Recasts and Bootlegging

LondonafterMidnight: "That's not how resin doll manufacture works though. It's not supply-demand. It's demand-supply. The dolls aren't sitting around, already having had money put into them for manufacture and waiting on purchase to gain cost of materials and profit. They are made on demand with the money you pay for them. There are no losses from unsold dolls because dolls don't exist until they are ordered. "

What a load of hogwash! A BJD artist has to come up with an idea, sketch then sculpt that idea for months, maybe even scrapping a few early attempts, then perfect that sculpt, then go through the laborious process of making moulds of every single part, making a few test casts. All of that takes them months and months of time, during which they need to eat and pay not only their household bills and those of their studio, they have to buy the raw materials to create the sculpt and hell yes, they have to buy the sketch pad pencils, etc..., to make the initial sketches... Once they have their prototype cast they need to do a face-up, maybe pay a well know face-up artist to do it, they need to cloth it and take very good photos to publicise it and put it on their website (which they pay for whether it gets them any sales of not) and by your way of thinking - that should all be done for free? They should just suck that all up on the off chance they ever get enough sales to cover their costs (let alone make a profit) before some thief comes along and steals all that work so that some greedy over privileged "Doll-lover" can have it in a different coloured resin than the one offered by the artist?

Want a doll that's no longer in production? I recently approached Dollstown about recasting one of their older heads and was told by Torre that he doesn't have any plans to make any more of that sculpt right now. Well, that answer p*ssed on my parade but you know what, that's HIS perogative!!! He's the artist who created it, if he wants to smash that sculpt to smithereens - he can. I put together a petition to see if there was a lot of interest in having that sculpt reintroduced, thinking if I could show him there was a demand he might change his mind, but I only got 3 signatures! If there really is a demand for an out of production sculpt there are legitimate ways of going about trying to persuade the artist who created it to rethink... and, if, as in my case, it turns out it's out of production because, actually, there really isn't that big a demand... well suck it up! Learn to be an adult and live with the occasional disappointment because I guarantee that life has some way bigger ones in store for us all than not being able to get the dolls we crave.

 

Even witty banter doesn't excuse theft in a luxury hobby, where reasons to own aren't exactly leading to dolls as a necessity to live.

Especially in a hobby where cheaper alternatives, even some which are cheaper than buying into bootleg companies, exist legitimately. And hey, if you don't like the look of a cheaper doll, then at least you can invest in modifications without being scared to death of losing all that money, right?

 

When a company put the money/man hours in to designing a new dolls, producing a prototype, etc. They need to make a certain amount of money back to make the investment worthwhile. If no one makes the purchase for the new soom limited, because everyone is sitting on their hands waiting for the that recaster to buy one and start selling them off cheaper on taobao, you can believe the company will be losing out on money and their investment. I could easily see a company raising their prices to earn back the same amount of money on fewer dolls, or folding altogether in that situation.

Sure, you rely on that not happening because as you said from your post about lolita 'it never stops people buying brand'. But it's not enough to selfishly rely on others. The honest customers bite the bullet and pay the full price because they want to preserve the future of the hobby, and do the right thing. But what if we all changed our mind and started buying recasts instead? What if we all decided we didn't care anymore, And if the fakes are getting as good as the real thing, why shouldn't we? Why should we keep shelling out more for the same product, if no one seems to care about protecting the companies who make the originals anyway?
It's so wrong to just to expect and rely on everyone else to keep the hobby afloat while you enjoy your good-as-the-real-thing STOLEN fake.

 

Replicas of paintings have had a cultural and historical value for ages. Students learned from their masters by replicating the master's work and historicans now learn a lot from those paintings too. In those cases the replica has it's own value besides being just a replica.
Some talented painters are specialised in replicating paintings as they paint by hand a new painting that looks like the original. It's a rare skill and rare skills are treasured. Replicas by such painters are treasured on their own as being replicas by [insert name].
It's not the same as printing a photograph of a painting on canvas. That does not require skill. Anyone with the right equipment can do it and nothing special is added to it. Same goes for recasting a doll. It's just taking and then lining your pockets with easy money, but in case of museums, they often own the copyrights to replicate the image of a painting. They are not replicating paintings illegally.
When you buy a doll, you did not buy the right to replicate it. You bought the right to own the doll. That's why recasts of dolls can't be compared with replicas of paintings.

 

Everyone: "Aaaah nooo you can't rely on us to keep the hobby afloat! If you're not buying legit dolls and just recasts the-"

Hold up. No one said anything about JUST buying recasts forever and always. Most people interested in recasts have a slew of originals both in ownership and on their "to buy" list and are just seeking one or two difficult to attain dolls. Watching the outside, I witnessed a purchase of a recast just before the same person used the rest of their funds to place an order for an Iplehouse original. "Ah, I hope they get here at the same time!" is the gist of what the person had to say about it.

Muisje: Ah, point taken. I retract my painting statement.

 

First: Alchemic Labo is a small one-man show and his work is often being bootlegged.
Second: Most doll companies are small. I can think of the top of my head 2 well known companies that outsource casting.

Your argument is invalid.

 

Innacurate. I have seen recasts of Secretdoll, which are pretty much the smallest company you can get. Alchemic Labo is one person, Gentaro Araki, with an outside caster, and they are recast. Again Pipos is very small indeed. Just saw a Supia recast too.

Again, inaccurate. I have been lucky enough to visit a doll factory in Japan, and I can tell you that unsold dolls mean waste the same as any company. If you are a small company you need external casting, meaning you need to have it done in batches, and predict how much you'll need. Many if not most Korean companies do it this way. So they have already paid for the parts, just need to assemble them for the customer. Unsold doll parts mean yellowing, which means waste.

 

My argument was flawed, not entirely invalid.

I also never said the recasting industry wasn't without evils, like recasting small company sculpts (though if ol Alc. Lab. would make their products more easily attainable by overseas fans he wouldn't have AS MUCH of a problem with that). But banishing anyone who so much as sticks their toe in the pool and tarring them all with the same brush makes it a black-and-white issue, which it's not.

 

I thought the poeople who buy recast can't possibly afford the orginal dolls, or at least that's what you tried to say a couple of posts ago.

 

That makes it alright then? They only steal from the Big Names? Until they recast dolls from doll artists like Lillycat, Enaibi or Batchix as those have popular dolls that are produced in small batches or are retired so that the artist can focus on newer dolls.
The problem with recasts is that the "I want it, but I can't get it the legal way, so I buy a recast." desire can be applied to dolls from doll artists too. It only takes one recaster.

[edit] Thanks for the info on single person "Big Names" who are being duped too.

Someone mentioned that they wouldn't mind if someone replicated their work, that they would allow it. In that case it's the artist's choice to be lenient towards recasters or give buyers of their work also the rights to make replicas. Recasts of that particular artist's work would be legal recasts.
Here we are talking about illegal recasts. Reproductions made by people who do not have the right to produce replicas.

 

LondonAfterMidnight: I do appreciate you providing an alternate view, it is brave to come into this thread and do so!

I think the issue is that certain buyers of recasts have already displayed bad behaviour on other sites, boasting about fooling people with their recasts, and posting them on DoA even though it's against the rules, as well as buying recasts from tiny companies. They are stirring up the anger, not us.

 

Just because I say it happens doesn't mean I'm saying that's the be-all-end-all everyone-is-doing-it event.

I'm saying people buy them because they are either A) unavailable B) Priced ridiculously high or C) both because the secondhand market is vicious.

I think that's exactly it. I also think if the recast community had been more honest and forward about their dolls back when the industry started and recasts first started appearing, and weren't so underhanded with it, they might have grown with the industry and been their own section of the community. Which, in turn, would have actually made everything safer, because if they were out in the open and had a label/identity all their own less people would have been duped into buying recasts as originals and there wouldn't be a brand vs knockoff war with people frightened, hurt, and angry on all sides.

( Also I'm going to casually mention the irony in the fact that an argument over certain people not supporting the industry and small-company artists has actually led me to totally fall in love with a Shinydoll sculpt and form a plan to save to get one from a certain reputable dealer in the future XD )

 

I'm sorry if my post came across as overly personal towards you, or maybe even an attack, it honestly wasn't meant as such. I used your post because it states a certain attitude that more people have argued for regarding bootlegs (a more lenient approach, finding middle ground etc) that I don't agree with for once, and I tried to explain my reasons for it. I personally don't feel 'opposed' to you in this issue, you just advocate a softer approach then I do in trying to counter bootlegs.

I do think that for once the softer stance can be kind of damaging. I think that stance is usually fit for situations where the context is entirely different: aka a democratic state that protects (or is at least supposed to protect, I'm not trying to say it is perfect) the rights of it's people.
We don't have that here. There's nothing that can be done legally, nothing. These small artist-companies cannot be protected by anything but our own conscience. AND, I argued, the group-conscience. Which means not accepting this behaviour. Not 'trying to find moral middle ground'. There is no middle ground really, there's just no police taking care of the issue.

Taking a really clear stance as a community against bootlegs and the complete unacceptability of it can have, I think, a real effect in the long term. Because people care about reputation, they care about community and they care about their dolls, even their bootleg-ones. If the costs in terms of added stress for owning a bootleg doll surpasses the benefit of 'saving' X-amount of USD, then people might think twice about purchasing a stolen doll in the future.

 

And you can personally vouch for every single one of these people, can you. I doubt that. And lots of people say they would never sell their doll, but things come up, things change, and dolls end up on the marketplace. I went several years saying I would never sell, yet have ended up selling three of mine. No matter what intentions people have now, there is no guarantee that they will feel the same way later. And you are of course trusting that everyone is telling the truth. Having fakes floating around is asking for trouble. All of this should be pretty obvious, IMO.

Also, have given any real thought at all as to the consequences of what they are doing?! They're getting 'predjudice' because they are doing something that is ethically wrong and harmful to the larger abjd community. If this is a concern for them, then they shouldn't be buying bootleg dolls to being with. People need to stop comparing this to every other hobby and activity out there. Just because something is ok in one place doesn't mean it's ok somewhre else. All of this should be painfully obvious by now, and maybe it would be if people started thinking logically instead of just rationalizing bad behavior.

Oh, so now it's blame the company. 'It's not their fault these people are acting selfishly, the companies made them do it!' Not everybody can get everything they want. However, with a little work and time, people can get Unoa's and many other dolls. It is a black and white issue because A. Buying recasts is illegal B. buying recasts harms the hobby. There is no good logical reason why it's ok. All I hear is a lot of whiny people who don't have the patience to get the original, and want everything cheap and now. And you wonder why they aren't being warmly welcomed into the larger doll community

 

"Buying recasts is illegal" "Recasts are illegals!" "Illegal recasts"

Can somebody PLEASE show me these laws?

 

Why don't you go search for yourself?

Yes, artists... such greedy little critters for wanting to earn a living wage from their own work. Besides, food, shelter, pocketmoney, what do you need it for when you have VISION, no?

 

I want people who buy recasts/bootlegs shunned from this community. I don't want them in my sandbox. And I'm not the only one.

 

I respect that you think differently, but what doesn't sit well with me is that you have the impression that we are snobby. If you are just a hobbyist I can see you might treat your art differently, but for many artists, their work is their livelyhood. They have to buy food from it. Do you expect someone selling cars, chairs, shovels or whatever to just give their stock away as well? Artists are not philanthropists, they're running a business. And so they treat their art accordingly. It's not selfish or greedy, it's trying to make a living.

To me, what really shows greed is the idea that artists have to give their away work for free, because customer X thinks her entitlement issues are more important to her than the artist's fundamental right to live.

Check your basic copyright law. A person is allowed to paint a picture or take a photo of the sculpture, he is not allowed to use the sculpture itself for his own gain.

 

Sucks for you, junior, better get some new shorts cus here comes the tonka dump truck.

Simply owning recasts won't get anyone banned/shunned, cus no one has to know. As far as the DoA ToS are concerned, so long as you don't post pictures or speak of your recast on the forum, you're in perfect standing. There's been rumors going that even a couple of the mods secretly have recasts. So you have no way of knowing who's creeping out there with their cheap little toys.

In case anyone forgot, this is going on nineteen pages of outright catfighting over elaborate toys.

Is this an international/global law?

 

Copyright law is no mystery. Here's a good place to start. Japan, Korea, China, etc are all members.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works

"Under the Convention, copyrights for creative works are automatically in force upon their creation without being asserted or declared. An author need not "register" or "apply for" a copyright in countries adhering to the Convention. As soon as a work is "fixed", that is, written or recorded on some physical medium, its author is automatically entitled to all copyrights in the work and to any derivative works, unless and until the author explicitly disclaims them or until the copyright expires."

And for clarification, derivative works applies to the recasts we are discussing.

"Derivative work is an expressive creation that includes major, copyright-protected elements of an original, previously created first work (the underlying work)."

So, if you recast a doll that was an original piece of work you owe that creator money or can be prosecuted. It's as simple as that.

Less demand, because more people are buying bootlegs and recasts, means prices of genuine dolls will become higher in order to meet operation cost.