Recasts and Bootlegging

I have a head from the same seller I suspect you're talking about here and now you've got me wondering too...all I will say is that I suspect them to be the eccentric collector side of things rather than unscrupulous scammer purely because the photo's they use to sell often show all kinds of other dolls, not just BJD's, which is rather indicative, to me at least, of an all round collector who's just thinning out a bit. I think in one auction, they did actually mention the sales were to pay for unexpected bills too, but of course, we have no way of knowing if that's true or not.

 

On top of existing dolls being pirated, it really really REALLY pisses me off when I see dolls that haven't even been shipped out from the doll companies to their customers yet, but are already being advertised for sale on bootleg doll companies website (I saw SWITCH Ryun R. for sale on recaster's website and SWITCH hasn't even shipped Ryun R. out yet!). Bootleggers are just waiting for their own order from SWITCH to arrive so they can start recasting them in large amounts (or someone who bought a Ryun R. is ready to provide him to be recasted for something in return). Some people are really disgusting. I'll never forgive a person who has bought a recasts or supports it. And I really cannot understand how one can still love a recast after they found out it's not authentic. Unless you find it acceptable, I really do not think there is any room left to argue and say it's not the dolls fault so I still love him/her or whatever reason you want to excuse yourself with. I just cannot accept that no matter what you say.

I had accidentally bought bootlegs Japanese music CDs off e-bay years ago. At that time I thought I was buying authentics. It was not until later that I realized, they were copies. Sure it isn't the CDs fault. It is playable and the songs are nice and I enjoy them. But did the artist earn any money from me? No. Who made money in the end? The scammer seller. So I threw all of them away (I refuse to keep them) and I spent time to save up money to buy the authentic albums (which also costs me more time and money as well). I felt good doing that. So that's what I think people who accidentally bought a recast should do too. It should be no different. You are not going to DIE if you don't have the authentic doll. It is not a necessity. If you want something hard enough, you will try your best to save up that money (no matter how long it takes, no matter how much it costs). You do whatever you need to, to get it. You would never turn to a recast. It is what a morally correct person would and should do. You want to keep the artist you love in business and in production, don't you? And how do they do that? With the money they earn from buyers/us.

I also think that if you educate yourself enough, do lots of research and is careful enough, I really do not think the possibility of 'accidentally' buying a recast is very high. This is not a cheap hobby to be in, and when you know that as a newbie, you SHOULD really study it well before you buy things. Don't just blindly jump into it. Then I think the chances of being scammed with a recast is very low.

 

I don't think the secondary market is going to suddenly explode with "omg recasts everywhere!". People are getting paranoid for no reason. As someone said earlier in the thread, or somewhere (I can't remember exactly) the amount of people on this forum, which is the largest English-speaking forum, is anywhere from 300-500 users daily. Most of the threads here are being bumped or are news threads. There's hardly ANY new FS posts. This hobby is still VERY small, and the people who purchase recasts from Taobao are even SMALLER than that.

It's like you're shouting fire in a theater. There's no smoke, the theater has good sprinkler systems in place, and if you're even MORE paranoid, you can do research to better educate yourself.

If you don't trust a seller ask them for more pictures. If they refuse, then simply don't buy from them. If they give you pictures and you're convinced it's a legit doll, then get it. But for FFS, to say that you're paranoid to buy from the secondary market is downright laughable. Bootlegs have been out since this hobby started, over a decade ago. If you weren't paranoid when you first started (and were thusly ignorant of recasts), then you have nothing to worry about now.

Education is ALWAYS ALWAYS the key to ANYTHING. You don't go out and buy a car without researching it, so apply the same real-world principals here and you'll be fine.

Stop freaking out. Sheesh.

 

Personally, I am only freaking out because I have a "smoking" head right here next to the laptop! I know this company very well and have bought directly from them and also from this secondary seller before, but they may not have suspected this head was a recast. I'm not 100% sure myself. Way back when I first started buying BJDs I expected to be ripped off with every purchase, but the more dolls you see first hand the more confident you get you can spot a fake... but the links in this thread kind of prove that is now very hard to do.

I want to find out one way or another if this head is a recast or a genuine, but an older, head that doesn't have the company logo indented into the head cap because they didn't always do that... but I am finding all my attempts to research this are coming to nothing. I understand the reasons that DOA do not want to house any info on how to spot genuine from recasts and bootlegs, but if there isn't a place to do the research, how are we meant to feel reassured?

 

Seriously? I know I shouldn't be surprised, all things considered, but that is just...

I admire your fervor and conviction... but I think a lot of people (me included) who had hypothetically accidentally purchased a recast would be unwilling to be out both money and doll. Honestly... the more I think about it, the less likely I think I would be to toss that bootleg doll (as long as it wasn't a one of those toxic nightmares). I would look into purchasing the original eventually, because the doll I have isn't that one, but keeping it would serve as a reminder to be more careful.

(I would also mark it so that if it somehow - in the event of my untimely demise - made it back into the second-hand market, future owners would know what they had got into.)

 

I don't think you can expect other people to go to the same lengths as yourself. Someone scammed into buying a recast is just as likely to have paid market value for the doll as to have paid a too good to be true price. If I bought a $600 doll I believed to be genuine I couldn't throw that kind of money away by throwing out the recast. I would pursue the seller and try getting my money back first - I'd also stand a better chance of buying the genuine doll once I had my money back.

While you know what would be the right thing to do for yourself, I don't think it's fair to expect everyone to feel the same way.

I don't know any rich people in this hobby, we're all muddling along, saving and waiting for dolls, so to loose a heck of a lot of money on buying a bootleg by accident would put a serious dent into the enjoyment of the hobby for a lot of people. Although getting a refund means sending the doll back to the seller, I wouldn't be satisfied with just getting my money back, I'd also put the seller's name about to warn other people of the recast in their possession and how they tried scamming me into buying it.

By just throwing the doll away and pouring money down the drain, the recaster has earned money and you don't even have anything to show for it. You don't even have anything to show to others to demonstrate the differences between a genuine doll and a recast. This hobby is expensive enough without having to throw bootlegs out and eat the loss.

I wouldn't be able to keep a recast doll, but I couldn't just chuck it out. I'd try my hardest to get my money back and bring the law into it, if needs be. Just throwing the doll away and sucking up the loss of the money would be the last thing I'd do and I'd feel defeated by then.

I agree, however, some experienced people can also get stung sometimes. It's always best to suspect that if you have a bargain, it might be too good to be true.

 

Izam: Admire your zeal but as Jessica and Kymera have just covered, it's not always as simple as that. I have just been running round in a blind panic like Chiken Licken thinking I had unwittingly bought a fake head from a seller who may also have not known it was anything but genuine. After a lot of fevered research I am now 90% sure it is genuine, just different than all the other dolls I have by this maker.

I paid pretty much full price for this second hand head because it is an older version of a face that has now been updated, I liked the older sculpt better even though the difference is slight. Yes, I could have asked the seller to send more pics (and I would advise anyone to do that) but if you already had done business with the seller I think I can't be alone in maybe trusting them a lot more?

We can all make lots of bold statement but in my experience we don't know how we will really react to a situation until we experience it first hand. My experience this morning has made me conclude that while I would NEVER have sold this head on if it had turned out to be fake, and would never have shown her on DOA, I would have kept her. As someone has said before, she would have acted as a silent reminder to be more careful, and I would have taken a marker and written "recast" inside her head and cap so that no-one could be duped in future if anything happened to me.

Like I said, I am mostly reassured now, but just waiting for an answer from the maker to feel 100% certain. I have checked for shrinkage and there is non, so that's another test passed. In case any other UK members have recognised the Ebay seller I was talking about from my previous post, I now think this person is genuine and don't want to tarnish their reputation.

 

Just to second Vonbonbon, you can ask for all the photo's in the world, demand certificates and research your little heart out, but sometimes, it still happens. I've seen photo's of faked certificates, headplates and the comparison shots posted in this very thread that would fool me and I've handled a LOT of resin over the years, the bottom line of it is that unless you are already VERY familiar with the sculpt and company in question, the knock offs are good enough to pass most people's assessments.

 

You know, this isn't just about the secondary market at this very moment in time though, either. While what you have said has some truth to it, it's also a bit short sighted as well. What starts very small can expand quickly if given the opportunity. For instance, look at the abjd hobby as a whole and how much it's changed and grown over the past few years. Between dolls becoming easier to get, and good information available, everything expanded a lot. In the recast community we have some bootleggers who have clearly improved their processes tremendously, customers who are clearly willing to support not only them, but each other. There's also a lot more people who know what abjds actually are which means a larger potential customer base for bootleggers. That to me is a recipe for growth in that subsection of people.

I would be a lot less concerned if the recasts were still easy to spot from photos, which now they aren't always as companies are improving their goods. I also don't like to see recast buyers building a community of their own, either for reasons I stated several pages back. I don't think it's necessary to suddenly right this instant stop buying second hand dolls and start suspecting everybody of wrong doing. However, I do feel that if the problem is simply brushed off now, we could be in for a rather rude awakening down the road. Education is great, but it's getting harder and harder to tell a fake from the real thing and there's a limit to what education alone can do in that situation.

 

Kiyakotari: Sure. That's why I said "a challenge" rather than "impossible." Enough trouble that a recaster who primarily sells to a pro-recast community might not bother -- enabling the anti-recast community to steer clear.


vonbonbon: I have to say, that sounds a little sketchy. Considering it's a done deal, I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about it -- speaking as an artist, I wouldn't want someone to freak out because they'd accidentally purchased a recast of one of my dolls -- but I wouldn't suggest buying from them in the future, either.

 

Rewriting this because I went back and read quite a bit.

The problem I have with people who buy these illegal products is that when they got into the hobby they should have known, and most likely known that it was a luxury hobby. BJDs are artisan crafted dolls, they are not cheap to make, and they are not cheap to own. People labor for these for hours, days, weeks, months, and possibly years. BJD sculpters work hard to give us these products, and they price their goods at what they feel they are worth. Even if some people thinks unfair, that how it is.

However, I think the secondhand market can be unfair -insert boohooing here-. Yeah, I'll never be able to purchase a Soom Heliot, Dollshe Bermann, or Hound, but you know what? I didn't ever expect to. It sucks, and makes me a little sad but it's just a doll.

I support the artists I can afford, and will always purchase legit merchandise. I'm not afraid of buying secondhand dolls because I trust people there. I think a lot of the people here on DoA are good, honest people who will back the original artists with their whole heart. I'm not going to shy away from the marketplace just because of this thread or the new focus on bootleggers/recasts.

While I think recast buyers are doing the wrong thing, I do believe they can help people do the right thing. They can provide comparsion photos and other details that help people be smarter about this topic, but in return they expect not to be flogged with hate. If you expect them to do this you have to allow them to show themselves and their dolls (not on here, but offsite without harrassment). No, I don't expect them to be treated like an owner who's saved up 3k and bought a Bermann legally, but they are people too.

I think there are good things being discussed here but some of it has been repeated. Sorry if this post echoes some of the others.

 

While that is a seemingly kind response, not all choices are equally valid. In matters purely of taste, I would agree with whole heartedly. In matters where someone is going to get hurt over someone else's actions, then that kind of tolerance is rather misplaced. People make choices everyday. Nobody had to make the choice to knowingly buy a recast, but they did and now must accept the consequences of that. Right now the only consequences that exist are community disapproval, and without any consequences at all there is little to discourage people from buying recasts.

Collectibles are like this -- prices go up and down, there's no telling what will be what value a few years down the road, and there are people out there looking to make a quick buck. However, there's also an element of patience involved when using the second hand market. For all the sky high prices, there are can be more reasonable ones out there too. Sometimes it's not a matter of someone ripping someone off -- it's just that the value of that particular doll really is that high. However, there are a lot of dolls out there, and if someone knows that they like a particular company's sculpts, they can always save and wait for another LE to be released and buy direct from the company -- especially with Soom dolls who are limited by an order window rather than a specific number.

Also, it's a fact of life that we will not always be able to get what we want. A lot of people here aren't wealthy, but they are willing to save if necessary and also accept that some things may just be out of reach. Turning around and nabbing a luxury item illegally, because they didn't want to do what they had to do to get it legally isn't right, and there's really no excusing the behavior. I understand why the temptation to buy a recast exists, but there's lot of things that can be tempting that we just should not do.

People do alert companies, but it's difficult for them to take them to court when they're in another country. It's important for companies to know what's going on (and they do -- several have made statements), but buyers also need to be discouraged from going to bootleggers for their dolls. After all, it's the buyers that are keeping the bootleggers in business.

 

It is clearly a matter of demand creating supply in the case of recasters when you have a recasters telling prospective buyers that he will purchase any Volks doll and copy it for said buyer if there is sufficient interest to make it monetarily worth his investment. If he had the opportunity to make money elsewhere, he would. It's not a Let's Bring Volks FCS to the Bereft Collectors Charity. There isn't any way for us to tackle the problem from that end, we can really only make it extremely clear to buyers that this is unacceptable.

 

So, you yourself won't buy a recast but it's ok for others to if the secondary market price is too high? Yes, criminals are people too. Remember, folks who knowingly buy recasts because they are too cheap, impatient, whatever to save up for the real thing are participating in theft. Just because a Soom MD's secondary market price is high does not make it OK to steal from Soom by buying a bootlegged copy. I don't think anyone is going out of their way to harass people who own recasts, but you can bet your buttons I'm gonna cry "crook!" if I run across someone flaunting their knowingly bought recast. People who are duped into buying recasts I feel sorry for, they're out a chunk of money with nothing to show for it. But yep, people who go into a transaction with the intention of purchasing a recast doll are committing a crime and ought to be called out for it and held accountable.
Also, reporting recasts to the original company does not necessarily put a stop to the practice of recasting. International lawsuits are hugely expensive and even "big" doll companies are run by only a handful of people and may not be able to afford legal action.

ETA: What Taco said.

 

And recasters are people too. We can all go down this road, we're all human. That doesn't give anyone free rein to make money from illegally copying the work of other people or make someone 'special' enough to have an expensive doll at a bootleg discount.

So, people who make recasts and people who by recasts are people too...but so are the artists who make the dolls. No one has a right to own BJD, they're not the difference between life and death. I don't know anyone who hasn't experienced powerful want for a doll...but that means they want the doll they fell for, not a cheap imitation or an expensive knock-off they were scammed into buying.

While I wouldn't support harassment and threats, I do support turning out recasters and their customers into the cold. Recasters and their supporters shouldn't have a place in the community if they don't support the artists who form the foundation of the hobby. No artists = no dolls = no hobby. Period. By ripping off artists, you encourage them to produce less art. There's nothing more disheartening than having your work stolen and eventually doll artists are going to finish doing what they love and making dolls we love because it's going to be so wearing and disheartening for them to put out quality products knowing that someone is going to steal their work and undercut them in price.

St.James put it excellently - recasters are not making knock-offs from the goodness of their hearts. They're not making recasts to make more dolls available or to drive prices down to 'attainable' levels. They are not operating a charity. They want to make money from you because they know you want x doll. If people didn't buy recasts, recasters wouldn't make them. It's one thing to know which dolls are popular, it's quite another to offer to buy the doll specifically to copy it.

People do report bootleggers to companies and while the companies can't always afford to fight the bootleggers (companies are much smaller than you think) they do put out statements against buying fakes. I don't know how anyone can read the heartfelt messages from Iplehouse and Araki against bootlegging and then turn around and buy a recast of an Iple or Unoa. One owner of an Iplehouse recast said that she adores the sculpt and the company...but really? You really love Iplehouse so much that you'd buy a knock off and not a genuine doll? Way to keep your favourite company going.

 

Why would you think they weren't being reported to the company? Why wouldn't you think that would be the first step?

Agreed. And refusing to accommodate people who buy fake dolls is not the same thing as harassing them.

However, people like to feel the victim so they can justify their bad behaviour, sadly.

 

Okay. My 2 cents because I don't feel like I can properly call myself a decent human being if I don't.

Yes, this forum is against bootlegs and recasting and has been since day one. Yes, most people on this board have never bought a recast, accidentally or otherwise, and have no intention of ever owning one. Yes, I personally do not own recasts and want the genuine article. But here's the rub--by calling recast owners 'animals', saying that 'they're not worthy to be in the hobby', etc etc, we are making them less likely to want to buy the legitimate thing--thumbing their nose to the 'man' if you will. This is a predicament that I'm not sure people entirely realize, but that I've seen countless times.
Another argument to be made here is that recast owners are people too. They're just as human as you and me. Demeaning them, no matter what they support or don't support, is bullying. Plain and simple. I'm pretty sure that DoA has never condoned that and I'm pretty sure it never will. This thread, in its majority, seems to have veered from the subject of recasting/bootlegging in general to whether or not those who buy recasts deserve to be treated the same as those who don't. I think that is entirely unfair, and honestly, I've met some recast owners online who were much more civil about the issue.
Finally, none of us can claim to assume why others buy recasts. We can't put ourselves in others' shoes like that. We can only speculate, and sometimes we assume, and you know the old adage about what happens when you assume... It could be all sorts of reasons, but we simply can't know until we take a survey of recast owners and find out WHY they bought them in the first place.

We can go on and on about artists being hurt, and companies closing down, and livelihoods and reputations and everything--but at the end of the day, from a purely objective and amoral point of view, we are arguing over plastic. Fancy plastic, luxury plastic, plastic that can tell stories or become 'human' in a way that humans can't--but still, plastic. At this point, all the name-calling, catcalls, and moaning in the world isn't going to change that we are adults arguing over whose toy gets to be more 'real'. It's silly, it's ridiculous, and I don't want any more part in it than this. I'm not bringing my own opinions to the table, except to plead that we TRY to see it from the other side or even from the outside. Maybe then we can finally close this chapter and stop arguing about it so much.

Thank you. I'm out.

 

From the very first appearance of recasts in... was it 2004? DoA has banned them from the forum. This is how it's ALWAYS been. The forum as a whole is not suggesting any change to the way people buying bootlegs are treated.

People who bully them are trolls, and DO NOT represent the forum as a whole.

 

If you're referencing the posts I think you're referencing, about bootleggers and bootleg buyers being "animals," that is from much earlier in the conversation. We've been over it.

I've only run across a few people in this thread who seem to hold to that extreme attitude you're talking about (which I am not questioning... that's their prerogative).

Personally, I don't think there is ever a good reason to buy a recast or bootleg doll. Like you said, these are chunks of plastic, so why is that chunk of plastic so important that you would resort to illegal means to obtain it?

I don't want to associate with someone who would knowingly buy a recast, civil or not, because I find it wrong on a moral and legal standpoint, but I'm not going to go around the net-stalking them and publicly reprimanding them (no matter how tempting that actually is ). I might do what LondonAfterMidnight did for their friend, though, and try to educate potential recast buyers about why they really shouldn't do that.

(And as far as the "Get out of my hobby, tyvm" argument goes... the fact that they buy recasts means, IMO, that they aren't in my hobby, because my hobby is about supporting the artists.)

 

Actually, as was pointed out earlier by Baakay, we are discussing the theft of intellectual property and the potential legal and financial consequences of bootlegging, as well as the moral issues involved in stealing the work of others. One could have the same debate about pharmaceuticals, engine design, or any other entity that is created by human hands and protected by copyright/trademark/patent laws. Reducing this debate to an "argument over toys" is a gross simplification of the issue.