How would you feel if your doll was bootlegged?

I'm totally against bootleging. It's just not right! I feel that if people are going to buy a doll that they liked, it should be from the original company/creator that produced them. I would look down on people who don't understand and care about this aspect of obtaining a bjd. It's important that we support the original creators of these dolls!

Not only is this about respect for the original creators but there may be complications with them since they are cheaply made to be sold at a cheaper price.

 

Actually, a *well made* bjd is pretty sturdy--they aren't just shelf pieces. While care needs to be taken with them, they're a lot more durable than they appear. Mine get taken a lot of places, posed for photography, and handled on a daily basis and they still are in great condition. There's a good chance a cheaply made doll would never hold up to that.

 

I've worked with nasty resin and I can tell you that it WOULD break at the joints... its fine on a shelf but BJDs have movable parts, and a major part of the reason for owning one is because they are so poseable. In my earlier post I mentioned that it would probably be broken within a year of "normal" use, I should probably restate that to "minimum" use. If you're holding them and posing them every DAY it would cut that time in half, and that's if you were lucky and it didn't break in shipping. And I'm not talking about clean breaks, I'm talking about shattering and fragmenting joint areas where all you have are little bits that can't be glued or repaired.

 

I completely agree with you!

 

One one hand, I do wish that we could get more 'generic' doll clothing to be- IE, nothing like the copied Luts clothing, but stuff like simple black boots with platforms and nice-looking Mary Janes for less than 30 dollars a pair of shoes. And I do believe that if a company comes out with something that greatly improves the dolls that's a mechanism, other companies should be able to use varieties of that mechanism. IE, it would be nice if other companies could come out with a quick-change head mechanism 'like' Luts, but without simply directly copying the mechanism itself that Luts already invented. [By which I mean, quick-change heads is a nice idea. There's got to be another way of doing it that's not a 100% duplication of the way Luts invented, and I'd like to see more companies offer that feature.]

On the other hand, I do understand that it's hard for people who have never cast before to understand why the dolls are so expensive. Making a 12 inch doll mold for a solid doll (without having to make the pieces for hollow parts) costs well over 100 dollars with hobby-grade molds, I can only imagine what the 70cm industrial molds must cost. And that's for just the mold. You can get fiberglass resins for 70 some dollars for enough to make a doll, but those resins are intended for car repair. The resins for making decent dolls are far more expensive.

Not to mention I'm willing to bet they use a vacuum system to prevent bubbles, and maybe even to allow for some of the hollowing, and those things aren't cheap to maintain either. On top of that, resin is pretty toxic stuff- by skipping safety precautions for their workers, a company could cut major costs, but think of what they're doing to the workers in trade.

Then, I've frequently heard mentioned that dolls sold on Asian sites are sold for cheaper prices than those sold on the equivalent US sites, but people are forgetting that selling to a market that does not speak your language is an additional hassle for the company. They can't just pull the money to hire translators and web programmers to maintain an English webpage out of no where, so at least some of the increased price for English speaking customers likely comes out of that issue.

Part of the deal with bootlegging is the bootlegger skips all the safety precautions and having to pay for the original sculptor and having to deal with all the experimentation that comes with making a doll that actually poses (try it sometime, it's not easy.)

I'm a bit confused as to what people are discussing in this thread though- are we discussing how we'd feel if a doll we bought turned out to be a bootleg, or are we discussing how we'd feel if an authentic doll we owned WAS bootlegged.

Because I do have a Chiwoo, which Lolidoll copied, but the fact that Lolidoll copied Chiwoo makes me just annoyed with them as a company, rather than changing my feelings about my authentic doll in the least.

If I found out I'd bought a pirated doll without realizing what it was, I'd either be shamed at myself for not having researched the company first if it obviously was a bootleg not being sold under the pretension that it was authentic, or ready to file a fraud complaint against the original seller if it were a bootleg that WAS being passed off as authentic.

 

If I bought a bootleg doll for an original price, thinking it's made by the original company, and it turned out to be a bootleg, I'd be very mad at the person who sold it to me and will do anything to track the seller and do something 'bout it. I probably will not get mad at the doll though.

What's scary about this auction site is that it says "This product has been sent to apply for a national sculpt patent, copiers will be punish". 0.o They better not get approved for a patent becuase that will be so wrong!


Although it's kind of OT, but I will not buy a bootleg doll myself, because if I want something, I'd rather save up and get an original. But I don't care what others do because everyone has the right to do or think whatever they wish to. I don't think the prices doll companies charge is unreasonable because if there's a market for that price, they as a company it's only right to charge what people pay for. They need the money to produce the dolls as well. I understand that it's more costly for them to produce dolls in small production compared to the mass production of barbie dolls.

But what I don't really like is that sometimes some companies take inspirations from other companies' dolls and I don't think that's very original either. Although they did not copy, I feel that it's not something they created originally. ('cuz after one was released, another company soon create something similar, and others follow suite) Another thing that I don't really like is that after a company repeatedly make different dolls, the new ones sort of resemble the olds and it just makes me feel that they are not creating a new character but rather just taking what they had and reinventing it. That kind of decrease my desire to buy from that company.

 

Huh.

What bothers me in some of the posts here is the implication that Volks is the ONLY non-bootlegged doll. I'm sure that wasn't the intention (at least I hope not) but that's how it comes across.

Oh... EDIT: Never mind, I see what I was missing, as I went back through the posts again.

But since I'm here... the links on the very first page don't work. I personally have never SEEN one of these bootlegs and would like to, so that I could see for myself whether it's immediately obvious. Every time someone points one out, though, I'm too late to look at it.

So, um... rather than put such a thing on the thread where it obviously shouldn't be... if anyone could PM me a clue?

 

You don't have to buy my logic, and I'm not trying to be rude (and I applogize if anyone finds this offensive), but I don't buy your logic either. Lots of hard work and creativity can go into other things too - writing a book, for example. However, there isn't a single book I'm willing to pay a few hundred for - and unless a book is from an earlier era in history, chances are I'll never have to. Does it take years to create a single BJD that one person can buy? Probably not. But authors who actually get people to buy their books and end up becoming international phenomenons like Harry Potter DO work for years developing their plots, doing the writing, doing the editing, etc. etc. etc. To buy a book that's so popular - okay, I'll admit - my special edition hardcover cost $70 or something. That's still no where near comparable to the price of BJDs as far as the work put into it goes. I'm not saying the work isn't as hard, but it's just not done over such a long time period.

And I'm not saying people deserve to have their work ripped off - but you can say that ANYTHING is ripped off. BJDs weren't the first DOLLS in existence, and one could argue that all other dolls besides the first doll are ripped off from that first person's idea. He or she isn't getting compensated now, that's for sure. So, really, how do you determine where to draw that line, and who is responsible for determining it?

Sorry, I just don't think things are that black and white.

 

Books can be mass produced, and thus cut down the individual price in order to still make a huge profit. It's why most books written are never published, the cost figures don't add up to profit. BJDs CAN'T be mass produced.

If you think ABJDs look anything like the original German ball-jointed dolls then I think you haven't seen an ABJD up close yet. Volks took an extreme risk making these large resin dolls, they weren't even popular for the first three years of their existence, yet Volks stuck with them and made them a success. They deserve ALL of the money they get, and then some.

 

Interesting that you say that. I think many of us here, especially those who've been in the hobby for a few years would say there is a line: direct recasting.

In a sense, all BJDs after Volks are 'copies', but the majority are lovingly crafted from scratch, and are as much the sculpters work as they are an inspiration from Volks.

However, certain dolls have been directly recast and copied, but, for whatever reason, you see that as the same as an artist working on a doll through the love of a doll that alread existed. You are entitled to that opinion, but I do not agree at all.

 

Sorry but your book comparison doesn't work here either as the publishing company paid FOR the consumer in terms of a contract, publishing rights, and printing costs by paying the writer a very large sum. They're still paying a high price for what they deem is a money-making product that will bring them many returns.

 

Ren13: I don't think your comparisions are very good ones. For one, while a book does indeed take a long time to write, the actual monetary cost of writing a book is extremely low. Also, getting books printed is also lower than the cost of producing a BJD. As Usagi said, you can produce a much greater quanty of books than you could for BJD. The cost of materials, tools and equipment to create a BJD is not cheap, much more expensive than paper and ink. And each doll has to be cast by hand, it's not a process that can be automated the way jeans are made in ten minutes in a factory.

Of course BJDs aren't the first dolls to ever be created. You're generalizing way too much by saying this. There is the saying that nothing is original anymore- and this is true to an extent, but that doesn't mean you can't take a new and original spin on an old idea. The BJDs we collect here aren't even the first BJDs, but they're the first to be cast in resin and in this style. Yes, the line gets blurred, but it's pretty darn clear-cut when a bootlegger makes an exact copy of a doll to sell as their own creation. If someone wants to create their own BJds so be it. But they should do the work and create their own scuplt, not copy someone else's. And if they can do it while charging a lower price and offering the same qaulity, more power to them. But no company that directly copies another company's hard work will ever get my respect.

 

As has been said about what the just making of it the doll, which is costly...

I don't know what other things other companies do, but I think HM keeps up some kind of doll cafe (or something)

And Volks has HOW many stores? Doll parties, cruises... When you look at price, it's broken down and part of the expenses of keeping a store up, wages, keeping the store pretty, utilities and crap, are figured into it. It's called economics, not being unfair. And if there is a bigger profit margin, then don't buy from them. The others who like the molds and such will support them.

And by saying that they have it coming to them, I'm sorry it sounds JUST the same as they deserve it. And what do bootlegging companies do anyway to make you support them, other then allow you to be cheap?

They copy the mold. They do nothing to improve it (just maybe sand a little to disguise it), use crappier materials?

Yea... I would feel GREAT supporting them.

 

I totally agree with what you're saying.
However, books aren't cheap either.
If you look at academic books, they often cost more than 20~30GBP for one book
Articless academic journals would often cost you $12~15 to DOWNLOAD
(i.e., you pay for the paper, ink, everything)

The problem about bootlegging isn't just about who gets cheap goods and who makes a profit. Its about the principle of protecting creativity and therefore encourage innovations.
Who would try to make anything new/innovative if their works are only there to be bootlegged and they'd get nothing out of it?
Everyone could just bootleg someone elses creation, bypass the development process and make a quick buck out of it.
Apply this principle to worlds outside BJD, you'd have no knowledge, no space discovery, no treatment for incurable illnesses, no new vaccination against illnesses, the list would be endless

 

*sigh* Well, I can't say I didn't expect to this; I guess by holding an opinion that's so unpopular, I'm asking for it. I obviously don't see things the same way most of you do, and it'd probably be best to agree to disagree then, because I don't think this is going to get anywhere.

usagi665: I don't agree with you here. BDJs could be mass produced, but companies don't want to mass produce them. I would think this is primarily because BJDs can be considered an art form and something crafted in the way BJDs are shouldn't be mass produced for that reason - and then there's the fact that if you did buy the equiptment to mass produce BJDs, the cost would go way down, and they couldn't sell their dolls at the prices they do.

As for the comparison to original dolls, BJDs don't have to look like them to be them. Dolls are dolls. Any way you look at it, you're taking an existing product and making another type of it to sell for money.

babytarragon: I said that the line isn't easily defined because sometimes a bootlegger could make a doll that isn't a direct recast, but is so similar in structure that it could almost be considered as such. To me, that'd be bootlegging too, but if the line is just drawn at direct recasting, then making your own mold based on someone elses with possible minor changes would be considered acceptable, and I don't agree with that. You mentioned that in a sense, all BJDs crafted after Volks are 'copies' in a sense, and that's why I think this is ambiguous. If I wanted to make my own doll, craft it as a BJD that I saw at Volks, and then tried to sell it - well, I'd be just another BJD company, right? Sure, the mechanisms are the same and the doll is assembled the same way - but that's okay, because I'm only doing it because I like it and since I'm not directly recasting.

I appreciate your input, but please do not tell me what I see things as. I don't consider someone who directly recasts a doll as the same who works on an existing doll, but in essence they could BOTH be considered bootleggers, if they intend to sell their product.

Suzuka: Ask any starting writer how much money they got off the bat for the rights to their book. Chances are, they hardly got any, they'll just be getting a percentage of the money earned from it. If the book takes off, that's great. If it doesn't, tough luck. With the exception of a few very well known authors - those people aren't wealthy in any way.

Hitasura: I'm sorry you don't think my comparisons are very good. A BJD consists of planning it, making it, improving it (sanding, face-ups, assembly, etc.), and selling it. A book, however, consists of planning it, writing it, editing it over and over, finding a publisher, editing it over and over again, and getting legal representation to go over and create a formal contract, before you can even make the thing. One person has to do all of that while getting paid almost nothing for it, while with BJDs multiple people work on things, most have specified tasks, and most will get paid a set amount for it, be it per hour, per job, etc. etc. etc. A person working in a BJD company has an artistic job - authors don't really have any money unless their book does well, and need to hold down a regular job if they aren't well known, on top of doing all that work.

The lines on bootlegging are blurred, however general my argument may be. I understand that these dolls are cast in resin and the first of their kind, but the phrase "of their kind" makes them not 100% original, as far as I'm concerned. You don't have to respect any company that's 100% unoriginal by completely illegally copying a mold - though if it's a one time incident, then I am perhaps more forgiving.

mortimer: Volks has that many stores and other such things because it can afford them with the money they're making. And considering that in all those stores, cruises, parties, etc. they are continually making money by selling their products - they've got to be making a hefty profit. If they weren't, they wouldn't be able to keep opening things and such. Basically, they have enough money left over to expand their businesses AND turn in a pretty profit. I'm sorry you think I seem to be saying that they deserve it. As a creative person myself, I'd be livid if my work was ripped off, but I would also be careful about not giving people quite enough incentive to do it. I don't support bootlegging, as I said, but some people just give them a market.

Edit: Just so everyone's aware, I probably won't be getting any replies to anything else until late tommorow night. I've got bronchitis and a doctor's appointment for my wrist at a specialist. I've got no problem ending my argument if someone else wants to have the last word but then agree to disagree, but if that can't be settled on, then I will continue to defend my position.

 

Huh... again. I looked (must have been a temporary glitch). I feel bad for the cute little bugger, because it has a lot of personality and can't help being a copy.

But yeah... a copy it most obviously is.

*sigh*

 

When something is mass produced the quality goes down. You don't see those fake Barbies sold at the dollar store costing more than a dollar, because they're not worth anything more. Volks has many cheap, non-resin dolls that they sell for very little compared to Super Dollfies, they're called Dollfies. Volks will never mass produce their Super Dollfies because that would be cheapening them. Mr. Shigeta first produced SDs as a gift for his wife, I really don't think he'd want them becoming little pieces of cheap plastic with sloppy face ups lacking personality.

If the Shigeta family simply wanted to make money, do you think they would cater to such a small audience? Fans of resin kits and doll customization? They would become a business like Wal-Mart that has 22 stores just within one state, Volks has 22 stores worldwide.

Your way of simplifying the process of BJD sculpting is laughable. Mikey, a face up artist for Volks, an artist who doesn't even sculpt the actual dolls but just plans their looks on paper, says she goes through at least 40 looks for every head. Even though she is a professional I highly doubt she does these 40 looks in a couple seconds, likely it takes her weeks to pin down the precise look she wants. Once she finishes creating the image, she then has to discuss it with one of the actual sculptors. Not all artists view things the same way, likely she has to have several in depth discussions with Mr. Enku and Mr. Kitamura about how sharp she wants certain parts of the doll, how deeply to set the eyes, how large the head should be, if they should sculpt it like one of their older dolls, if it should be a more original look, etc.

And this is just for one single head. When Volks was just starting out, their SDs were an entirely new field. If one compares the original SD to the current Dollfie they had, they bared almost no resemblance. Someone had to sculpt the body and do it in a way where the joints would be aesthetically pleasing, yet functional. Every couple years Volks practically scraps their old body and starts over with a brand new look, with cutting edge joint technology and resin formulas to make the dolls stronger, more resistant to staining, etc.

For more info on how incredibly involved making dolls is, look up some of the artists we have on our forum here. Donn and Kaye both make their own resin dolls, and they can assure you, it is not a simple job. They deserve all the money they get for the immense amount of time it takes just to make a single doll, let alone a whole line of them.

It amazes me how little you know about Volks, yet feel right saying all of this. Volks has closed stores in the past due to not being ideal places to sell, they've also had to put their LA mansion up for sale because it's not being used enough. A company that is "so rich" could buy a thousand LA mansions and demolish them for the heck of it. Volks is a very well-to-do company, but they are a resin based hobby company, they are family run, they don't have massive factories on every continent creating Super Dollfies around the clock. They build all of their dolls in Japan, an extremely expensive location to produce anything, and then have to import them all to the US to their LA store. Mr. Shigeta is a successful CEO, but he is far from being Donald Trump.

And just to clarify, this has nothing to do with "winning" arguments, or getting the last word, it has everything to do with you not having your facts straight.

 

I find it infuriating that someone would just copy a doll so blatently. $100 is an amazing price to pay for the doll bt for a bootleg it's way to much!

I think an encyclopidea is a brilliant idea new people are getting into the BJD's all the time and when you start out you can't tell a Volks from a DoD! So for them I would imagine they would think it was a Volks.

It's harder for the N00bs now with the massive amount of doll companies their are (I luv them all!) and it's easy to get confused especially with some companies to choose names for the different lines of dolls they make.

I tryed explaning a little about ABJD's to my cousin who likes my boy and she just gave up trying to understand about the companies.

I'm still fumming though like I said before I do luv most if not all the ABJD companies I like at east one doll from each and to see them getting ripped off really gets me I don't want to see them close down because of bootleging.

I try making my own doll and found that all my sculpts looked like dolls I had seen so I've started from the drawing board all over again, I would never make anything what could be classed as a bootleg. It just isn's right.

Okay I'm ranting now so I'm going to go and look at something pretty while smoking

 

Got unexpected computer time.

usagi665: Even HAVING my facts straight (which I'd assume I now do if I didn't before, since I'm going off what you say is correct), I disagree with you completely. It is possible, and I AM entitled to my opinion, just as you are entitled to yours.

In my comment that BDJs could be mass produced - they definitely could. You could take all the materials, get the equiptment, and do that. However, as I've already said, I understand that that's not something they would want to do, for two reasons. First, there's the one you mentioned, which I already stated, about the doll being an art form and not sacrificing integrity. And as you said yourself, it lowers the value, both creatively and financially. I said this already, so I don't know what you're getting at here.

As for your second comment, to mine stating that, "Any way you look at it, you're taking an existing product and making another type of it to sell for money," I'd request that you not assume that I think Volks is JUST making dolls for money. I've never said that, nor will you ever hear me say that. However, the reason a company HAS stores is to sell their product. I mean, of course they'd want to spread the BJD love and give people the oppurtunity to get one themselves, but essentially they are running a business. If making dolls couldn't make them any money, they wouldn't be able to do it on a commercial scale.

On your third comment - once again, I NEVER said that making BJDs is simple. Never. I said that the process takes a lot less time, and hence a lot less work (the work is excrutiating, I understand that, but if you're doing it half the time, it's still half the work), than writing an entire book. Even making 40 looks per head, taking weeks upon weeks, does still not take the amount of YEARS that it'd take to create a single sellable book.

I find your last comment as laughable as you probably find my entire argument. Once again, I never said Volks was rich, but you can't open up a business WITHOUT the money to do it. Sure, you can obtain loans, but to do that you have to be relatively financially successful and show you're capable of paying them off. In order for Volks to INITIALLY open everything, it needed the money plus extra profit - unless it took all it's profit and invested it in a single store, leaving not a dime to it's name, which would be pretty unintelligent. If their stores and such have to be closed afterwards, then maybe temporarily they're in a bit of a financial rut because of overproduction/larger supply than demand/bad location/some other thing. Any way you look at it, they're trying to sell more than people are willing to buy for the price (basic economic concept of supply and demand). If they can't afford to lower the price, then most people would consider their business endeavour a failure. If they can, then they should, and they'll meet costs while still turning in a decent profit. Companies can't keep existing or expand without having the money with which to do it.