The consequences of copied dolls

I am not speaking if secondhand dolls. Many of my dolls are secondhand and I dont have all the proper boxes, pillows, ect. I am speaking in terms of if you are new to the hobby and purchase a doll off ebay that shows company photos instead of photos of the actual doll. I get my second hand dolls from the marketplace And have gotten a secondhand doll off ebay but she was purchased from a member of DOA as well as Iincluded all the proper items. Again secondhand dolls are different but thats when research comes in handy, asking for many owner pictures and comparing them ect.

 

Woah, veganism is a totally different thing altogether. Vegan or vegetarianism is only healthier if you're supplementing the right nutrients, and a lot of people don't have access to those nutrients or the information on what to get. People are starving in "first world" countries, too. There are such places in the United States where people can't afford to get vegetables because they're not sold at their local grocery store, or they're too expensive, and also because they take time for preparation. An hour put into cooking a healthy meal is an hour someone could be working, and when you barely live paycheck-to-paycheck, processed food and meat (thinking mostly cold cuts here) is way more economical.
/off-topic

Anyway, I think Silk mentioned the most important thing. It isn't about you, or not wanting to put money in the pockets of large companies (which, with very few exceptions, BJD makers aren't). It's about the original artists. They make very little money as it is--if Myracuulous' number is right, that's less than half minimum wage in the States. They depend on people buying things into which they put hard work, time, and frustration. I would imagine that many doll casts don't break even--there's always going to be a cast or two that turns out badly, and that's a few hundred dollars down the drain. Resin is super finicky to cast, which is why these dolls are so expensive. I doubt recast dealers throw away poor casts, from what I've heard about recasts.
I don't care if you don't care about quality or legitimacy; what matters is that you're either taking away from or funding something that takes away from artists who sculpt and sell BJDs for a living.

Nothing makes me more angry than when I'm looking at doll pictures (on places other than forums) and people outright say their dolls are recasts. Why...? I was looking at someone's DC Hugh photos and found a picture of all of their dolls together. It was super cute until I noticed, in the description, that they mentioned they had a recast Soom and a recast LTF. I had to go away because it literally makes me sick.
As an artist myself, with my mom being a photographer, I know how it feels when people steal your work when they're not making money off of it. But when people steal your work and make money off of it? That's super gross. It's like someone buying a photobook and Xeroxing it onto photopaper and selling it as the real thing.

ETA: And if it's a money thing, there are plenty of legitimate companies out there that make dolls that cost as much as, or less than, recast companies. There's ResinSoul, MiroDoll, Angel of Dream, Magical Angel, etc. Sure, it's not a Soom Chalco--but neither is the recast. This is a hobby that's more about hard work than anything--with face-ups, mods, sewing, sculpting, photography, etc. Even saving up the money for a doll is hard work, and I think it makes the hobby more rewarding. It's a luxury hobby, and if you aren't willing to pay the prices, then it really isn't the hobby for you.

 

What I wrote applies to the items like Folex and Kooches (from imhitomi's post). They are not fully illegal because they are fashion items. Fashion has different laws that apply, like how trademark/copyright comes into it. You can take a purse from Coach and make one similar, but instead of using the Coach fabric/trademark, make it with the Kooches trademark. It looks very similar and people can definitely tell that it was made to resemble a Coach bag, but it is a knock-off. It is not illegal because they broke no laws with the copyright, even if it is shady and icky.

For dolls it's different. They do not fall under the laws that apply to fashion. I wanted to just repeat the differences between recasts and knock-offs from the previous pages since they have fallen behind. Do not twist my words into something different. You will see I referenced purses and watches, not dolls. My definition from the previous post was about the words. Fashion is different than dolls, so comparing bags and watches isn't the best of examples.

As I wrote before, recasts are never ok, dolls or otherwise.

 

Aiko-chan, would you consider those times companies have been alleged of ripping off other companies' sculpts knock-offs? Like when DollZone recast a Delf head and sold it under their own name, or when Dollmore supposedly sold a recast of a Hound body under another name? Just wondering, because they are considered recasts, but they weren't trying to pass as the original thing...

 

DoA has been accused of a lot of things, but this is the first time I've seen it called a pawn of Big Business!

Pro-recasters are parasites. They take resources out of the BJD community, and give nothing back. No originality, no creativity, not even support for the creativity and hard work of others. Just a bunch of takers.

 

A recast is a recast. I don't use the word "knock-off" when pertaining to dolls because it is a recast or copying of the original, regardless of name given. I generally use the term "knock-off" for fashions, like doll clothing. If you make the Dollheart Fer within your own company and call it the Dur, that would fall more under the knock-off category (as an example though not the best). If there were a company that looked at a doll sculpt and tried to make a similar one, by hand, not using the original to make a mold or anything, then that would probably be closer to what a knock-off is. But even then, it may just be a new doll since it is hard to get the exact sculpt details down if working from scratch, by hand, and using another doll sculpt as inspiration. It all depends on the process and outcome.

Going by definition, I don't think knock-off is the proper term for a copying of a doll for manufacture by another company. That is a recast as it is a re-casting of an already created doll. Hopefully that makes sense. Others may feel differently about the terms used, but that is how I learned them.

edit to add:

This is how I view the meanings of the words (generality):

Recast: a copy of an original
Knock-off: a newly made original with a borrowed/stolen idea

 

This ^

I completely agree

 

Seriously?! omg... I really wanted to get a tan moe Rheia and I couldnt get one during the original release. I was hoping they'd release tan and the moe line again eventually so I could get one :/ This makes me so freaking mad/sad and upset that recasters are ALREADY making recasts of the moe line body on top of making tan copies Now I have to worry that FL wont ever release them again? UGH!

I hate how we have to worry about this kind of crap happening. Not only is FL losing out on money [and those that think they arent are completely stupid x.x] but now the people who love them and want to support them are losing out too :/ Some people automatically assume that, just because a doll was limited, the company isnt losing out on money when people make recasts of those dolls. But they are. There are companies like Soom and Iplehouse, etc. that release sculpts again later either in another limited set, during an event, or as basic dolls. When people make recasts of them it is taking money AWAY from the original companies. This also takes money away from them in other ways... because then those people who buy recasts will just then wait until the next doll the company releases is recasted... and then they will buy the recast instead of buying straight from the company. This means less sales for the company. And when this happens over and over, the company DOES lose money.

 

I cannot emphasize enough that the "big doll companies" are not big at all. CERTAINLY not Mattel sized. They generally consist of 1 to 4 artists (often, more often than not, only one, which is why a company becomes known for a certain look), a handful of people that do the molding and casting, another couple that do the shipping, and someone who does the photography, website and company rep thing.

 

Dont forget the translators! Generally they only have one or two english speaking people on staff sometimes. Which is why there is a lot of confusion sometimes when we ask them questions. But we have to remember that they are doing their best ^^

 

Indeed. Most of the big doll companies are not even big as Nintendo, Apple, etc. They have very few staff to make the dolls.

The only exception is Volks, which is definitely a monster sized company compared to other BJD companies. Volks is a large company not only producing dolls, but figures, model kits, etc. and have many divisions, but definitely not Nintendo or Apple sized. However, if people stop buying Super Dollfies and Dollfie Dream because of cheap recasts, then the line might just disappear completely, and we miss all the stuff they will make in the future, so no matter how large a company is, recasts can absolutely hurt the company. I remember in a email written by the CEO of Volks, Hideyuki Shigeta when there was a case involving a recaster in Japan, he mentions that recasts are unacceptable and wrong, so he knows how much it can hurt a company, no matter the size.

 

Volks might be large by BJD standards, but that also means that many people are dependent on the money this company brings in. A larger business means more mouths to feed and so when this recast issue hits them, there's a lot of innocent people just trying to make an honest living that get hurt.

 

IMO.... There is no way to justify recasting. There is no valid reason for theft when it involves art. No valid excuse and simply no way to cut it that will result in an "its okay to recast"
anyone who thinks otherwise is smoking something odd and should really go see a doctor about that.....

 

If you deliberately violate the ethos of a community, why shouldn't you be expelled from that community as a consequence of your actions?

 

I think of the whole thing in very simple terms:
The consequences of stealing is that money (or other resources) does not go to the people who did the work. It really is as simple as that.

People who truly are into this hobby should do their research. Anyone who knowingly buy a recast is basically making the decision to leave the hobby by themselves and should not come crying when there are consequences for that and the community reacts.
If you want something you pay for it. If you simply don't have the money, you don't have the money. You can't make other people pay for you. Because that is what stealing is, essentially.
Large scale or small scale is irrelevant. All excuses or attempts at validation are irrelevant. And they should be dealt with in their own places.

As someone who lives on very little myself and have to save up for a very long time to be able to buy a doll, I can sympathize with those who feel the hobby costs more than they have the option to invest. But I have no pity for those who decide that they somehow have the right to pay someone else to steal the artists work for them.
I have professional artists both in my family and amongst my friends and I honestly think many BJDs are quite cheap. These dolls sit in some sort of a grey zone between art dolls and mass produced. They are made in relatively small numbers, but they are typically not styled into little OOAK masterpieces by experienced artists before they are sold. Objects like these are a nightmare to try to prize right.
As something of an artist myself with quite a few OT dolls under my belt and serious plans and experiments for making and casting BJDs I can honestly say I could NOT match the prizes of the lower range companies in any legal way myself. If I ever get to the point where I want to cast and sell this type of dolls, I will simply have to put the prize tag quite high just to compensate for income taxes and stuff like that, or else I would actually loose money, not earn it. And even then making enough profit to have an employee is completely impossible for a niche product like this. Now, I live in Sweden, where taxes are high and it is generally very hard to make small businesses make any real profits at all, but I would be very very careful before I tried something like dictating what I think other companies should ask for their products.
There are just so many costs that we can not see and at some point people have to be mature enough to accept that.

 

Thanks for taking your time in explaining the difference between fashion items and dolls. I'm still kind of lost when you refer to it as *not* fully illegal...which I see as "it's no ok but it doesn't matter" @.@ I always thought that fake purses were 100% illegal, I wasn't trying to twist your words, just making some questions to understand your post since I've not read the whole thread, just a few replies from the first and last posts so I wasn't aware that this topic was discussed before. I'm completely against recasts and my response before was for the people who bring up the fake purses/watches issue as an excuse to buy recast dolls, while they might look similar, quality will not be the same since different material(of lower value) are being used to recreate these dolls but now I know that the laws are different and knock offs are not fully illegal as opposed to stealing another person's art so there's no excuse whatsoever for them. =)

 

Not just slightly off-topic...dietary choices are definitely off-topic!! This is the first time I've ever seen someone equate food choices with the issue of copied dolls. It's not really the right analogy to make either. Meat is a luxury foodstuff, which is why people pay a premium for it, but also, some people would be made quite ill on a vegan diet and meat protein suits their body far better. This makes meat a need for those people and not a luxury, and it's unfortunately a need that they are having to pay premium prices for.

I think it's quite unfair to say that people are hypocrites for standing up against sweat-shops, recasting and art theft whilst at the same time being omnivores. It would be hypocritical, not to mention self-defeating, to campaign against sweat-shops whilst at the same time buying the products of sweat-shops. It would be hypocritical to illegally download films and music over the internet whilst at the same time demonising people who buy recasts.* It isn't hypocritical to support legitimate artists whilst at the same time munching on a cheeseburger - the two have literally nothing to do with each other.

Many people do act in their own self-interest a lot of the time, but that doesn't mean all people are that way 100% of the time. There are plenty of vegans who buy clothes from high-street shops that source their clothing from sweat-shops. The number of people who are against recasting surely demonstrates that people can act in the interest and support of someone else without being directly compensated for it. What you eat has no bearing on whether you're a good person or not. What you seem to be implying is that unless someone eats vegan, wears natural fibres and lives as quietly as possible they can't have a valid opinion on whether a practice is right or not. No. All 6 billion of us on the planet contribute to society in our various ways. There are selfish people who don't recycle, who litter, who allow their dogs to foul the streets, who support recasting...but there are people who recycle, are aware of their foodmiles, make ethical choices about what they wear, who make an effort to support the arts... Human beings are a mess of contradictions - some people who don't pick up after their dogs might well agonize over choosing between leather or synthetic shoes.

*This is a common thing that pro-recasting types fling back at the anti-recasting crowd. This is a stupid assumption - it not only assumes that everyone illegally downloads from the internet, but assumes that no one has a problem with it. I am against recasting. I also don't download anything illegally. The majority of legitimate doll supporters I know also don't download illegally.

 

A couple things.

1) Mijn Schatje was not "drawing a beautiful illustration of her doll". She stole the pictures of others, depicting the dolls of others, and messed with them in Photoshop before attempting to pass them off as her own artwork. I'm sorry you missed that in your comprehending of the situation's realities.

2) Punctuation, spelling, grammar, and capitalization are your friends. Use them.

3) Defending theft is never, ever the right thing to do, and there is no obligation by this community -- or any community -- to extend a welcoming hand to those who actively act against its collective values. If you wish to rationalize the actions of thieves, I suggest a career in defense law, although I would also suggest working on your English mechanics before you do so.

4) Resorting to revoltingly ableist slurs to make your "point" only reflects poorly on you.

The better wording would be "NONE of the 'big' doll companies are as big as Nintendo or Apple". Volks is the biggest, and they employ roughly 320 people (source: Volks corporate website). That's a drop in the bucket and nowhere near the tens of thousands of people Nintendo and Apple employ.

I think a lot of people are under the misguided assumption that expensive item = massive profit margin = large company = readily able to absorb any loss of profit while still making huge $$ when in this case it's more expensive item = massive cost of production and much smaller profit margin = small company of maybe a handful of people = severely affected by any hit to an already modest profit. Just because something is expensive doesn't mean it's making the producers a shitload of money. (I can't help but think that the people who persist in adhering to this argument just have no concept of how businesses actually work in the real world.)

Lillith -- many people will never be mature enough to accept that there are costs they can't see which affect the price of what they want to buy. All they see is the end price tag and what it's going to do to their wallets.

There's also the issue of people raising children -- it is expensive to attempt to raise a child as a healthy vegan, since it requires close attention to nutritional intake and supervision by a pediatrician to ensure the child is getting what they need to grow (and even then, science has shown that children raised vegetarian or vegan are frequently behind their peers in growth even if fully nourished and well-supported). There's ALSO the issue of all those myriad places in the world where arable land is the luxury, which makes the idea of eating a purely vegan diet exorbitantly pricy. Meat is not really the luxury so much as choice is, like so many other things in life.

At any rate, attempting to label all omnivorous protesters of copyright theft as hypocrites is a major reach, as well as a major derailing tactic.

 

These two make great points ^^ I'm also really glad you both touched on the vegan thing because if I had commented I would have just went WAY more off topic... to mention one thing though that Tez got me thinking of.... eating vegan/vegetarian/organic IS EXTREMELY expensive. I cant even go buy produce without paying a good amount of money. Plus I dont believe not eating meat is healthy for you either... we need some of the things that can only be found in meat for our bodies to work properly. You cant find that stuff in nuts and vegetables.

Tez I do have to agree with you about people not understanding business. I've never taken a business class in my life, but I know that a BJD company is far different from a corporate company like State Farm Insurance etc.