Recasts and Bootlegging

Next you'll start hating on my cardboard lover. Hold me Edward, only your sparkles can save me from this senseless hatred. *sob*

 

I was actually more pointing out that there is some form of general consensus quality control via Taobao. I don't doubt that different types are resin are differently toxic, just that the assertion that all recasts are toxic and there's no way to tell if you're getting a toxic one is actually wrong, because you can research into the companies making the dolls, that are reviewed by other buyers.

I don't like the idea of recasts at all, but I want to make sure that the case for not getting them is not gonna get torn apart by factual errors and blanket assertions, since that is what pro-recast people seem to be doing, and tarring the anti-recast people as paranoid or misinformed.

I'd be 100% behind that! Actually, I was thinking, if companies could mark every doll part with a permanent and hard to replicate something, that would help a lot in identification of recasts. Though it'd probably drive the costs up a bit more, but I personally wouldn't mind paying for that peace of mind. ^_^

 

well i know i dont support re-cast and i think if i found out one of my dolls was a re-cast i dont know what i'd do
but this thread does remind me of a thread i read when i first joined DOA,
this girl said she was afraid she might have been alergic to the resin in her bjd because whenever she got near her doll she would get nauseus and get a huge headache
after reading this it makes me wonder if she had accedentally bought a re-cast and it was made witht the toxic chemical's everybody's talking about.

 

I'd see it as an internal etching on each part of the body except for hands and feet (because those are too small). Each doll gets a number, but the doll's number needs to be registered on the company website once the doll arrives to the owner. Before you can register, you also need to include your order number. If someone tries to enter under the same number, they can get an error message saying how the number has already been registered.

Of course, there's some problems that can arise. What readily comes to mind is that the company makes an error on their end and accidentally issues the same number to more than one owner. What I would think to solve that would be to contact the company with the order number and try to sort things out.

 

That being said (or quoted from a more eloquent person), ABJD bootlegging is not a faceless crime to me because I have met some of these doll creators personally, and they don't deserve to have their artwork, careers and livelyhoods diminished.

Artists have always relied on patrons, and if the money dries up, eventually the artwork will too.

When I first looked into ABJD in 2004, there were not that many companies, nor was it easy to obtain particular dolls. Due to Den of Angels and other doll communities, we now have a large and diverse selection of dolls in several price ranges because the community fostered relationships with those first few doll companies/creators and grew those businesses.

I do not doubt that a community of people supporting bootleg dolls through buying information and patronage will grow and foster the bootleg industry in the same way. What was a problem in China is growing into a problem everywhere else thanks to the acceptance of a small group of short sighted, self-centered people.

While recast buyers are not in the same hobby I am, they certainly affect it. What those few people see as harmless acts of self gratification, I see as damage to the financial balance of my chosen hobby and a disrespect of the artists that created it.

Thank-you idrisfynn, cyranstar and aceinit for your insight.

 

Requiring an Order # is a bit unfair, since occasionally dolls are bought in person from a company. I know I got my Yo SD Shin at the 2007 Golden Week Dolpa when he was released directly from Volks. He has no order #. It also pretty much means anyone who has to use Y!J or a shopping service to get a Sato only doll is out of luck registering that doll as well.

I think a database is great in theory, I just think there are a lot of logistics to think about in creating it.

 

True.

Maybe people who purchase direct get a number on a receipt or something similar to an order number/form, and owners could register from there?

It also struck me as to what do you do when selling the doll to someone else. The only thing I could think of is having the current owner contacting the company and asking them to transfer the number to the new owner - in which case the new owner has to make an account with the company, and may need to have a secondary number established so that the original owners order number isn't transferred, too.

This is sounding a lot more complex than I thought...

 

Hahaha. I'm so with you there. I actually seriously considered pirating a copy of my Computer Ethics textbook (ironylol) because I was SO angry that they were charging like $50 for what was basically a teeny little paperback with no illustrations and no research and no reason it should cost that much. I didn't because it was actually more trouble than buying the thing, but still...

I love iplehouse. I love their artists and their attitude and everything about them, so I will support them out of love and I have serious problems with anyone who steals from them and anyone who condones stealing from them. (This extends to all the BJD companies, but Iplehouse in particular because it's my favorite).


I would like to add that this thread has been very informative for me - both about the recast issue and about who I should avoid should I see them in the MP. Not that I intend to buy many dolls second hand, since I really would rather be 100% sure my doll is the real deal.

 

I wasn't aware that there bootlegs/recasts of BJDs out there. I really don't think it's right to do something like that, but with how society is, it's almost unavoidable. You can and will find ripoffs of almost everything these days. XD

 

Lol! Yeah, I usually buy my textbooks on amazon or rent them. Unless it's a particularly good biology or chemistry textbook, then I might keep it. xD

For me it's Fairyland (Migidoll too, but in terms of "larger" companies...). Fairyland has always been so nice and caring towards their customers, and they create such beautiful and fantastic and fantastical designs. It hurt my soul a little when I saw that a bootleg company had the FL65 Chloe and Minifee Kyle on sale. Fairyland worked HARD to make those engineering masterpieces that are their dolls, and for someone to, essentially, make a 3D photocopy of them hurts. I also admit to being a somewhat protective and possessive person by nature (perhaps unreasonably so), so whenever I see a bootleg Fairyland doll, my urge to start hitting things grow very large. Especially since Fairyland doesn't really have "limited" dolls. They make a fullset, that is limited, then they usually release a basic set! I think Lorence and Lora were the first truly limited basic sets they had. So...yeah. *rages* >(

 

Where you're wrong is that there IS no middle ground here, no 'my opinion versus your opinion and both hold essential equal worth as we live in a democratic society'. No. That is the approach on issues concerning taste, not the approach concerning issues of law. Time and time again people seem to genuinely mix these two up, but they are not the same issue. This is about theft, not whether or not you like broccoli. The 'other side' has no legit opinion here.

I think it is a very useful way of acting actually.
Because the internet is still so young we have law that renders bootlegging illegal, but not the enforcement of it. But morals do precede law. It's kind of a 'simple law' you could say, that governs your own behaviour in the wider context of the world you live in. Small communities are very capable on deciding where they stand on an issue.

I see it like this: The act of bootlegging is basically a desire to get a 'cheap ride' while completely disregarding the broader and wider consequences that your cheap ride will have on a multitude of others (this has been extensively discussed here already so I'm not going to repeat the excellent points others have made on this). Since people apparently have no adult conscience to police themselves and there is as of yet no enforcement of law to do it for them, that leaves only one other very core motivator that might be able to 'override' that strong desire for instant gratification: the fear of being thrown out of a community.
Do not underestimate that fear, people will huff and puff and laugh about it but it is an intensily strong motivational drive, even if most of us will all the way deny that it is so. But think of it this way: what is the fun when you have your bootlegged doll and you now need to fear being found out? If being found out means that you basically will loose all trust of the legit community, when it drives you (and your legit dolls too because once trust is lost you won't get it back) to the illegit community? I think people might start thinking twice about buying a bootleg if the contempt of the dolls and the behaviour of buying them is big enough. Eventually the stress attached to owning a bootleg will start overriding the joy of 'getting it cheap'.

 

I think having a mark/ID on dolls that is hard to replicate would be a great way to help prevent or at least lessen the number
of further recast dolls. Although unavoidable that it would only help legitimize newly produced sculpts it would
at least lessen the impact on how many new sculpts (if any) are developed by companies/artist. Reading CP/Fairyland
statement about this issue, it just seems that there will be an eminent decline in new doll-releases the way things are going.
As an artist, I fully empathize with how they feel about this matter; it is incredibly demoralizing – all companies & artists must feel incredibly
discouraged by these acts to a point that they would want to limit the release of new dolls and even limit who can purchase from them.

Purchasing illegitimate copies is illegal in most countries and immoral to many of us but I honestly doubt that just arguing about the
matter is going to change the view of people who are purchasing and selling these copies. This being such a small niche hobby, it isn't hard
to believe that it could easily disappearing an instant by acts as such as these. The only way we (as a community) might be able to do
something about it (other than purchasing directly from the company) is by encouraging existing BJD companies to mark their dolls in
ways that is hard to replicate through recast.

As an individual, I am already paranoid about purchasing second hand dolls and although I never intended to sell any of the ones I own,
just by the number of threads in the MP, I can tell many people who do purchase and sell second-hand dolls will be greatly affected by this.
It is an issue that hurts everyone but the people who are pro-recasts.


- Enzyme

 

One thing I've noticed in this thread is everyone seems to be under the assumption that the recast owners want to pass theirs off as the real thing for a reason OTHER than not wanting to be banished from the community. As far as I've seen, all of those involved in the pro-recast discussion would be more than willing to announce/label their dolls as, for instance "recast SOOM Io" or "Iplehouse Jessica recast" so they would not be confused with the real deal, and have all agreed that they would NEVER resell their recasts on the secondhand market. They just want to retain their place on the forums without prejudice. It's something like buying lolita replicas. No one stops buying brand because of them, and unless they're truly evil scum they don't tend to try to announce them as the real thing and don't resell them as such.

 

They deserve to be subject to prejudice, though. I don't care if they're never going to sell the recast doll, they're doing something illegal in buying it. It's not the same as some unfortunate doll owner being looked down upon for a legitimate doll they bought; the adverse reactions they're getting are totally warranted because they're doing something illegal. I don't believe the "no-one stops buying brand" bit. It's naive to think that no-one anywhere who already owns some of Company Z's dolls will get it into their head that they can go buy a recast of Doll X because really, they were tired of paying Company Z's prices and hey, if they can get something that looks like Doll X for two hundred bucks less, why shouldn't they. It's equally silly to think that people who would otherwise have purchased a certain doll from a company mightn't instead opt to purchase a recast of it to save money if they saw others endorsing the practise. Honestly, if these people who are pro-recast want to not be banished or experience prejudice for their possessing bootlegs/recasts, maybe they shouldn't be buying recasts.

 

IT WAS LIKE $35 ON AMAZON. I was beyond shocked. The book is barely 200 pages long and a teeny paperback and badly written. I'm still furious about it. If I could have had a large negative impact on the author by pirating that book, I would so have done it. B|

I'm an artist and I understand how much training, work, time, energy, and love goes into every piece of art and it just... sickens me when someone happily rips it off for their own gain. :/ I don't get why people think it's okay, or think they're entitled to buying their dream doll for cheap from a recaster. Just... *shakes head*

 

Can someone provide documentation for these mysterious unnamed laws ("recasting is illegal") everyone is talking about? I'm not doubting their existence or the need or right for them to exist, but I'd like to see exactly what these laws say.

 

I was curious to read the laws just to see what they say... but all I'm seeing so far is a lot of information about bootlegging movies and music. Chances are, no matter what the item is, the same law applies for it if people are selling bootlegs of it. But I am also curious to see some info about bootlegs that aren't movies/music.

There probably won't be a law specifically for bootleg BJDs, though. It will most likely be under an umbrella of bootlegging in general.

 

A person who purchases a bootleg has no place on a forum that supports artists.