New Chinese Piracy

You have to think about this logically though, when the whole world starts boycotting Chinese products because of the brazen and relentless onslaught of knock-off artworks and other copyrighted products, China itself will lose part of its economy and be forced to change their laws/ways in order to regain the trust of the world economy.

There is already news of civil unrest in China because of the high unemployment rate. We may see changes to that country yet. The world is an ever evolving place, and we just have to learn to evolve with it; to make new measures to protect the good and true people from the immoral blackmarket vendors that pray upon our good faith, trust, and love of our hobby.

 

Luts will have to put up with it seeing as it's in their best interestes to protect theri customers. If they refuse, and people stop buy from them, they will learn very quickly. In a world where material goods are sold, ALL trends are set by the consumer, all rules and regulations are set by the consumer. If the consumers get together and say "Hey, we're not buying from you unless you do this," then the companies will have to comply or go out of business.

The fact of the matter is, the BJD community is going to have to stand by each other and tell the companies what they need to do in order to protect their customers and themselves from pirates.

 

that is just wrong!!! piracy is bad

 

It only takes a handful of unscrupulous pirateers to ruin the experience accross the board.... Look at Dennis from Bobobie, he is running a honest to goodness totally legitimate business that makes affordable beautiful dolls for people like us. He is in Shenzen in China.

So whilst it fair to say a lot of this unrest about copying seems to generate from China, we all need to be mindful that anything resembling a boycot of dolls from China would injure companies that deserve respect for being legitimate.

Its a case of do your research, nothing much gets past the members here on the board, if there is something dodgy on ebay you'll read all about it here on DoA and I've seen everyone on the board here take the time to inform newer members. This seller has been picked up by a DoA member and if you see a doll for sale thats seems to-good to be true then there's a 99% chance that it is.

 

Latidoll, like Leeke and Customhouse go through periods of restocking, I presume they make their dolls in batches rather than casting them as ordered, and are restocking all their dolls including the red line boys and girls, on the 20th of March according to a notice on their website.

Liz.

 

Seiaeka: The BJD community cannot change China. Ironic seeing how much Chinese companies have already changed the BJD community. This Moe Ningyo (is that the name?) company will change things a lot more.

By the way, that font is a little hard to read.

 

Somebody stop them! Surely they can't legally do that, can they?

 

I also feel that it isn't right for a company such as this to take advantage of people. They see easy money and don't care about the quality so long as it looks good enough. Then there are some people who will buy them and try to pass them off as the real thing. Buy for cheap and sell for bit. I see it all the time.

I"m not saying that everyone does this, oh god no. But you know those type of people exist. I hate the idea of this, because all my dolls that I own so far are second hand. One didn't have papers and the other two, i miss placed theirs. It really sucks.

I agree that the best thing to do is to educate the masses and warn them against this company and that it is NOT worth it to buy a knock-off. You will not be happy and it will not be as good. If it is found out to be a copy, you can't post pictures of it on most of the doll forums.

That would be kind of lonely, you know?

 

You misunderstood what I said. I meant consumers in general, such as whole countries for a wide range of products, from milk to energy, BJDs to to buttonsnaps. The time will come when people have finally had enough of the health scares, the losses of revenue, the recalls, the thefts, poor wages, lack of jobs, all for the sake of the big boy making a couple of pennies extra on their products. Just look at the new movement towards green products that's building speed.

Is this colour better?

EDIT: And to clarify, I never said that we should boycott China, I just said that it's a possible economoic trend of the future. I for one don't mind buying from Chinese or anywhere else as long as the product is safe and the proper people are getting the proper pay. I fully support international community.

 

Just to clarify, was there talk of reproducing the Angell-Studio dolls? I will be able to notifiy the representative when she comes online later tonight if that's the case. Better to give the information as "in-person" as possible.

 

The sheer nerve of the company is amazing. I do feel it necessary to say that anything like a boycott of Chinese dolls is not only unfair to the legitimate companies, but also fundamentally illogical (look up a proper list of fallacies, this is an example, at the very least, of a gross generalization). It is also unnecessary, this board is the center of a host of information on the bjd hobby, do your research and you'll be fine. It should also be noted that in a hobby with as few participants as this one a boycott would not be effective against piracy, as only the uninformed(those not researching) or the dishonest will be interested in pirates. The well-informed, honest buyer wouldn't buy these anyway.
A note about China not being "willing" to stop piracy. The U.S. population is a tiny fraction of China's with a better dispersed government, and the U.S. is still a center for piracy because there simply isn't time to catch everyone involved. The Chinese government has bigger things to worry about than some company attempting to copy dolls for a relatively tiny portion of an already small hobby. Even if they were interested, actually doing anything about it would be difficult if possible at all.

Edit to add: Thanks to the OP for the heads up ^^

 

rainne: the piracy issue is not just in terms of this hobby, but everything that is under copyright protection that is being blatantly ignored by the country. EDIT: (though you probably already understood this so why I bothered writing it out I dunno. e__e; *just felt they had to add something to that*)/Edit.

I have read every post in this thread and I don't believe I saw anyone, including myself, saying that "we should boycott China". There has been discussion of economical and future buyer trends (which is not a new discussion anywhere) in regards to cheaper products from China; but no one has actually said it.

I'm not the type to boycott a whole group of people for one indescretion of a few bad apples. This is the internet, and on this one planet that we all share, we are all the same people; humans. There are good people, and unfortunately, there are bad people as well.

Yes, we should all be informed buyers. We can all help each other to be informed buyers and we can help the companies in danger of having their dolls reproduced by being their eyes and ears on the market.

EDIT2: gtg peeps. ciao.
I hope those copycat jerks DIAF. )<

 

Grr... If only I had the ability to speak Chinese and a plane ticket...
These idiots aren't "helping" people who want to own pretty dolls, they're screwing over everyone in the hobby! I'd rant a lot more, but most of it has already been said...

However, I'm not so sure the serial numbers idea would work... I mean, a company like Luts would have to put up a few hundred new ones each year, easily, as well as have someone keep track of and update it. Many poor companies are just one or two people and they're already overworked on customer responses as it is.
Also, what about all the dolls that have already been produced without the serial numbers? There's no way to account for them...

*Sighs* I just wish I could reach over the internet and slap some sense into those jerks...

 

Not shocked but definitely not happy. =\

The audacity and tone of the writing is very "in your face". I agree that the BJD owners in China are probably in more crisis than the farther away countries. General boycotting wouldn't do any good. As some have said, smart buying and asking for a slew of pictures is probably your best bet.

My doll did not come with a CoA but I imagine faking a CoA as well as the original box can be taxing especially when this company seems to want to rip off multiple companies. They are going to have to reproduce many different types of designs. Some companies say DoD, Luts, AS have very customized boxes, pillows etc

 

this is really messed up.

i know there are people who would kill for a soom MD (mostly sard i think)

but i hope no one is desperate enough to support these people.

 

I would think for a minimal output faking CoAs would be easy. Here's mine for Tamas minus my name. This was done on my 80$ Canon and the paint program on my Toshiba laptop:



Good laser printer and some photoshopping, it probably would look BETTER than mine.

 

And Souldoll boxes have stylised flowers all over them and the gold Souldoll logo on them...however, I'm in the process of selling on of my Soulkids and I don't want to sell her with her original box because I want to avoid passing on a huge shipping bill to whoever purchases her. We're all going to end up paying more for dolls because of the insane cost of shipping a doll as if it was new, in swathes of bubblewrap, in pillows, in a kipping box, inside a shipping box... the costs go up and up. Companies have a shipping contract with EMS, they'll get a discount on shipping because of their contract.

All this Moe company are doing is causing a lot of disquiet and they're not doing themselves any favours. If the resale of dolls gets harder, people are going to get stuck with the crap they mistakenly buy, no one is going to want to take the risk at buying it off them. Moe are getting a lot of bad publicity off this thread alone (as well as other threads on other forums), so the sales they make are likely to be domestic ones rather than international ones. If their products are toxic, international buyers may get stung, but on realising their mistake, they will post reviews too (I'm an honest buyer and if I made a terrible mistake I'd educate as many people as possible not to make the same ones I did...) and if they blatantly copy limited limiteds like their suggestions, they're making more trouble for themselves.

toshirodragon, that's a good point, however, if AoD moved the authenticity stamp over the printed serial number, that would be a better way of detecting forgeries. The fakers wouldn't be able to scan in an original certificate and alter the text because the stamp would be in the way. Photoshop is a wonderful thing, but it can't replicate true stamp residue.

 

*owning her words* I said that horrible word... Boycott, I wasnt suggesting that anyone was planning one, I used the term to clarify my point that taring a whole country hurts the legitimate companies.

The whole idea sucks, though its hardly new to the retail world in general, it was only a matter of time before it crept into the doll-world. Look at all the damned ugly Barbie knock-offs available - creepy...

just reiterating what Seiaeka and everyone else has said, its about ensuring we are educated about where our dolls come from.... I doubt anyone would have the nads (testicular reference from Aus) to try and sell a fake on DoA, and if they ever came up on ebay or anyother auction site, we know enough about the limiteds on the market to know that 1). We should questions its origin and 2). refer it to the parent company for verification

 

That would work, but that would only stop forgery of newer stuff not stuff already in the marketplace or soon to be there.

 

Seeing as how they are publicly stating what dolls they intend on re-casting it'd be easier if they were flagged so-to-speak... So the Glot and Glati's havent even started shipping so it's going to be a while before this jerk even gets their hands on them, once they start shipping and arriving home, THEN is the time for anyone buying second hand to clearly ask where the doll came from. If you're getting it at half the retail price then DUH its not going to be real....

And on another note, I was SHOCKED to high heaven by the Lusis on taobao... I couldnt tell the real from the fake at all, AND its less that $200. WRONG WRONG WRONG!!! BAD JUJU to THEM!!!!