BJD makers threatened by China-based counterfeiter / trademarks

@mangameow
Hey, Dear, I think you mistakenly copied the Little Rebel's response for LatiDoll's official statement on your google docs.

 

That’s great! Would it be possible to translate that text and also display it on the English page? I agree with you on the validity of Wikipedia as a source, but I know too many people that use it as a quick reference to dismiss it.

I think the fan book is a really sweet idea, but I would like to stress the importance of not leaving any artist out when it’s made available. So that would probably either mean compiling a long list of e-mail adresses, or putting it online for the world to see and then drawing attention to it through social media etc. Or there’s probably a third option too

 

I felt so sad reading the response from Dr. Mes. I really hope it's worst case scenario that doesn't happen.

@mangameow The fan book sounds like a great idea. Please keep us up to date on that.

 

I got a response from Dolkus, not sharing whole thing cause most was about my order lol but they tagged this on at the end -
'And happy let you know that we're not affected by the current issue '
wasn't sure if anyone had put anything up with them on here yet, so I figured I'd just share hopefully they continued to be unaffected. I imagine things could become hard for the dealers as well, if things get worse.

 

I'm 100 percent for real Bjd that are created correctly without all the flaws and cheap materials that a recast is made from. It's horrible that people think by spending less they can get something just as good. Thats really not the case for any hobby.

 

lol thank you for this snip lol I have a few ppl who do cosplay and one who mostly makes her living from selling produts related to/at cons as well as making costumes I can't tell you how often i see her "I got another one" posts lol and they usually want something for 90% LESS THAN COST ...... aaaaaand they want it in 3 days custom fit to a body she's never seen or measured and it's something a professionally trained cloture seamstress could not even do given the time limits... oh and that includes shipping time...oh and free shipping please? Yep ppl are idiots... sorry if that offends but lets face facts there is a sorry lot out ther and we are starting to drown in it.... good luck Silk and thanks for the giggle ^^

 

oh my gosh you are totally right, thank you so much for letting me know! i just fixed it, i think it should link properly now! ^o^

well, when r/talesoflink did it, i believe they used a google doc and asked everyone to DM them their signing and art or whatever. i'm not sure how we'd do it, i would worry about a publicly editable google doc being defaced, but i'm sure we can think of something!
and yes, i'd feel bad if we left anyone out, we'd have to be careful about that!

me too, poor dr. mes ;;
i love his work it's so unique and has such personality that you don't always see in every doll, it's really something special! to know that his lovely work is being stolen is just..... heartbreaking. ;; i think he's the only one at the company too, but i'm not sure, he might have assistants or something. he does a lot of hard work and puts a lot of care into his dolls and customers, that's for sure!

i will keep you guys updated on anything that comes to fruition about the fan book! i'm still keeping the contact list updated, and i'm working on the newbie friendly tumblr with a few others at the moment. if no one else has taken it up by the time we have the tumblr satisfactorily ready, i'll probably take it on, but i don't want to discourage others from starting their own projects! ^^

oh gosh i'm so sorry i only just saw this! thank you! i've added it to the doc (if that's ok!?), so now we have 2 responses from iple on there! ^o^

 

About the recast toxicity thing. I just realized there are lots of toxic things out there that arent banned at all, so I decided to search more about my country surveillance services (since its already too hard to search in my language so I'm just going to suppose its similar to other countries rules, but you all should try checking yours too).
I couldnt find their toys specifications yet, but I found this "china gate" form for free help, and they seem like the right help, so I'm filling it and hoping I can find out the possibilities of stopping those recasts from getting in the country.

Actually they dont think that, they know is not as good, they just dont seem to care if its "good enough".
I've seen pro-recast people talking about how there is no product they would go for the expensive version even when its obvious the one with quality and blabla about food sauce or something... If they go for the cheaper even when they are going to ingest it, I can't see how talking about the quality will help changing their mind for something as a doll. Thats why I think the toxicity thing is a good catch, if we can prove recasts are toxic and show them that, we can say "hey, this can literally kill you" and that scary most people off right away.

 

Sadly, the fact is, resin casting and BJDs have been around for a while now. The likelihood that they are using toxic products now, is much less likely than it was years ago when recasts could be made of anything at all. From what I understand, some recasters used to work for legit companies, so they are aware how dolls are made, and with what. There are many grades and levels of quality; just look at Smooth-On's site for an idea of these. Most legit companies are going to be made from higher quality resins, while recasts would be made from the cheaper, more brittle resins. We didn't use to have this sort of variety of choice in the past so recasts were made from whatever the resin could be diluted with or filled with. Some were not even resin! (I saw a clay recast on Ebay once, years ago). It's awesome you want to deter people, but without a lab familiar with resin casting, you're unlikely to get an answer to this question of toxic materials, especially since even legits are toxic to sand without a mask. Likely, recast buyers wouldn't care anyway and speculate it's just another thing we say to get them to buy legit instead...and probably blow it off. Maybe other methods would be more direct or effective?

 

I still think they are using it because is not a matter of not knowing what they are doing, but of being so greedy that they dont really care. Of course that would be different from recast to recast, but banning some would be better than nothing anyway. That being said, though I dont really know much now, I'm a biomedicine student and in some years I will be able to, so really until than I can also get resin casting knowledge to be able to get the results we need. Of course that would take some years, and they can also change this until than (again, I dont think it will happen because they dont seem to care), which is why we are trying to see what we can get for now, but we arent trying to do things just because of what happened now, we are trying to protect the hobbie for a long time, so I think its ok to speculate as long as it give ideas to obtain the result.

 

Recast/fake/counterfeit BJD is not cheap. Period. It's not a 5-10$ knockoff of a 1,000$ doll. If the recast owners insist that Soom and Fairyland are charging outrageous price for a lousy quality doll, that's fine. Don't buy from them. Throw your money to Luts, BJDCrobi, MyouDoll, RingDoll, Bobobie, or any other companies that you think worth your money... heh, throw your money to Volks' pretty one-off dolls!

I own dolls from companies that they claim is crazy expensive, but they have the counterfeit version anyway. By throwing shades to us, it shows that they are happy with this whole fiasco. Accusing the doll companies for selling expensive dolls... Seriously, those dolls are a proof of hard work, tears, effort, sweat, priceless idea, blood and whatever else you name it.

And take a look at Soom. They have 5 different sites for each subsidiary, to accommodate fans from China, Korea, Japan, European countries and other overseas country. They hired people that can speak different language, there must be someone that can take beautiful pictures too, they have to invest a lot of money and none of them comes cheap. How can they argue that this type of art must be sold in cheap price? Go to any nearby art gallery and try to haggle the price into 1/10 or 1/20 of the original price, I dare them...

I actually feel worry with the companies that haven't reply to the inquiries. I just hope that they're busy with the orders and/or discussing with the others to beat down the villain(s).

 

Does anyone think that the recaster doing all of these trademarks, so he could sell it back to the companies or charge them fees if the companies wants to continue selling?

As much as I dislike what backhanded shady things he is doing, it is partially the companies fault for not registering trademarks when they’ve been existing for a while now.

 

Wow that's sketch, that never crossed my mind. I suppose it is possible.

To be fair some of these studios hit are mom and pop operations, from what I understand. I was surprised to see Fairyland in the list, I would have thought them a bigger company capable of affording the trademarks. I guess not?

 

It is just plain and simple. It is wrong! it is stealing! I wish Ebay would not allow these sellers to sell!

 

I saw this option in the china trademark squaters post someone posted in the first pages, I don't think its case though because the recaster makes more money having control over those brands than he would do by selling trademarks. Unless he/she is tired of working with recast and want some fast money?

On the companies fault, some - like luts - said they actually do have the trademark for china, so we can't really blame them not even a little, the person is completely out of mind by doing this. Which just makes things weirder.

 

@generalbun and @perfumed-lotus, as people have already discussed in this thread, registering a trademark is a complicated legal process that's different in every country. Which of the BJD makers you know of -- including Fairyland -- is large enough to be able to afford an intellectual-property lawyer and the trademark fees for every country where they have or might someday have customers? That's not even going into the difficulty of finding the lawyers in all those countries and communicating with them in all their different languages. We can see that it's difficult enough for the dollmakers to staff their English-language Q&A boards, without any complex legalities involved. What I suspect the Korean association is learning, though, is that at least registering trademarks in China may be necessary for survival, given Luo's aggressiveness and apparently deep pockets.

@mangameow, re our earlier PM conversation, Supia have posted this statement on their Q&A board, in response to the warning that one of their members had posted last week:

"Hello,

First of all, we would like to express our deep appreciation for your warm love and sincere concerns.
Thank you very much.

We first heard of this news on Thursday morning through our partner company DOLK and learned that our company's trademark hasn't been illegally registered yet in China by Luo. But as we know, the registration process is at last stage.

We have requested legal counsel for a legal action or objection, and we are currently tracking the exact situation through a legal representative.

To be very honest with you since you are sincerely worried about us, although we proceed with lawsuit or objection, the desperate answer was dominant that there was no clear guarantee that we would prevail.

However, we will do our best to make every effort to reclaim our rights.

As you mentioned, Luo is an illegal seller who has been illegally copying and selling our dolls over the last seven years.

In the meantime, our company has suffered so much that we couldn't express ourselves in word. Our company was too small to endure this long battle. On the other hand, their scales and evil conducts have always been beyond imagination.

At present, they are in the process of completing purchase or the last stage of purchasing Chinese trademarks for almost every Korean bjd companies.

Indeed, some companies have already received ridiculous notifications that they will be making sanction on the export to China.

Smaller companies which started with a small group of artists, are not enough to handle them.

Now our company is in a discussion with our partner company to coordinate on the further group litigation opinions. But, we are not talking on the exact details yet, and we are currently discussing what we can do first.

The 'Antirecast' movement you started with the love of BJD is really a great power for us. We sincerely appreciate.

Last weekend was a horrible time like a storm for us, but we are able to reap the strength after seeing the message of the support sent from the customers.

To repay the warm and righteous heart that you have sent,
we will do our best to the end.

Also, we will make a beautiful doll with our whole heart.
Thank you very much.

Best regards,
Supia Doll Team "

 

generalbun: "As much as I dislike what backhanded shady things he is doing, it is partially the companies fault for not registering trademarks when they’ve been existing for a while now."

As has been stated so many times already on this thread.... the reason that the majority of these legit artist have not paid a fortune for global Trademarks in every territory is that it's a very expensive thing to do and contrary to what the Recast-apologists would have us believe, legit BJD companies operate on a low profit margin and plough the money they make back into developing and casting their next doll. The recaster has pockets deep enough to pay all these Trademarking fees because they operate on a BIG profit margin because they never have to sculpt, perfect and refine the doll in the first place, they just rip off the finished article and make quick knock off casts. According to any business model you apply, legit BJDs are fairly priced and Recast/Counterfeit dolls are vastly OVER-priced because the producer invested very little into making them.

 

@generalbun and @perfumed-lotus : No, it isn't their fault. Whenever you register a trademark, it's for the country where you registered only. There isn't an international system. Also, registering is expensive. In my country, registering one brand, will cost you hundreds of dollars in fees, and since it isn't something you can't do alone, you'll also need to hire a specialized lawyer.
Most companies have several brand names (one for each size doll). So, registering those for 10 years (it's only 10 years) is going to cost them thousands of dollars, excluding the lawyer fee. And then they'll have to register in every single other country on earth as well, if they want to prevent Luo and others to take advantage of a shoddy system.

Even big name companies outside of the BJD-hobby get duped by trademark laws. These are million dollar businesses. You can't really expect the small-timers in our hobby to be able to protect themselves, when even Louis Vuitton can't. And yes: Fairyland and Volks are small businesses. Big for our hobby perhaps, but small - in the case of Fairyland even tiny - compared to companies in other fields.

Heh, no thanks. The first time I got an email like this, my response was: "... Oh, wait. You're NOT kidding. ... ."
Thing is, with the prices recast dolls go for, it becomes harder to explain the price of dolls. Back when I was a noob, there was no doubt a doll could cost over 500 dollars. If you wanted something more affordable, you'd have to look for MSD sized, especially DoD dolls (the 'bobobie' equivalent back then). But nobody complained that they were overpriced.

Now, whenever a new doll is released, you can almost bet your kidney that several confessions are complaining about how stupid dollmakers must think we are, spending so much on a doll, when other makers (this includes recasters) sell them for half the price. Even when others explain the difference between counterfeits and the originals, dollmakers get called thieves and worse whenever something doesn't suit the potential customer. I get it. Not everyone is going be able to afford Brilliant McAwesomeDoll. That sucks. But why this has to result in name calling and accusations is beyond me.

 

@Silk @Cynthia in FlintHills Just feel the need to point out I'm not blaming the companies for having this happen to them. I never said it was their fault. Just expressed my surprise that a company I thought was bigger isn't. Sorry.

 

The thing about spending money on these dolls is that BJD are art dolls.

Art is a luxury.

It's so frustrating that in the art world, many people don't understand this no matter where you go. Asking for painting commissions for free, etc...

Sometimes you just can't get what you want.

The baseless argument that BJD makers are trying to steal our money (the fact that they can't afford their own trademarks should be evidence enough against this), even if it were true, does not justify stealing from them in return, which is what purchasing recasts is. It's theft.

No one wants to be the bad guy, but if they're going to intentionally continue to purchase recasts they shouldn't have the audacity to act as if their actions, and especially Luo's actions, are justified. I want to convince pro-recasters that this situation is terrible with compassion, but part of me just wants to shake them...But then I do feel almost sorry for them. The only people they are really making excuses to are themselves. How else would you live your actions, after all?

It's really saddening, above all, that trademark laws are flawed enough to be able to be exploited and abused in this manner. This should never have been able to happen. Trademark laws should change with the nature of businesses, as more and more independent parties are able to start up their own business nowadays. The unfortunate thing about our niche hobby is that it's hard to do anything about that. I wish I could help BJD makers in that way.