule and agree with it but it would still have hurt a lot for something that was not my fault, just my ignorance. What really makes me sick at heart is that I was going to do another trade because now that I've seen this doll, I want a different sculpt, and if I had THAT person would be just as hurt and betrayed as I feel right now and that is not something I would ever want to do to anyone. It could have gotten them in trouble, it would have made me look horrible instead of just stupid about dolls, so as bad as this experience was it could have been much worse. Like I said earlier, I'm still not sure how I feel about my friend's association with fake doll groups - she has dolls, I don't know if they're real or not now and I kind of don't want to know because it makes me uneasy - but I am glad she spoke up to help me. I'm also getting kind of a crash course in what to ask for when buying dolls, and it feels a little like getting tips on how to play poker from a card sharp. ^.^; If it keeps me from getting messed over again, though, good.

 

Like many here I am fairly new to the hobby. If this situation were to happen to me I would hope that I wouldn't be shunned from DoA and instead helped to know the difference. I would still love the doll. I just would be better informed before making another purchase.

 

Well, a group associated with fakes is already negative in my eyes but you gotta admit that's a great image.

I...really hate to say it, but this is the kind of mindset that leads to more recasting. I would almost say that in this situation judgement is required. When you say you don't judge, what it comes out to in this context is "I don't care". I won't necessarily judge someone who bought a recast thinking it was legit, then found out later; that's a shitty situation to be in. (I won't completely absolve them of all responsibility, but I won't judge them for what was ultimately someone else's shit-tacular behavior. In your situation, I really believe there was nothing whatsoever you were at fault for, since that was like...all crappy events combining.) However, if you say you won't judge people who deliberately buy recasts, then what it means is that there are no consequences for theft and unethical behavior. There should be consequences of some kind, or they have no reason to stop stealing. I just will not deal with people who support recasting or voluntarily purchase recasts; I don't want to be seen as endorsing their behavior by saying nothing about it and going about my business.

I mean -- if a person can afford a recast, they can afford a legit doll. There are dolls in all price points now. If someone just has their heart SET on that Reisner fullset and they say they can't afford it, well...what makes more sense, taking $300 or whatever and throwing it at a recast, or taking that same $300, socking it away (put it in your Paypal account, that's what I do when I'm saving for doll purchases -- it means it's not at all tied to my bank account and it's safer that way), and cutting out all the extraneous bullshit we all spend money on without thinking? Or perhaps taking that $300 and using it as seed money to buy just his head, then add the other pieces bit by bit as you get the $$ for them? If you really can't save up the money for a doll like that, then don't buy the doll. Pretty simple. I would murder things for a tan SD17 Shiro Tachibana. I just. I mean. That doll has a name and a personality and EVERYTHING in my head, I want that doll like burning. But I can't in a million years either afford or justify the $2K+ it'd cost me to bring him home. So instead I plan on acquiring one of the original SD13 Shiros. Much less expensive, same mold. I can live with that. I have control over what I want and what I prioritize, and honestly, I have exactly no sympathy for anyone who whines about not being able to afford a doll who then goes and flings money at a fake. That's just greedy.

Am I making sense, or do I need another latte?

 

You're making sense and I agree. I think that greed and entitlement are the two main things that fuel the recast business. Like you, there are so many dolls I'd like to have, but right now I can't afford to buy any doll at all. Tough luck. But since dolls aren't a necessity, I'm not going to waste my money on a fake, because 'I just have to have one'.

 

I'll agree that dolls aren't necessities and buying recasts is being just greedy, but while I can't fathom for the life of me how these people get any enjoyment out of their recasts since they're fake I can also see why they would do it. To me, who getting a doll means a lot more than just buying it, to who the act entails me saving for a long time, denying things to myself, then possibly getting a doll in pieces and/or lengthy layaways to afford it (or even its parts) and consequently waiting for god knows how long for it, to get a doll I haven't fought for or saved for and with such underhanded means to boot it would bring me no joy nor satisfaction even if it was my holy grail doll. (Who I know is being recasted which makes me very sad.)

But still I understand the temptation of it, I get it. I can't justify spending 2k on a doll when my wishlist is long enough and I could buy maybe upwards four dolls I want for the same amount of money, the doll is so rare on the secondhand market I might be lucky if a head appears for upwards 1k. I could buy a recast of that head for maybe $100? Or however much recast heads go for and still support the company by buying the body from them, but I know it won't be the same. It won't be one of the original heads created from the company just a copy of it and a copy is never the "same" as the original no matter how you look at it. I have the strength and morality to say no, because it's not the real doll, because the real artist and/or the market isn't being supported by that purchase and because the recast market is being perpetuated by people like that, people that would very much like to own dolls they can't.

I don't think it's just those peoples' fault that there is a demand for recasts, however. Scalpers that buy tens of dolls in Volks lotteries just to resell them on yahoo japan for a profit are just as bad and are also perpetuating the situation. Selling a doll for double its cost just because there is unmet demand because someone cheated to get a lot of entries in a lottery is hardly any more ethical than a person buying a recast of a doll they can't find on the market, or which's price is extremely inflated. Perhaps if scalping could be somehow controlled the recast market could too, in some extent. Of course some people will still be greedy and still buy recasts of dolls even if they're still offered regularly by companies, that's something that can't be helped, but at least maybe the market could be diminished just down to only those few?

Even if all the people that buy recasts of dolls still in regular rotation from companies knowingly they will receive no sympathy from me, if they do it unknowingly there's nothing they can help about their situation. They don't deserve hate, or being bullied, or to have their doll broken and trashed. It's not their fault, especially if they're newbies, especially if they haven't heard of recasts before. For seasoned collectors that have come across the problem to demand that newbies will know about an issue they never had to deal with is at least absurd. I was a long time in the BJD community and I still came across recasts almost by mistake before a huge deal was being made about it (and even that huge deal is mainly on tumblr, to be honest, so it's hard to spot save for the couple of announcements from the companies) and learned about them.

All in all, I don't support recasts and never will. If I got one accidentally I would most likely give it away to someone not directly involved with the community because I would never be able to enjoy it since I wouldn't be able to share it. But if someone else does they're not going to receive hate from me and I don't think it's fair or just for them to be bullied into destroying their doll if they don't feel like it and prefer to keep that doll at their own home for their own enjoyment and not share it on this site as per this site's rules and/or do so where it is allowed.

 

No. That is not what I am saying. I am saying that it is not for ME to dish out those consequences. My friend has been a good friend to me and my family for more than thirty years. We grew up together. I love her like a sister. I am not certain how I feel about her involvement with fake dolls, but no way will I turn my back on her over it. It is such a stupid thing. It is DOLLS. If I can't reconcile how I feel about her doll involvement, then we'll talk about it and find a way for me to be comfortable - whether that is mebbe not talking about dolls, or her putting her dolls away when I come over, or whatever. I can't throw away a fake doll because it is wasteful, I am in no way going to throw away such a dear friend. I have told her I'm uneasy about it, and she accepts that. She isn't trying to change my mind or justify it to me or make it sound ok, and like I said before I do not know if she owns any fakes and I kind of don't want to.

If she owns a fake, then she has to live with that. There are real world consequences - she can't be part of this forum, she can't buy from certain stores, she can't take her doll to big doll conventions, so there's a whole part of this hobby she will miss out on. It is not for me to make a moral judgment over it. Part of being a good friend is finding a way to deal with opposing viewpoints on things neither one agrees with. That's also part of being an adult. I don't shun people for thinking different than I do.

Mebbe I'm different about it for how I grew up. The rez is such a big place but small community, where everyone knows everyone else's business and people must find a way to get along when they don't agree, for the good of the community, because otherwise that is how feuds happen. My opinion is that it would be very, very stupid to start a feud over a doll.

I understand why other people think different about it. To some people, these dolls are such an emotional investment that they can't feel anything but strongly about it. I respect that.

 

I think, given this situation, that you're handling this as best as anyone possibly could. I'm not suggesting anyone break years-long friendships over dolls. That seems extreme to me. But you have made the judgement call, in a way; you've told her it makes you uneasy. You guys are really close, and I'd wager that making you wary is its own form of consequence. She probably doesn't want to drive you away any more than you want to walk away from her. Still a consequence. I'm not saying consequences necessarily need to be huge or dramatic; they just have to exist. Does that make sense? Again, I need coffee. (And incidentally, because I'm curious -- what's your native language?)

I do want to correct something, though -- for me, it actually has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with emotional involvement about dolls. I'm honestly very UNemotional about my dolls; I don't treat them like they're alive, I don't carry them everywhere...hell, I rarely take them out of their carriers. I'm a collector and no more. For me, the issue is honesty, integrity, and ethics. I put a very high priority on honesty and ethical behavior; I actually quit my last job because I couldn't handle the corner-cutting and dishonesty going on behind the scenes of a company that puts up a very integrity-conscious front. I didn't want to be associated with it anymore. It wasn't a 'luxury' move either; I can't really afford to be jobless, but the sheer stress of having to cope with all that dishonesty and associated bullshit was affecting me to the point where quitting was really the only viable choice I could make for my mental and physical health. (And then I went back to school.) Recasts are theft; there's really no two ways about that, it just is what it is. There's a level of dishonesty in accepting recasts, in owning them, that I just cannot handle being associated with. If someone got one accidentally -- and by 'accidentally' I'm going to mean someone pulled a bait and switch -- then that is shitty, but it happens. My biggest beef with recasts are people who openly support and purchase them, because to me it means I just can't trust them with anything else. They stole from someone; they're clearly comfortable with an item that's pretty much an open expression of greed and selfishness. What will they do to me? If they didn't steal, then the odds of someone accidentally getting a recast would drop exponentially. It's all intertwined.

It's not a doll issue. It's an ethical one. Maybe other people focus on it from the perspective of someone who's super emotionally involved with their dolls, but for me the issue is far larger than dolls, which are very minor in the grand scheme of things.

 

Well, sorry, but you're incorrect. You're putting words into my mouth that I didn't actually say. In fact I said just the opposite if you go back and read it again you can see that. What I said was I see a lot of pretty blatant copying across doll lines that makes it very hard for me to be sympathetic to the doll casters that do it squawking about recasts. Yes, I know they use the same sculptors. It's still too close a lot of the time, and it's more than just simple competition. I also see them pretty blatantly using famous faces, a practice that in this country would require hefty endorsement fees. Look at Dexter from Iplehouse and tell me that's not actor Micheal C Hall as his most famous character to date. That's really BOLD of them making that doll with a face that's nearly dead on, using that name, and IMHO wrong sans an endorsement deal and yet Iple is doesn't hesitate to squawk when someone copies said doll? I never said it was okay to recast dolls. What I did say is if you're going to do unethical things yourself, like use a famous face and someone's copyrighted TV character to make a BJD, then maybe you shouldn't then have the nerve to yell "theft" at people who copy it. That's what makes me crazy about this whole thing, that they can do things like that and the BJD community thinks it's just "fine." It's not. No more than recasts are.

 

Since you're so hung up on this point, magkelly... do you really think the companies that make rubber masks of US presidents are getting endorsements from them? Or all the "knock-off" halloween costumes that are almost-but-not-quite the current season's most popular movie and TV characters? I'm sorry to break it to you, but the world you're describing doesn't actually exist. Whatever your thoughts on Iplehouse's sculpt, the fact remains that they did no copying in making it--they may have looked at a famous person and used him for the reference of the sculpt, but they didn't go make a 3D scan of anyone's head, scale it down, print it out and call it a day. An artist worked on that piece, and created it whole-cloth. Similar to what's done between companies--no one is recasting anyone else's double joints, they're creating them all themselves, but if there was no influence across companies anywhere we'd have nothing but Volks, if we had anything at all.

If Iplehouse labeled the doll "Michael C Hall as DEXTER" and sold it as specifically that character? That would cross a line. But they're not selling it that way, and what they're doing is, in fact, perfectly legal even in the US.

 

Geez, hobbywhelmed, you guys just can't win, can you?

I shouldn't be surprised, but we already had the celebrity likeness copyright discussion in the other thread and we already went through all the reasons why that argument is not only irrelevant, but incorrect. (Incidentally, here are the links referenced in that post.)

 

@ hobbywhelmed: Well, if that is the case, then you are already doing something. I did not know that. If keep our clear point to this matter, maybe there will be some longterm movement.

 

magkelly - Well, if casting BJDs in the likeness of TV actors (or whatever, never heard of Michael C Hall, never seen "Dexter" so I can't tell how much Iple's Dexter looks like him) isn't alright to you then other things like writing fanfictions shouldn't be alright to you, either. Because, strictly speaking, all fanfic authors "steal" already existing characters and settings to write stories about them and stories set in that world which isn't their own (and it shouldn't matter, either, that they don't make any money out of writing fanfics - stealing is stealing whether you profit from it or not).Yet, every fanfic author would probably agree that it's not okay to take another author's story and claim that you're the one who wrote it. But that's carrying this whole thing a little too far away from BJDs, isn't it?

 

Khell Actually, profiting off of something is what matters. If you are just writing a fan fic or doing fanart for your own enjoyment isn't a bad thing. When you decide to profit off of someone else's characters and popularity, that is the problem. Exactly why Guilty Pleasure were able to make IOS collaborate with them. Otherwise they'd had ignored GP and kept all the profit for themselves (at least they learnt their lesson)

tez, I feel like you're being unnecessarily rude in this thread...