Copy Cats! - does it bother you if someone tries to copy your doll's style/looks?

oh no..I just saw Gali(you know, the customizer who made that adorable boy juri that was sold a while ago? I'm sure you know her..)just got a Yukinojo that she wants to call Vassili..and she wants to give him a grey colour scheme, too I think..people know her-and I'm sure she doesn't know me and never saw my Vasiley-do you think people will accuse me of copycatting her doll? Mine's a Chiwoo, so I could've gotten him any moment and copy him after Gali's doll, even though I think his personality is different..would you accuse me of copycatting when you saw my doll had the same name/colours as a famous doll? Russian names aren't common..then again, Yukinojo and Chiwoo are very different dolls..

*worried* I don't want people to call me a copycat..

 

I totally agree. Sometimes someone elses doll inspires you or sometimes two people are just inspired by the same idea or object. Copying peice by peice a doll is wrong. But if you dohave 2 people that just happen to have a a simliar idea, it doesn't made them copycats. Also sometimes as batchix said it can be unconcious.
I remeber a big scandal that happened a long time ago. A women became famous for a quote that she said, a theory on life. She was on talkshows and wrote books. She really thought she made it up. Turns out a quote highly simliar (almost exact) appears in ancient grecian texts. This women was a classics major in college. She had no recollection of reading the passage, yet she had most likely read the book. It was a tricky situation. Did she read the book and forget and keep the quote or did she come to the same conclusion by reading materials that the orginal author may have read. In the end she had to admit that her theory was not orginal. So I guess the point I am trying to say, is that with 6 billion people in the world and 4.6 billion years of earth's exsistence, there are very few truly orginal ideas. But that doesn't mean there can't be an origanal object made up from parts of old inspirations. Hope that made sense.
~M

 

I believe I am the first person here to have a modded sleeping mmini fee soo. I have opened her eyes and given her elf ears and a soft delicate face. does that make me the owner of 'the' look? should all those who aspire to doing the samme thing now bow before me and plead for permission to do a similar kind of mod on their mnf sleeping heads

I find the whole idea of ownership of a concept totally laughable when the variations on the theme are fairly limited

And yeah Inpsiration can be such a tricky tricky thing, even if you think your inspiration has come from your own imaginations it was more than likely placed there by something you have seen or read in the past. Others have quite likely seen or read the same thing and had a similar seed of inspiration sown within their imaginations. If you start feeling bennt out of shape because someone somewhere has the same, or a similar concept remember this (one of my favorite quotes)

"You are a unique and beautiful snowflake, just like all the other snowflakes"

And if I ever find anyone ripping off my OOAK sewing designs and selling them I'll break their fingers

 

And if I ever find anyone ripping off my OOAK sewing designs and selling them I'll break their fingers

LOL

 

This kinda hits a nerve with me. I was actually sent a rather... nasty, anon. email last year regarding the name of my Volks F-08, Madeleine. I am of French decent. My family is french, and I'm semi-fluent in the language and I happen to be very interested in French culture. So, I named my doll Madeleine, which is actually fairly common in France, at least from the southern area of Nice where my extended family lives. Apparently, there was someone else who had a doll with the same name, and because of this I was a bad person and I stole the name of her doll, yadda yadda. I didn't even KNOW about this other person. Now, the email I got wasn't actually from the person who owned the doll, but someone else. I was pretty upset, as I was called some nasty names and told that I "don't belong on DoA" because of it.

Names aren't something I'd readily get upset over, it's just a name. I know another girl who, by coincidence, has a Dreaming Shiwoo, like mine, with the same name, Etienne. I had given him the female version of the name (extra -ne at the end) to attempt to keep it unique, but oh well! She didn't "copy" the entire image of my doll, and who cares if she did?

Clothing however, is another matter. Sometimes I see a design on Y!J that I like, and I'll save the picture, to make a similar, but not unique, outfit for my own doll. I won't sell it though because the design is not my own. Vice versa, if someone sees something I've made and they decide to make something like that for themself, well, there's nothing I can do to stop them if they're so inclined, but I'd be pretty irritated to see the same thing pop up for sale.

 

I swear this person should get a LIFE!! There are more people in real life that are called Madeleine...maybe she/he should call those people as well and demand that they should change their name?!

Really some people...sigh...baka!

Sabriell

 

Madeleine is a common enough name that it was ridiculous of that person to think that you'd "stolen" the name from that other doll. What insanity. Even if it was a very rare name, though, it still could be coincidence. I've already written about the fact that I almost named my Latidoll Ronnie "Valerian," because it's a name I've loved for many, many years. I then decided to do a search for "Valerian" on DOA and discovered that someone had named a doll Valerian just one month before. I decided against the name, then, because I didn't want the other person to think I was copying them.

It's so silly. Even unusual names like Valerian are not unique, and more than one person will think to use them for a doll. Valerian is a much rarer name than Madeleine, even, and yet two people on DOA thought to name a doll Valerian within a month of each other by complete coincidence. (My doll is named Tarquin now.)

 

I guess what's most important to me is the look and personality of my dolls...especially the more unique ones...not so much the names - although two of their names are unique, so I might notice that - lol.... Anyway, if someone created a doll with the same style/personality/looks, I'd probably go hmm.... But as long as they don't also give them the same name and basically make their doll be same as mine, I wouldn't say anything... Frankly, I can't imagine why someone would want to... Wouldn't you want your own doll to be what you make them? Anyway...I don't really worry about it...

 

I recently saw someone rant and rave (not on DOA) over thier doll being copied, just because someone else bought the same mold. (Not a common mold but come on!)

If what you've done to your faceup is something normal people do with makeup to thier faces, its not unique.

If the clothing you put on your doll is normal clothing that people wear, its not unique ^^;;

I could see someone with elaborate tatoos, or really original clothing being upset.

There actually is another doll with the same faceup (default luts) and wig (luts) as my boy and you know what I think? I think he's awww so cute and I love him I'm sure his owner had never seen my doll before and just liked the things. I'd only be upset if it was the same faceup and wig and they made him a girl ;.;

I do know I have doll plans, and I don't really care if other people buy the same doll and do something similar to what I have planned, I'll still get my dolls.

 

I quite fail to understand why one would care so much what someone you would not know existed were it not for the internet does to their own doll for their own personal enjoyment. This is not a test. You are not being graded.

 

I agree that the internet is an aggravating feature in life- and lets us discover things going on that we might not otherwise want to now about...

...but the people most likely to copy us with things like this are people we know- not strangers. I've had a near misses with my own tattoos (which are designed by me), when a friend tried to have one copied, even though they knew it was not a picture I intended anyone else to use. I drew that tattoo for me- and me alone- but that didnt stop her. Luckily, the tattooist knew me and refused the work, and then told me about it.

It would be the same with a doll. In a case of genuine copying, we'd be talking name, clothes, wig, eyes, accesories.... the lot. And chances are this would be a person known to the person being copied- weather it be via iternet or not.

 

I can understand it being anoying, but I still don't understand why that's supposed to be wrong. What is immoral about not coming up with your own back story/look/etc. for something you keep around for no other reson than to bring you pleasure?

 

Again, nothing specifically wrong with that- but most copycats *don't* just keep them around for pleasure. A copycat has a basic desire to show off and be 'better' than the original- and hence, they don't keeep their copying to themselves....

 

I really dont know. I think, it's getting to the point where some stuff would be hard -not- to copy.
Which is why, when I am actually able to get a doll, I will probably end up coming here a lot less. If I am 'copying', I dont want to know. My dolls would be my own, and so anything that was out of place would be accidental.

 

I really agree with this :P

I have some ideas for my future dolls and although I haven't seen anything exactly like that yet, I also know that I'm not really coming up with anything exactly "new"... and mostly, I just want them to be for me, not for other people, and I guess it kind of scares me that someone might freak out at me for copying something that I wasn't aware I was copying. I might not post any pictures of them at all -- but maybe I'm just going way out of my way to avoid confrontation... I have a tendency to do that.

 

(keeping in mind that I'm not meaning to pick on you, I just can't be bothered to read the whole thread)

I don't think that posting pictures of something on the internet or other methods of "showing off" are not with in the bounds of "for their own personal pleasure." If you plagerize someone's essay and it gets you a degree? Sure that wrong. But internet accolades? Count for not much.

And I think that "copies" (I'm not specifically talking about the doll world here) can be and frequently are better than the original. If you set out to make something better than X, instead of just to make an identical facsimile of X, I don't think that makes you a 'copycat' at all.

 

no, not rally. I think it would be flattering if someone liked my doll enough to copy it

 

A friend of mine has had her doll copied. She was flattered the other person liked her doll and kindly answered her questions about wigs, clothes and such. Wigs and clothes which are handmade, and not factory items. However she thought of it as a source of inspiration, not to serve as precise references. She was very sad when she discovered her 'fan' doll, same mold, same accessories. It was so blatant it hurt ^^;

What surprises me, actually, is the reaction of the other person when she was told to stop copying and find her own style. She obviously doesn't think copying someone else's doll is wrong. To her a doll is nothing but a doll, and the relationship between the owner and the doll is not her problem. She seems to mostly 'collect' while my friend has a very strong affection for her doll, and the other person doesn't understand this wish of keeping a doll ONE's doll and not 'sharing' it. What annoys me is that this way of thinking isn't so rare...

I know some people on DOA had similar troubles, with very persistent people asking them to sell their dolls because they wanted them. Period.

Just to make it clearer, the doll in question is not a popular mold. It's a Belladonna, not a El or a Lishe. I understand it's easy to end up with the same accessories of the neightbour when there are plenty specimens of the same mold. But when the doll is rather rare or unpopular, the "copy" is really more blatant.

I would just like to know your opinion on that matter: the (kinda unauthorized) reproduction of a doll, and the different ways to deal with it. Do you find it normal, and why? Do you find it shocking, and why?

Thanks in advance!

 

If someone copied my dolls style, right down the eye colour, mold, hair style... I'd feel kind of jiffed. Spending all that time trying to make my doll unique and pretty. I suppose the fact the person actually asked for the tips and thing about wigs means she truly was trying to copy... not just a very similar style and such. That really sucks. I find it annoying. I could never copy another owners doll. I like the induviduality of this hobby. It's apparent we can't force that on other people though

 

Do you have image links? I want to see this.

Being an artist, I would consider an outright copy of an individual doll's style a form of plagarism, which is unfortunately not covered by any laws I know of. I find I do get a lot of ideas from looking at other people's doll, but I would never outright copy a specific doll's style; especially never to the extent that you say this person copied your friend's doll, accesories and all. The greatest thing about BJD is that they are so customizeable, and there's more than enough stuff available that everyone can do their own thing. I think it would be a matter of common sense and common curtesy that outright copying is a No, no.