Making your own doll

Bad idea. If she is "talented," she wouldn't even think of something so distasteful. Stealing artistic concepts is called plagiarism, and is looked down upon by self-respecting artists.

 

I think the vegetable and doll comparison is a bit of a stretch at best, since no one exactly designs and sculpts tomatoes.
I do find it interesting though that you'd draw the line between right and wrong based on the person's sculpting ability, surely plagiarism is plagiarism regardless of the skill or supposed 'honesty' of the person doing it?

 

I am a doll artist (I make cloth dolls, not resin ones, but I think the point stands here) and I think the big issue here is profit vs. personal use. If someone made a doll closely based on one of mine, for their own personal use, I would think that was weird (why not do your own thing?) but I wouldn't be terribly offended. Unless they were selling them, and then I'd be really pissed off, and probably take steps of some kind.

I do feel like there's a big difference between "inspired by" and "copying", too. For example, I love downturned elf ears, and if I sculpted a head it might have them. But the face would be my own, so that seems okay to me, and I wouldn't feel like I was ripping off Bobobie Ariel or Garden of Dolls Nabiyette or other sculpts with those ears. Of if I made a cloth doll with soft-sculpture hooves, I don't think I'm ripping off Soom. But if I made a cloth doll that looked juuuuust like Beryl and had the same style outfit and everything, then I would be.

So I think if your friend makes her own wolf boy, with his own look, that would be cool. If she's just going to make a doll that looks exactly like Chrom, it seems sort of pointless--it would bug a lot of people, and would probably cost as much as just buying a Chrom secondhand. While scams do happen on the MP, most sellers are honest and there are things you can do to protect yourself and avoid getting scammed.

 

I am an artist and I would be really pissed if I found that someone was copying my work. Because they couldn't get the same one anymore is not a reason to copy.
My work are all unique one offs and copyrighted to me.
If Soom found out your friend was copying /basing her doll on Chrom....well lets just say she could be in a whole load of trouble, copyright laws are there for a reason and copying designs is illegal.
I think your friend should be very careful to make her doll very different to Chrom.

 

I have seen something similar to this on YouTube, with a Soom no less. And I have to say I was deeply offended by it. Not just for Soom who created the doll and concept for said doll, but for the owners as well.

There may be a lot of Chroms out there compared to other MDs, but the people who bought him bought a artist's work with the understanding that it had limited components (outfit, eyes, wig, wolf parts) and that if there was to be anymore created it would be by Soom; but not an exact or even near copy of the limited parts.

This is not akin to a paint by numbers Manet; not yet anyway. This is still a small part of a larger hobby that is gaining it's foothold even now. I would consider every BJD we see on DOA to be an "artist doll" in a way, even if the companies have grown like Soom has.

No one here can tell you or your friend what to do or think though; all this is simply my personal opinion, and how I would feel and what I would consider, if it was me who was considering a similar action.

 

What was the rule, as long as there is less than 10% that's "copied," it's not considered a copy? I forgot the exact percentage. Anyways, this reminds me of a debate I had with a friend about fanart and doll cosplay, such as minimees based off of characters and that one lovely Sephiroth head someone sculpted from scratch. Where would those come in? Are they also stealing of intellectual property? Fan art especially, as some profit from those. Oh, and again minimees.

I personally don't see a problem with it as long as it isn't an obvious straight copy. Inspiration is fine, plagiarism is not.

 

I vaguely recall the percentage being somewhere around 30%, but I could be way off.

Oddly, when it comes to doll clothes at least, this doesn't even seem to be a gray area legally; doing a search for pretty much any retired American Girl outfit on eBay gets a bunch of replicas and the legal powers that be don't seem to care. They're not being made by the original company anymore, so it's not like they're losing any potential sales; maybe that's the reasoning?

 

If they are sculpting from scratch I dont see any problem with it, No matter how talanted someone is, It wont be the same if the dont have the original in hand.

Inspiration is not the same as plagiarism

 

Actually, the 'I changed it X percent!' thing is a complete myth. Arguing over the percent is fruitless -- there is no sacred number that frees someone from infringement. It's come up a lot here and it surprises me to still see this being spread around; it's one case where 'the popular wisdom' is astonishingly unwise indeed.

"Based on" is different, practically and more importantly, legally, than "copied". I am a firm proponent of prosecuting illegal copies and piracy to the fullest extent of the law. Because of that, I also consider it critically important to understand what is and what isn't reasonably actionable. For instance, "A wolf hybrid creature" is not a copy of Chrom by default, and is not necessarily actionable, even if he's dressed in a feathery sparkly red and black skirt-suit with a cape and has a similar nose. Someone who recasts so much as one toe and changes everything else? Is actually breaking the law.

Stealing ideas is not covered under copyright. It may be under trademarks or patent law, but copyright protects the actual finished work, not the concepts that compose it, not the idea that spawned it, not the mood it evokes, and it does nothing to stop anyone from creating something from scratch that is inspired by the same archetype, or even by that work's interpretation of the archetype.

I get that people are very possessive of their ideas, and that it sucks to see concepts you've worked hard on stolen. It's happened to me, I don't find it enjoyable when it happens, and it has, and it has upset me. The only recourse here, unless you have a patent or trademark, is to call someone an unoriginal hack and move on unless they have actually recast/quoted improperly/used a portion of your image/etc. Using the same idea -- or even a reinterpretation of your idea -- is not illegal. Irritating? Sure -- but muddying the waters between the upsetting or irritating and the illegal is a very bad idea.

 

I think sculpting a doll from scratch in the likeness of a company's doll that is commercially distributed is similar to copying renown artwork in art class. You do it to understand how to put a picture/doll together, but you never distribute the art/doll as your own, and if it is shown to other people, you always credit the original artist 100%. Regardless of skill, you still only copied it. You use what you learn from copying to make your own original work to show the world later.

Whether or not it is ok to show online, I'm not sure. I'm leaning towards keeping it quiet more than showing it around everywhere - I think the majority of hobbyists wouldn't look upon a copied doll - regardless of being sculpted from scratch - in a positive light. It's the nature of the hobby, with so many bootlegs and recasts floating around, there will be a knee jerk response to anything that is a copy, or even slightly similar. Even if it was for personal use and not to be made in multiple casts.

An 'inspired' doll is different from a copy. Inspired dolls are fine, IMO - they will have similar themes but will not look like they were deliberately made to look the same as the source of inspiration.

 

As surreality mentioned, there is no magic percentage, and the Minimees are an extremely grey area regarding legality, they're making a profit from recreating someone else' characters designs, not even trying to hide it since they'll use the names etc but they're generally accepted by the hobby and haven't got into any trouble yet. Is that right? Personally I think no but that's another debate entirely (there is actually a debate on that exact subject). Regardless of how accepted they are within the hobby though, yes they are stealing intellectual property.

As many have pointed out though, inspiration and flat out copying are two very different things.

 

Wouldn't you also have to check to see if their patent or copyright extended to improvements or changes? You see a lot of similar stuff being sold on TV, but you never hear of lawsuits (or any that have come into light by the media).

 

My question is why does something have to be proven illegal here to actually be considered "wrong" in practice? Where is the sense of morality, self-respect, respect for the original artist?

 

"Copying" a copyrighted object is illegal in most places and if it's not then it's probably....unethical at the very least. A doll that has been "copied" and made from scratch would be off-topic for DoA so this thread is going to be locked. Please feel free to take this sort of discussion to your blog or livejournal or facebook or twitter.