Forgiveness (do we forgive companies too easily or rather the opposite)

This is true, I've never heard of either dolls, and now I"m actually a fan of both.
I'd buy a PUns and I'd buy a Mikhalia. (If I just had money to spend on more dolls).
Dust of Dolls will be fine if they want to continue to grow as a company- They are not loosing customers or money.
Inspiration is not 'stealing ideas' there are alot of differences in the sculpts, small or large. It's not a bootleg doll. ( I do own bootleg dolls though - like Blythe and pulips)
I need to find this really epic speech on bootlegs fashions, because I always want to refer to it when something like this comes up, but basicly, the question is this, 'How do the HIGH FASHION designers stay in business when there's all sorts of rip off designs for sale by bootleggers? Well the answer is simple my friends, people who pay $600 for designer shoes are not the same people who shop in 'flea markets'.
I know it's not completely related, but It can be that simple.

Yes shame on people who don't give credit for inspiration, but they are a big company, big companies have lots of shame.

As artist we have to take things like this with a grain of salt and turn it into strength we can use to grow.
They do say imitation is the best form of flattery, I don't think people should get so bent out of shape over this situation.
Cuz AGAIN, it's not the same kind of doll.
This isn't a dollzone recast. (I have a dollzone on the way. haha)

And YES THOSE LEEKEWORLD SIGS are so annoying.
It's hard not to talk about it, when it's right in your face.. Every thead you go. Geeeeessshhhhh.

 

Your second paragraph is spot on and I agree with everything you said in it, but I wanted to point out one thing you said in your first paragraph that isn't quite right. You said "The idea of the pear shaped body came from the Pun" when in truth it was most definitely not Dust of Dolls who first invented the pear shaped body (not even in the BJD world).

I just had to point that out because it's one of the reasons why I'm so irritated with the people who are screaming copy. The only thing that looks similar is the body and since Dust of Dolls did not invent the pear shaped body, how can it be a copy??

 

I know someone (from the US) for who I do faceups. She came to me seeing a picture of my Püns and she says that she loved the doll and wanted one. She told me then "I've seen that she was a leeke doll, so I'm going to buy this doll". I told her that she does what she wants but that Mikhaila wasn't a Püns. She was very surprised and atonished to see that in fact the dolls weren't the same. She asked me to say more so I did... and she was so sad.

You all who support Leeke forget too easily the fact that they came in France, were really warmly welcome, we were so happy to see them, talk with them... their stock has almost gone the first day. I was in front of Dust of Dolls (D.D, DoD is for dream of dolls ), Lillycat and Leeke booths. I saw Leeke staff speaking with the girls about the doll they were presenting.

Beside the copy fact (copy means also imitation by the way, no need to recast to do a copy of an object) we felt kind of betrayed... This is why the reactions were really strong. Don't juge the others choices (boycott and signatures) as none is telling you anything when you buy the doll and put her in you sign. We will never judge you for that (even if sometimes it looks a bit like a provocation...) and I thing you can see it as none came to tell you something wrong about this. The doll is cute. Logical that some people wanted her

Everybody makes his choices and do what he wants.

For me, I can't trust a company who tells me lies, hide evidences (they doctored the pics with the evidences they put themselves on their website) and try to say that it is the other "company" that has edited the pictures. Now, the original pics are again online on Mikhaila's making off page since this morning. Maybe they try to say that again is D.D and their supporters that are lying? Strange attitude...

 

@Esthy: Your friend must not have looked at Mikhaila, because she quite honestly looks NOTHING like Puns. I understand why D.D is upset, but they need to calm down. The ONLY thing that has resulted from this situation is that D.D has WAY more publicity than they have ever had before, which can only result in MORE business for them. I would almost go so far as to say they should be thanking Leeke for all this extra publicity (almost).
Someone who is a true fan of Puns would NOT consider Mikhaila a replacement. They might buy Mikhaila as well, but if they truly loved Puns, they would try to get their hands on her.

Copy does not equal inspiration, which is the word I would use here. And the only thing that was used for inspiration is the body type of Puns. That body type is not unique to D.D and they do not own it.

I want to stress that I am not saying Leeke is blameless. It was stupid of them to try to cover it up, but just as Taco said: "They could've said, 'yes, we did use the Pun for inspiration', and maybe they should have....however, I could still see where that could backfire for them to. Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

I don't judge people's choice to boycott personally and on their own time. What I do object to is the 'in your face' bold red signature banners that say 'boycott Leeke.' They're unnecessary and irritating and sooo counterproductive. They don't belong on DoA.
In fact, they almost make me want to make 'boycott Dust of Dolls' banners and put one in my sig. I would never do that because this is not D.D's fault and D.D doesn't deserve my anger for the silly signatures. But I'm seriously sick of seeing them. A girl posted a link to her photoshoot in a thread I frequent, but she had a boycott Leeke banner in her sig, so as much as I wanted to look at her pictures, I didn't because I was irritated and annoyed.

ETA: I think the only thing Leeke needs to be "forgiven" for here is their foolish choice to lie. But, then again, I can see the situation where they might have thought the choice to tell the truth would have been worse than trying to cover it up. I've already forgiven them for that stupidity and absolutely intend to give them my business again.

 

Oh yes, the Puns are not the first pear shaped dolls -- I meant that the Puns influenced Leeke, not that the idea was an original. I keep hearing that Leeke stole the design, but that doesn't make sense to me, because the two dolls look so different from each other.

That really surprises me (though maybe by now it shouldn't ), because the two dolls are so different. The sculpting style and the size make it easy to distinguish which is which.

I can see where the situation would be frustrating to the artists. The problem is that after turning the issue round and round, I can't see what Leeke did wrong precisely -- their doll shares the pear shape, but beyond that it is quite different. I think I read where they were saying that it wasn't that other people shouldn't put out pear shaped dolls, but that Leeke should've done theirs differently. But quite frankly, they did. If you come down so hard on Leeke about this, you'd have to come down just as hard with most other doll companies too. The reason we suddenly have a variety of tinies, taller dolls, anthros, jointed hands, double jointed dolls, dolls with fantasy parts etc, is because companies use each others ideas all the time.

The thing with the signatures is that they come off as the internet equivalent of shouting so it can seem aggressive. I realize that people want to get their point across and find support, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but I think it could be done in a way that is less aggressive. On the internet, we take our ques by what's written as well as images and color if graphics are involved, so people should think about what they're putting out there as it's just as easy to drive people away as attract them to your cause.

Which is the way that it should be.

 

I knew you meant that, I was more pointing it out for others' benefit!

And YES. Exactly! Me too! >.<

 

Yeah, I think people do tend to forgive companies too quickly. Especially bigger, older companies.

I would have to say that I don't understand why anyone would buy a Leeke Mikaila if it was a Pun they really wanted. I don't think that this fiasco will hurt Dust of Dolls (I wish people would stop using acronyms. It's SO hard to search anything because of it!) financially. If anything, I completely forgot about them until now. They will definitely have a bigger international market now (if they can get more produced, which seems to be their biggest problem. Producing enough.)The biggest difference, besides the size, is the head sculpt. And if someone couldn't get their hands on one head sculpt, I wouldn't see why they would want a completely different head sculpt. That would be like wanting a SOOM Sard, not being able to get him, and buying a SOOM Chrom instead. Same body, but completely different head sculpts. Are people really that desperate for the body? Because that to me, seems the only reason why someone would "settle" for a different doll.

Edit: Just to say, I didn't mean that it is okay to copy due to their small production. I meant (I think it was lost in translation) that I think Dust of Doll's biggest problem is small production, not larger companies copying them, though that can also be argued to be a problem, too.

 

You might have to understand that D.D didn't ask anyone to act in their names. They replied calmly to Leeke and keep their complete dignity in a dificult situation. What people does aside it's not their business, they've made public their opinion on a website and that's all. They ave never call of boycott and they never will. So I don't see why you'll write such a thing in your sig.

And my friend has great eyes thank you ^^ at very first sight she was really sure it was the same doll, not knowing Püns size. This all because of the body that is the particularity of both dolls.

How do you explain that so much people have seen the strong similitudes between these 2 dolls by themselves?

After that the crisis (well what you call crisis is just the fact to put an information in a private place as a blog or flickr and leting people discuss about it freely...) might have been a bit exagerated. But aren't we all in a hobby that generates so much passions? I think it's quite understandable that people were more and more upset seeing leeke's behaviour.

I still believe that if they had only admited this all this affair would be solved from the very firts day and none would be talking about it anymore.

The heads are different, yes of course but the fact is that Püns is special because of her body. D.D make strange bodies for their dolls lol, that's their direction.

And it's not because they can't produce enough dolls to please everybody that it's ok for leeke to get "heavily inspired" and sell a doll... even if the law isn't saying they have done something wrong (I don't know if it's right or wrong as I'm not a specialist), moraly it is. And that's why so much people take it to heart, because if we let this kind of things happen repeatedly then none but the big companies will do new dolls. And that's a shame in my point of view

And I think the same about a lot of other companies that have taken others designs.

The publicity thing it's a fact but this wasn't what they wanted first even if I think this has very positiv effects indeed, none is to say it's not the case. But still they don't owe any thanks to leeke

Now all this affair is rather new, things are going to calm down.

 

You missed my point. What you said is exactly why I WOULDN'T put that in my sig. It's just that the boycott Leeke ones annoy me SO much.

Somehow I just don't fully believe this... maybe for some people, but I'm pretty sure there'd still be people who would be even MORE upset by such an admission.

If Dust of Dolls puts so much emphasis on the body being special, they should have invented a new body type (which would be difficult to do since most body types already exist in the BJD world). They can't lay claim to that body type like it's theirs when they didn't invent it. Leeke has every right to create a similar body type. The way they went about it was iffy, but having a new doll with a similar body type is not wrong.

It being morally wrong is YOUR opinion. The only thing I find morally questionable is the lying part. And I'm already over that.

 

Honestly, to me the company's reaction to their mistake is a lot more important than the actual mistake. I've dealt with plenty of companies who made mistakes - sent me the wrong items, forgot something, sent a defectively cast doll, or took a really long time to ship - but I ended up coming back to them again and again despite all that because I felt that they handled their mishaps very professionally and did their best to apologize and fix the mistake, whatever it was. I had a face-up artist take about half a year to do a face-up on a limited head, but she was honest and upfront about the fact that she was busy with school and couldn't get to paint my head, and she kept in regular contact, so I had absolutely no issues with this. (In the end she told me that the amount of time I've been waiting was too long and refunded me the face-up fee, on her own accord) We're human, mistakes are inevitable and I'll gladly forgive and forget if the company was honest, honourable and willing to accept the fact that they had a problem that needed to be fixed.

That being said, I have listed several companies (and yes, smaller individuals) on my personal blacklist because their reaction to their own mistake was absolutely ridiculous. Refusing to acknowledge the problem, accusing the customer of lying, even attempting to blackmail the customer with the problem into staying silent about the issue on the threat of not having the issue rectified. Lying, cheating, throwing a massive hissy fit - those are absolutely inexcusable. (Yes, I do make sure to gauge the personality and level of entitlement of the customer making the complaint before I decide whether the company takes all of the blame for the escalation, because I have seen a few "problem transactions" where the issue was almost entirely in the customer's shining and polite personality, note the sarcasm)

On this recent issue of Leekeworld, the vast majority of people I've spoken to decided to stop dealing with the company and delete their account because Leeke thought they could get away with lying and throwing out red herrings. I've literally heard someone say "I will not deal with a company that takes me for an idiot" (this person received a personal e-mail from Leeke full of photoshopped pictures and "but look over there!" arguments), and I agree with that. Especially since this isn't the first time they've done this, and I've been told that dolls aren't the only thing they like to, um, take inspiration for. Honestly, I'd still consider dealing with them if they just went "Well, okay. We really liked this doll, so we really wanted to emulate it. Sorry, here's a link to the artists of the one we really liked, and you can decide which one you like better and buy that one". May have been a storm initially, but it would've been the honest and honourable thing to do which would've undoubtedly swung many people out of the group that wanted to stop all business and into the "meh" territory. And then the issue would've been eventually pretty much forgotten, like the Doll-zone fiasco.

 

Kelaria

D.D said that they never invented the body type (pear shaped, wide hips...) but that Mikhaila in her proportions looks like Püns. There is a difference between that. I know a lot of artist that does curvy dolls and no one has done one that looks like Püns as far as I can see (and I really have done a search over it XD).

Lelite

You say it better than I do ^^ and I received a PM from Leeke from the very first message someone wrote here on DoA saying that they imitated Püns too... with the pictures of the making off ... with Püns legs on the desk. The 15/03. All this with complains and telling they did not copy...



If Leeke hadn't come to the Ldoll, wasn't the neighbourg of D.D, didn't discuss about Püns and take pics of her when I saw Mikhaila I would have said that it was a strange coincidence but a coincidence...

 

The pear shaped proportions ARE the body type! I think you're missing my point entirely.

Also, I'm a member of Leeke's website and I didn't get any email like that. I wonder why they sent it to some people and not others.

I actually have a lot of respect for this, even though I don't feel the same way.
Truthfully, I have a lot more respect for your reasoning than I do for the people who are just pointing at Leeke's doll and going "it's a copy! *angry face*"
I understand that a company lying is bad and it was seriously stupid of Leeke to lie, but I do also see why they might have decided to go that route (not that it's ok to lie, because it's not).
I may be able to forgive them, but I realize not everyone will (at least not right away), and I respect that as your personal choice. ^_^

What I don't respect is the boycott banners (they just feel pushy to me).

 

Ummm... It's almost scary to post here but I wanted to give my opinion, and yes, what everyone says here is an opinion.

I've been following this from the start, and I've done a lot of research on both sides. The fact is, people started to move against Leeke before Dust of Dolls even knew what was going on. Leeke even made the first approach to contact them about it. So please don't pass this off as a scam to get more attention, that is naive.

The fact is, Leeke has a history of copying things and in the case of the Russian photo, they couldn't have done a better job at copying it. Someone said oh, it won't affect the photographer but think, what if you made up a character and gave them a specific look and then found out someone had taken that idea, and passed it off with a different name and as their own creation? If you look at the Fly Mikhaela you will see a lot of copied props. Check out here for images: http://ningyounoie.wordpress.com/

Also, I agree with Esthy that they are not saying the Pear shape was created by them, it's that the silhouette is perfectly identical down to the belly-button. I think it would be better represented if someone overlapped the two images. Also, the sizes being different is not important, It's the same thing at another scale, and Dust of Dolls might have wanted to make a similar MSD doll before this happened.

Over all, just knowing about Leeke's past transgressions I would have left them as a customer, but seeing the way they handled this, not only by denying the truth but to Lie and Photoshop images in order to accuse the innocent is just villainous.

I really love Mikhaela but overall I just can't accept her. If she'd only had a slightly larger bust or more unique body I would have considered her as an amazing doll. However, as it's been mentioned, no one blames the doll, just the creator. So if she's going on sale and she's what you want, go for it. But I still hope Dust of Dolls gets some kind of apology and such from this.

edit: There are lots of different silhouettes for pear shaped bodies, try googling it.

 

Kelaria

Perhaps because I've met them in person and that when we met it was a great pleasure? (please do not see here any kind of pride in this, it's just that I hope it's for this reason and not for another strange reason).

And I must say I don't agree at all with the first sentence as they exist a lot of possibilities of doing a pear shaped body, really.

 

I was one who had the "Boycott Leeke" jpeg in my sig for a couple of days. I ended up taking it out again because it just didn't feel comfortable to me. I don't wear logo or slogan T-shirts, and I don't put bumper stickers on my car. It's not effective action. One usually ends up preaching to the choir. No, I won't buy from Leeke until this is resolved. Yes, I would contribute to a legal fund for Dust of Dolls, if they set one up. Those are basically the only effective actions I can take.

 

I was too polyhymnia! But I didn't realize how upsetting that would be to someone who loves or accepts Leeke, I would much rather a Support Dust of Dolls button instead. I would also like to do the same as you as far as contributing a little.

 

That would be way more to the point.

 

I didn't really want to post again, but I just have to clarify: I know there are different versions of the pear-shaped body type, but this version isn't necessarily unique to D.D
I spoke to someone who used to draw bodies that looked exactly like the silhouette of Puns and Mikhaila. So even that silhouette wasn't unique to Dust of Dolls (although it might have been in the BJD world).
And I realize that not everyone agrees with me, but I looked closely at the two dolls' bodies and I do see small differences, so I just don't feel that it's accurate to say the bodies are exactly the same, regardless of size.

That is my opinion. And I'm not insisting you agree with it. Just don't tell me I'm wrong based on your opinion.

I have forgiven Leeke and that is my own prerogative. Others won't forgive so easily, and I'm not always so easily forgiving. It's just that this particular incident is not bad enough to warrant removing my business from Leeke (it's not like I even buy a lot of their stuff anyway since I don't really have the funds lately, but I do love their wigs).

 

THIS. This sums up an awful lot. Companies I've seen behave badly about problems and blame the customers rather than try to fix them - B&G, for example, or Iplehouse - are absolutely on my blacklist. Companies that fix problems, though, are easy to trust.

I also agree with your comments about Leeke and the way they handled the problem, the insulting and dishonest way they treated both DoD and their customers. I want to say something in support of the ban signatures: I didn't know anything about this until I spotted a signature, I read up on it all over and arguments on both sides, and as a result, I'm finding somewhere else for my brothers'to order my birthday present wigs from. I'm grateful to the signatures because I would have been kicking myself if I'd helped the kids order and then found out that Leeke are not a company I want to give a cent to. I do abide by boycotts in my grocery shopping, dolls shouldn't be any different - I don't believe in rewarding companies for bad behaviour.

 

Definitely not unique - when I saw the body in question, I immediately thought of [url="http://notdolllab.com/shop/step1.php?number=478]NotDoll's Venus[/url]. She has a large bust, so it's a bit different, and she doesn't seem to be very well known (I guess she's off topic since she has no arms?), but definitely a very similar aesthetic. I can totally see how this "copyright" issue could go either way.

In general, I'm more likely to forgive companies that have had a long and illustrious track record, and more likely to avoid companies that screw things up early on, although over time any company could probably win me back. I guess that might not make sense from the perspective that it's most legitimate to make mistakes when you're new at something...but I definitely feel like a company can sort of "bank" my trust.