The consequences of copied dolls

Im a firm beliver in most instances the further away from simplicity you get the further you get from the truth.
While there are those that knowingly buy recasts the vast majority, as evidence of this thread, would not.
As a consumer the one thing we have the power over is our money and how we do and do not spend it.
How many recast companies are there?

 

While in general I would agree with your point that simplicity is best, it's a bit short-sighted.

One reason it's important to keep hammering at this point is that there are new people entering the hobby ALL the time, and a great many if not all of them have no idea about what the recast issue is. Many of them, once informed, then go on to do exactly what you had suggested and vote with their wallets.

But many of them do not. These are the people who don't understand that the theft of intellectual property is wrong and, in most places, illegal. These are the people who use the "well I don't make enough money to afford a $1500 Soom Monthly, so I *have* to buy recasts" arguments as though they were valid arguments rather than the massive fallacies of logic they actually are. No, you don't automatically deserve a doll because it exists. Like everyone else, you figure out a way to purchase one legit or you don't have one. Or you wait. Period.

So those of us who refuse to support recasts or recasters, and who actively work to report such illegal activities where they are spotted, and are more than a little irritated at watching the little enclaves of thieves setting themselves up in corners of the web just as though they had some sort of RIGHT to be reproducing other people's labor without paying licensing fees, can I think be forgiven for hammering away at the issue.

It needs to be repeated until people get it.

And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go see whether the proudly-advertised ebay recasts are back up so I can report them yet again. The gall of these people astonishes me. The auctions basically say "Hey, look! I made an illegal copy of this! Reward me!" Seriously?

 

THIS. I hate these people.

I am not sure if anyone mentioned this, but I remember Volks regarding the issue about recasting, they said it is OK to be inspired by someone else's doll and make your own, but it is wrong to make the duplicate.

 

You know what's a really bad way of dealing with it?

Trying to end the conversation.

 

Bravo. Tez, you always know just how to put things.

 

MichaelMichael: well, if the world were a simple place then your argument would work just fine. It isn't.

This is a small niche hobby, an expensive one at that, and one that has not been around very long. We are still in it's infancy really and if we do not all come together to help the artists fight the recasters in whatever way we can then I strongly feel this will be a hobby that will soon be dead and gone. Why would artists, who are just trying to earn a living by using their creative skills, keep banging their heads against this issue if they cannot win? How demoralising must it be to have spent so long lovingly developing a sculpt (I don't care if you do it the traditional way or use 3D software, it is still a long process) if some total stranger can come along and make money by stealing your work? It isn't like they have a high enough profit margin to be able to write off a percentage of their sales to theft.

Recasting was probably always happening, sneakily and out of sight, but it is on the rise, they are more freely available, and blatantly so. Why? Because there is now a quite visible pro-recast lobby (and their apologists) who pop up everywhere you mention BJDs and try to talk down anyone who objects, whilst bleating on about how forums like this pick on them. The number of people in this hobby has grown a lot in recent years and sadly it seems to now be split into two camps, those who collect BJD and those who collect Recast BJD. If the later group continues to grow then the number of artists who can viably make a living from sculpting BJD will decrease sharply, the only logical conclusion is that it will lead to there being no hobby.

Ignore it if you want to, MichaelMichael, but the rest of us want to try and help the artists who make the dolls we love stay in business. In the limited way we have open to us.

 

Oh Bravo! I totally agree! Well said!

 

The funniest thing about that recast-seller on eBay was that ... well, s/he wrote me back, all up in arms, and the first thing in the mail was "Who said it was a recast?" Well - you did, right in the article listing and description. D'uh.

 

Im not trying to end it.
Ive simply noticed a number of the same people saying the same thing over and over.
Thats not really a conversation...
As ive said before, the DOA mods are here for a reasson.
If illegal activities occur...they handle it.

 

My gosh, how stupid can people be?

 

Yes, and clearly this is going to solve all problems that occur off of DoA. Which you would know, if you had read the thread, is actually where the problems are occurring. I mean, if you choose to pretend that DoA is the be-all end-all of the doll world, then please, be my guest, but sticking one's head in the sand and trying to shut us all up by saying oh, the mods will fix it all, and you're just repeating yourselves -- which is trying to end the conversation, I apologize if that isn't clear to you -- is not solving the problem.

Your lack of information on this subject is astounding. I suggest you actually read this thread. If you do, then you will learn that the actual problem lies with the groups that have nothing to do with DoA at all and in reality bitch about how we have "witch hunts" against them.

DoA is not the entire doll hobby.

(Not to mention that the mods have a LOT more to do than simply police the forum for illicit activity, and require more than a little bit of input and help from the members of this forum to handle what does come up. Sitting on our hands and expecting them to take care of everything alone with no support is so not fair to them.)

 

I find you arrogance astounding and your assumption on my knowledge of this subject ignorant and antagonistic.
As far as burying my head in the sand...i do believe we are in the DOA forum.
I have spoken specifically to this thread.
Additionally, i have read this thread. My posts are specific to, yourself included, those who feel the need to regurgitate the same information over and over again, adding nothing new nor any valid points of interest, insight, or educational information.
This thread MAY have been started with all good intentions but like many good, online, conversations gets highjacked by keyboard warriors.
Making what could have been useful thread into nothing more than a leasson on redundancy.

 

Please remain civil and refrain from personal attacks on one another. This is a topic that many feel very strongly about and there is no easy way to resolve the issue, but fighting with each other is definitely not one of the solutions to the problem.

 

Michaelmichael -- if the issue had been settled in everyone's mind, it would not keep coming up, and it would not continue to be discussed in this thread. Sure, there is redundancy, and of course there are strong personalities who jump into the fray. The thing of it is, though, that the issue is far from settled in the minds of a fair number of people. Thus, we continue to discuss it and yes, we run the risk of becoming the Department of Redundancy Department.

But here's the question: So what?

 

^ That.

As long as the same "arguments" in favor of recasts keep coming up, the same rebuttals must be made.

 

I understand that you were speaking from viewing this thread alone and not talking about outside things... the problem with that is that this thread is not just about what happens ON DoA... it is about what happens OUTSIDE DoA. So talking as if the mods have full control over preventing recasts is naive and narrow minded. This thread, although on DoA, is not just meant for DoA. It's meant for the hobby as a whole. Regardless of if we are discussing it on DoA or not.

Also... I know that it is easy to feel personally attacked when in a heated discussion, but you have to remember that we all have our opinions and most of them are strong opinions. Dont let strong opinions effect you on that much of a personal level. Someone will always call you out on what you say if it is worded in a way that leaves room for misunderstanding.

Lastly, more of the redundancy comes from the fact that this thread is HUGE. A lot of the issues that are being discussed over and over happen due to the fact that not everyone reads the ENTIRE thread before commenting. So they have similar thoughts and ideas about the discussion as previous members have. So they post or comment about something, and then people respond. When it happens to be the same information that was talked about a few pages back this will happen. Just about a month or so ago the topic of downloadable music, purses, etc. in comparison to recasts was brought up multiple times within a few pages on this topic and I believe another topic like this as well. It's bound to happen when most of us have seen, heard about, or experienced similar things and have similar thought processes.

 

I don't think the problem here is that what we're saying is redundant - there are people new here who really don't know about recasts and I'm sure some of them want to be sure they're getting the genuine item, and they're unlikely to read this whole thread. If the last post said something like, "Recasts are no different than buying a knock-off Barbie" and no one argued, people might assume that we didn't have any counterargument despite it being discussed much earlier.

My fear is that the discussion just pushes people who really don't care about the hobby or companies but still want a doll more towards the pro-recast side. We can repeatedly state how recasts are harmful, but it seems like some pro-recast people get stuck at the "It's my money- I'll do what I want!" frame of mind. I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about it - I'm just not sure if anything said really matters to the people we're trying to convince. There was a crazy post on some site I read recently about how anti-recast people were all just rich people wanting to keep lower class people out of the hobby, which is so ridiculous.

I wonder what it would take to make people begin to care about the companies - if it got to the point where a company went out of business due to recasts, would that even make an impact on people's opinions or would they blame the company for producing low quality products or being too slow or too expensive, etc? I hope we'll never have to find out. It seems like the most successful companies are the ones being recast, so hopefully enough people are still buying legit to keep them in business. I wish we had numbers of legit vs recast BJDs sold over the years to track trends and see how much recasting is really hurting the companies. It seems like BJDs are more mainstream now, so perhaps the influx of new buyers to the hobby will offset those who choose to buy recasts of dolls still available from the company?

 

Oh, but that's not ridiculous! We're all stinking, filthy rich! So stinking filthy rich it takes us moths to save up money for a 500-dollar-doll. */sarcasm*

They're grasping at straws to justify buying recasts. Cos they know pretty d*** well it's wrong to buy them.

 

I'm honestly not sure it would help... I know piracy still goes on in the anime and manga community, with the sense of entitlement of "Oh I'm not where I can see it free on TV so I'll just download it, that's the same thing." And yet, the US is now down to only a fraction of the former licensors and distributors that we had just a few years ago, with several either downsizing their US/International branches, or just straight going out of business, because they couldn't make sales to those people who'd gone and downloaded the shows. I'll admit, too, that I did formerly download things to watch, but I woke up to the problem before that started happening, and found the legitimate avenues to use instead.

As far as recast dolls go... I didn't know about them when I joined the hobby, and luckily bought my first three dolls from reputable dealers or direct from the companies. I'm grateful for topics like this, as when I was new, they brought the topic to my attention and made me more cautious about my secondhand purchases. Even if the same arguments come up on both sides, it's worthwhile to keep discussing the topic, because there's new people every day who likewise don't know about the problem, or know about recasts but not why they're a problem, and educating them is critical to keeping this hobby around.

 

Being that most people who purposefully buy recasts do so because of of the cost, they would probably say that the company went under because they made their product too expensive. Unfortunately it would not act as a wake-up call, but would be seen as yet another justification of their actions. Some would not even see the connection to their actions.

Plus, hey, the former dolls made by the company could still be recast, so why would it matter that nothing new would be made? (that would be sarcasm)

I do wonder how many doll artists, and artists in general, are out there who sit on their ideas for new things because they know that it will just be stolen off of them the moment it hits the market. How many sculptors just give up, and how many wonderful ideas do we miss out on?

I doubt the hobby itself will under entirely because of the issue, though. There will always be those who press on regardless.