Edited - Are the Minimee Sculpts Original?

well when it comes to dolls based of celebrities, 2 dolls immediately pop into my mind: Ninodoll Bada and Sukryu. Bada was based off of Lee Donghae and Sukryu, off Kim Heechul, both from the Korean band Super Junior.
Even without make-up, the sculpts are highly recognizable as being representations of Donghae and Heechul. I don't know if they were ever marketed as such, but I've encountered plenty of fans who knew very well who they were supposed to be, even calling them by the celebrity's name and not the sculpt name.

I kinda don't like the idea of having celebrity-based dolls being sold if they are not commissioned like Minimee. I think Minimee is perfectly fine because it's not a largely-produced head that they are selling. It's 10 maximum and then no more.

I am planning on getting a Minimee of one of my favorite celebrities (Henry Lau of SJM) because I can't seem to find a SD sculpt with the rounder face, flatter nose, small eyes, and full lips that I want. I've been able to find dolls with only a couple of those traits, but never all of them. I like the youthful, baby-faced look, and Henry seemed to be a good example of that, so thats why I'm choosing him.

 

Recently the BJD community has seen companies come out with 'Tributes' or copies of certain anime/book/manga characters, which brings alot of people to an uproar.

(examp: Nobility 'Edward Moon=Edward Cullen aka Robbert Pattinson: Ringdoll Judges=Grell from Kuroshitsuji)

Though alot of people argue the legitimacy of minimees, people still buy and enjoy them. So my question is...
Are these examples the same?
A company coming out with a sculpt copied off of another persons image or character?

People order minimees to be made in the likeness of ANYONE. I've seen people have minimees sculpted of people they know or love.
But companies come under fire, from they're own fans sometimes, for making a tribute sculpt.

I have nothing against Minimees or those who order them but do realize that they can cause an uproar.
Please try an keep the debate civil and if you know you have a powerful biased toward one or the other, be mindful that others ARE NOT attacking you.
Thanks for your response.

(Please delete mods if this topic has already been covered. Thank you)

 

How much of an uproar really depends on who you're talking to -- the hobby does not have a single monolithic opinion of character based dolls. The minimee service is a bit different than companies putting out tribute dolls, however. They do not produce fan dolls in large quantities where you go to their website and just buy a head of X character that is always available. Rather they are a commission service that includes fan dolls, but also portraits of family members, original characters etc. It's a lot like commissioning a piece of fan art, really. While it's more expensive than a typical piece you might buy at a con, the cost of making the sculpt and mold is going to be greater, and my impression is that minimees are not the main way DIM makes money. It's a nice service for those who wish to use it. That doesn't mean that everybody that posts here is going to be ok with minimees, or fan art, or fanfiction, or selling cosplay outfits, or tribute dolls from specific companies. Honestly, these things exist in a gray area, and they will make some people uncomfortable while others are fine with it.

I think because I came into the hobby through anime and manga where fan art and comics are pretty big part of things and very accepted, things like minimees don't bother me (in the interest of full disclosure, I have two). That said, an unlicensed tribute doll would maybe tend to sit a little less well with me than a minimee, since again minimees aren't readily available and are commissioned by customers. Minimees are also not finished versions of any character as they are blank heads only. Of course this also depends on how close you're talking with the company tribute dolls. I went to Ringdoll to try and find a pic of the one based on Grell, and couldn't locate it. Are we talking more loosely based or dead on? A whole sculpt based on the character or just an outfit and wig?

 

Hey Taco,

No we're definitely talking COMPLETELY based on Grell, teeth and all.
The existing sculpt was RingTeen Spencer that they converted to a Grell like character.

Ringdoll admitted that they based him off of Grell because they said that everyone there loved
his character. It's nice, but the fans were none too pleased and they removed him from sale.

I'm also accustomed to Anime/Manga so it also doesn't bother me as much. But I will admit that Nobility Dolls 'twilight'
inspired dolls bothered me a bit. Especially since they were based off of the actors themselves.

 

I think Minimees have their own "thing" because it can be of anything and anyone. Its cool for people who want a doll to look like a certain something. I mean, if you drew up a character and rlly wanted a doll that fit that image but you couldnt find a mold that fit, then of course Minimee is there to help. i think its an excellent service.

And then company tributes, i dont understand what the big uproar is. As a fan of manga if i saw a doll based off a character, i would totally want it. Its only the fan's superioristic thinking where the character is sacred where it gets annoying. I mean, you see anime figures and fan art and posters of characters everywhere, but now that its in doll form its not right?

 

Yeah, this same uproar happens every time (it's not recent) another doll company does another fan-inspired doll. Who got crucified for doing Angel Sanctuary like 2-3 years ago, was it Angell Studio? - And then the Twilight massacre. That was swift and bloody too. I was wondering when a Kuroshitsuji dealie would come out, as it was inevitable (they'd've been nuts not to try to capitalize on the fad). Ringdoll is learning their cross-cultural-dollery lesson just now-- even if your own home country's culture is happy with fan tributes, customers from some foreign culture will probably come down on you like a hard selfrighteous rain at some point.

 

The Minimees and the Grell/Edward Moon tributes both exist in a gray area, but I think they're in different parts of the gray area. As Taco points out, the celebrity Minimees are usually (not always) sculpts of an actor, not a character. As far as I know, you can't copyright a person's face (I don't think-- I'm not a lawyer). Whereas Edward Moon and Grell were based on characters, and you can definitely copyright a character.

That said, I think the reason there was a flap about Edward and Grell, but not so much the Minimees, is just a matter of numbers. There are a lot of Twilight and Grell fans, and they made enough of an uproar to get the dolls pulled. But it's hard to get the same kind of public outcry over 10 very limited Minimee heads. So I think DIM stays under the radar for the most part.

Full disclosure: As you can tell from my sig, I'm pro-Minimee.

 

If Nobility is actually making the Edward Moon sculpt based on Robert Pattinson, then it's legal. As it was stated above, you can't copyright a face, really. As I understand the copyright law (as far as it's concerned in the USA), a tribute is fine so long as you don't make money from it.

Now, it's completely possibly that these doll companies that make tribute characters from anime/manga are in accord with copyright laws, as they apply in their own country. I wouldn't know, but it is possible.

 

Well, you can't copyright a face, but if you can't legally take pics of people without their permission (which is the case in some countries), I don't see how you could make sculptures and then dolls of them without them having the ability to shut you down any time they want. A painter who painted pictures of famous racehorses got successfully sued by the owners of Cigar, one of the horses she was selling paintings of. A horse is neither a character nor a person, and yet his image was able to be controlled.

I think Minimees are similar to fanart/fanfic, in that they are often not actually legal (although it depends on how you look at Fair Use/parody/satire etc), but are usually left alone because there's so little harm in them. Minimees are done on customer order in small runs.

Companies doing their own full-on character dolls for properties they don't own and then selling them is less admirable, in my opinion. I'd like to see companies doing their own distinctive thing. Or if they wanted to do somebody else's characters, they could do it in a licensed manner. I'm not going to start waving a pitchfork any time soon, I just think that's the more appropriate way to do it.

 

Good comment. As an interesting side issue, the Cigar case is considered rather controversial and an attack on the Fair Use laws and First Amendment rights (in the U.S.). Cases like this have been on the rise. Cigar was owned by the owner of a big aerospace corporation, however, so he had the money to throw at the case. I think a little operation like the DIM Minimees would not be worth the while of a celebrity lawyer. At least, we can hope it isn't!

 

I'm not much of a pitchfork waver either. I feel that if people are that upset they should opt not to buy the doll and contact the creator of the character/series and let them decide if it's worth their while to pursue. It seems a little overboard to go nuts on the doll company when they don't know if the owner of the character even cares.

 

I agree. It's the copyright holder's prerogative to respond or not. The company will get the message pretty clearly if the doll doesn't sell very well.

I'd imagine DIM would simply respond to the first cease and desist letter they received. I doubt it would come to a lawsuit.

 

I really like the creative relationship that DIM and the owner have in a Minemee. It just makes it even more special and encourages the imagination. This is my dream doll and I will have one within the year! I have a special face in mind

 

I still think the 'twilight' group was more a matter of inference and overreaching on the part of the franchise to quell anything even vaguely referencing their commodity than actual resemblance. The outfit was close, but the head, uh... no. Not even hardly.

I think there's a difference, too, between these and the MiniMee sculpts, which are essentially commissioned portrait sculpts when you get right down to it.

Making and marketing a portrait as such -- or even as an inferred likeness -- is a little different than work for hire. The end result, that we may have something that looks like someone or something specific in hand, may be the same, but the process can be extremely relevant when it comes to legal matters.

The marketing can really make a difference, and in the case of the work-for-hire sculpts, there isn't any for any specific sculpt. For instance, I think the fact that there were pine trees on the page background of the 'Edward Moon' probably had a lot to do with the reason it was pulled -- we're used to seeing them in the Twilight marketing. It's a point of similarity they could use -- like the suit and the name Edward, which is all they really had if you ask me -- in a court case that they wouldn't have if the same sculpt had been produced through a work-for-hire service.

 

I agree, there's a difference between copying existing artwork, and making a portrait from scratch. One is illegal, the other isn't. Otherwise Teddy Roosevelt's estate would be sueing Mt. Rushmore.

 

It isn't so much the existing artwork or not, since someone's face wouldn't be considered that in what I was describing, at least -- it's that you'd be creating a product and marketing it based on the resemblance/etc. which crosses over into specific rights involving advertising, marketing, and publicity. If you're being commissioned, you don't advertise the final product for sale since it's work-for-hire. For instance, it's more how the Nobility dolls were marketed that had resemblances to the Twilight advertising and marketing campaigns than the physical appearance of the doll, but that trade dress issue counts for a lot, legally speaking.

 

When someone sculpts a doll, it becomes its own character. So when someone copies that sculpt, they're just copying that character.

There are Minimees out there of a lot of copy-written characters like Final Fantasy characters. So why is it okay for Minimee to copy those designs but for one sculptor not to copy the design of another sculptor?

Also, one could argue that no sculptor can completely accurately sculpt another sculptors sculpt, so it then becomes their own sculpt, albeit with strong similarities.

What I'm trying to say (I don't think I'm wording things well today, sorry), is that if sculptor A makes a doll, it then becomes their character. Sculptor B comes along and copies sculptor A's design/character. Minimee is doing exactly that, only they aren't stealing the design from another sculptor, they're stealing it from an artist. And granted, Minimee does 80% accuracy, but that doesn't change a thing. You can tell who they're copying, just like you could if sculptor B copied sculptor A's design. Either way, it's copying.

If it's wrong for one company, it should be wrong for all of them, regardless of the desire to acquire a doll that looks like your favorite character. Either way, the character being copied is copy-written.

But theennnn you could argue that the copied sculpts, regardless of who made them, are merely works of fans, making them fan art and no different than the plethora of copy-written character plushies you can find on sites like Deviantart. So does that make those plushies wrong, too? Ultimately people are profiting off of designs that they didn't create, regardless of the medium.