Recasts and Bootlegging

I just searched online for this recast tumblr and similar sites... And I must confess I am feeling quite angry - even though I usually try to keep too emotional responses from discussing. But seriously, Í cannot even understand how one would want to buy a recast. It is, in my opinion, something comparable to buying stolen goods knowingly. Stolen work, stolen ideas.

Waaah, just to think that there was one person who wrote they have a recast of Shoshon... A doll I am wishing to buy for such a long time now. But I would never, never in my life, buy an illegal recast of him! I want the real thing, a re-release by the company, and not a substitute. And this person... Argh.

 

What is clear is that you made an inappropriate and histrionic analogy in an attempt to convey your point. Not only does it make you look foolish, it weakens your point. You can feel strongly about something without resorting to theatrics.

 

They could....not buy the recast if they don't want people in the hobby to think of them badly for doing something that is detrimental to the hobby? It's an incredibly easy solution. The "Everyone thinks I'm a _____, so I may as well be one/act like one" argument doesn't fly with me. It's shifting the blame for someone's behaviour onto the nebulous everyone else, and not where it actually belongs - on themselves.

If I were to find that one of my doll friends was actively supporting recasts and buying them, we would no longer be friends. I don't have to associate with people who do things I don't agree with, and in this case, we would no longer have the one thing in common that we shared, a love of these dolls. You don't share a love of these dolls if you buy recasts.

 

No desire to remove the "problem" posts so PLEASE let it go and move back on-track in regards to the thread subject. Or begin a thread about exaggeration, hyperbole, rhetoric and dollie debates.

Thanks.

 

I can't agree with this more. While the recasts shouldn't be tolerated, there has to be a better way to go about things. Perhaps the pent up energy could be put into more prevention methods and making sure the community as a whole is aware of the situation at large.

 

I'm so sorry that I get to know people first. Humans are remarkably diverse creatures with a multitude of reasons for doing what they do. There are also I may note many a debate over whether or not certain activities are legal or not. If legality was a clear black and white issue it would be a perfect world, corporations wouldn't fund politicians, politicians wouldn't do illegal things for more money, no one would ever cheat on their spouse and puppies would never be put down.

In any of my criminal justice, sociology, or psych classes I would have been kicked out for making snap judgements since all of my professors spent nearly all their class time trying to teach us to evaluate each situation on an individual basis and never be judgmental. You investigate, yes, but no one person ever has all the answers. I am studying to be a counselor so I'm sure that someone out there is a greater wealth of information than me much as someone who studies small market economies would be better qualified to evaluate the impact on the firsthand market. Even that would still be debated though, just look at the differing reports and studies on the impact of illegal downloading. Some reports say it kills the industry while others say it benefits it. I'm not saying the doll industry is similar I'm simply stating how qualified individuals can look at the same thing and come up with very different opinions.

I've also said about 8 times now that if I think something behavior-wise is hurting someone I care about that I DO TELL THEM MY OPINION, so please stop ignoring that aspect.

 

Yes, and all of these reasons can still be wrong and also cheap excuses.
And sorry, until now I haven't come across ONE good reason that is not some kind of excuse for "Why I am buying recasts".
Most of them boil down to "Because I don't have the money/Because I can't accept to NOT own something for once/etc.".
It's also more than human that people will judge others for doing something wrong, no matter what kind of excu...erm, reasons they might have. And sorry, if someone tells me "Companies deserve to be ripped off" it's quite clear I WILL judge them.

Anyway, it's sad the whole survey didn't work out like we hoped.
Maybe we could give it another try with another survey site? I'm not that familiar with the internet in this area I have to admit ^^;

 

This.

I question how much a person who knowingly buys a recast or bootleg doll actually loves this hobby. If they really loved this hobby then they would want to support the artists however they could. The same goes for anything that's ever been bootlegged, whether it's dolls or music and movies. If it's truly important to you, then, nothing but the real deal should be sufficient.

I think it's a bad sign of our culture if having a status/luxury item - or appearing to, anyway - is more important than respecting the time and effort the creator put into it in the first place. Unfortunately, there will always be people who feel so entitled that they think they can get whatever they want, by any means. No matter that it hurts small companies or individual artists and creates mistrust within their fellow hobbyists.

I don't think we could ever stop this sort of activity completely, but I've always considered it a point of pride that this community is so ready to go to arms about it.

Yes, you have. You also keep going on and on, ad nauseum about evaluating a situation before making a judgment. WHAT exactly, about bootlegging and recasting dolls is OK (or not) to you? Just because a person can justify why they do something doesn't make it right.

 

Well I'm mostly responding to posts from very early on in my debate that stated that I don't have to approve of everything someone does in order to love and accept them. Sometimes bad people do good things, sometimes good people do bad things. Ironically I'm not Christian yet someone compared my belief structure to Jesus and the "turn the other cheek" philosophy. Perhaps they are not far off.

 

Change "love" to "respect" then. I believe the people - sellers and willing consumers - of bootleg and recast dolls are being disrespectful to the artists. Wanting anything less than the real deal, for whatever excuse you can come up with... strikes me as being rather cold - more about the "getting" and less about the art.

 

I'm not so sure that all (or most) bootleggers don't care if their product isn't exactly the same to the original. I looked at that recast blog, and most if not all the questions from people were regarding things like shrinkage or which casters use the right hooks or not. One person was upset that their doll had come with the wrong S-hooks and said they won't buy from that recaster again because of that. The only "successful" recasters that are mentioned consistently on that blog are the ones who seem to make dolls that look and feel identical (not "just similar enough") to the originals.

People only seemed to want to buy dolls that could not be easily identified as a recast, so it would stand to reason that if a recaster wanted to make money they would care what their product looked like, at least a little. At least that is the impression this blog gave off anyway.

 

The problem with this argument, is that the issue at hand is actually black and white -- yes, that can be a very rare thing, but sometimes they do really exist. It is illegal to recast, sell recasts, and buy recast dolls. It's also harmful to the community. Maybe not harmful in the way that major social and political issues are harmful to people, but harmful to this hobby and this group of people still. Humans are very diverse and do have various reasons for their behavior, but that doesn't make that behavior right. I imagine there's a lot of them that have worked very hard at rationalizing why it was ok for them to make the choice to buy an illegal recast, but that still doesn't make it right. They may be fine people in other areas of their lives, but that doesn't make it right either. One way to discourage bad behavior is to speak out against it. When something becomes really socially unacceptable to the point that there is very real pressure on individuals to not engage in certain practices, then they are less likely to engage in such practices.

You can pick apart the basic issue and delve into why so and so thinks it's ok, but ultimately that doesn't change the outcome. I'm generally a fan of being tolerant and accepting that people are into this hobby for different reasons, but at some point toleration can get taken too far allowing harmful illegal things to flourish.

Accept this isn't one of these classes -- it's real life and something is happening that's causing problems. Again, in many cases not making snap judgments is a very good trait. But that doesn't mean that judgment shouldn't be cast, either. If nothing else, this is a situation where actual crimes are being committed, and people are stating their concerns over the secondary market -- both these things are negatives and shouldn't be ignored. Why people buy recasts isn't so much the issue unless it leads to a better way to convince them not to. These are luxury items, and there are legit dolls at many different price points now. There really isn't an excuse that I can think of or have heard (usually people complain about items being limited or out of their price range) that suggests that there is a really good reason and would actually legitimize intentionally buying a recast.

Qualified individuals in various fields may see things differently, but at the end of the day the average person not only has to make decisions, but they have to live with the consequences of other peoples' decisions too.

 

I just went to Flickr, and did what you said... I have to say it kind of creeped me out. A lot of them looked like they could be original (but I am no way at all skilled to know how every BJD should look, though) and some of them kind of had an 'off' look to them.

I looked at a doll that was supposed to be an Unoa but being that I've seen a lot of Unoas and know what they should look like, I could tell it wasn't really that sculpt. I didn't see too many on Flickr (maybe people pulled their photos?) but it was educational for me as to how similar these dolls look to the real thing.

I hope that, by providing some information on what recasting does to the BJD hobby, someone - even just one person - comes away with a better understanding than they did before.

While there's some truth to your statement, I'm currently in training, and we're told that it is required that you inform your client if they are doing something against the law - and you might need to break confidentiality to inform someone so that someone doesn't get hurt (duty to warn, duty to report). If they are engaging in risky behavior, you tell them the consequences to such behavior, though it's their choice whether they want to take the info to heart or not.

While you DO have to evaluate a client and see why he or she did what she did (in this case, why they buy bootlegged dolls), and why they justify it as being OK, you do have an obligation to educate them. What you don't do is give them a pat on the hand and say it's OK because of rationale behind it.

 

Say No To BJD Recasts on Tumblr have put up a statement from Fairyland. It is quite a long read but worth it I feel
http://nobjdrecasts.tumblr.com/post/18913379767/statement-from-fairyland

There's also a small statement from Iplehouse too.

 

Thank you babyterragon for the link. It's a great read.

EDIT TO REPLY
After also reading Batchix confession and the replies to this, I'm baffled to see the distinction some people make between and artist doll and a company doll. It surprises me that there is still the assumption that we're dealing with giant coorporations, when the past few years it's been said over and over that the biggest companies most likely have 20 employees tops. That is a lot of mouths to feed with the small profit they make from selling dolls; they can't afford to be ripped off.

But this isn't about loosing profit. Not really. The real issue with copying is that it feels like someone who claims to be loving your work, is purposefully kicking you in the teeth. Money loss aside, it's the disrespect that hurts the most.

 

I never said I was patting anyone's hand I was simply saying that if people I know have done bad things I can get over it, much as if anyone in here has ever debated with me there is no animosity on my part because it's a debate and I don't know you. I'd be more than happy to get to know everyone if given the chance.

And thank you BT for the link, any and all sources of information are appreciated. I don't understand the animosity I've been feeling towards me of late. I'm just stating that I prefer a more middle road and that I will not take up insults and swears for any cause, nor will I ostracize or judge people I've never met. I cannot be persuaded to take up arms (the word arms being used very loosely here). it's not in my nature, and while I seem to take flak for my supposed indifference at least I have voiced my concerns. To me you would have to not speak at all to be completely passive about the situation.

So while I continue to restate the same things let us simply agree to disagree. It's much more civil. I respect that you have a different opinion from me, but that respect does not mean I will adopt that same opinion.

 

Thanks for the link Babytarragon, the argument is very eloquently put