The consequences of copied dolls

Hahaha. Yes.

But, it's interesting - does that create a market specifically for replicas?

 

I think so, in a way. There is a market for 'fakes', 'recalls' and 'knock-offs' for many hobbies, and dolls as well, and sometimes these highly unusual fakes can become valuable in time. I believe there was a doll that was made that was determined to be too similar to Gene doll, even the outfits were like the same exact pattern, just different fabrics. The doll was lower priced, and when Gene doll company made a fuss, they pulled the dolls from the shelves. So only a handful even got sold. There are people who collect Gene who want this rare knock-off/copy doll very badly.

In collecting Disney stuff, I believe there are lots of odd and interesting unliscenced products, especially from 'vintage' era, that are also prized. Who knows why...maybe for its 'bad boy, breakin' the law' vibe, or maybe because the items in general are not sold in large quantities.

Who knows what the future of Copy BJDs is, but they definitely aren't sold in mass quantities. 300 years from now that crappy copy may be an interesting piece in a museum as an example of a trend of what is basically fraud-art in the doll world in the early 21st century But it still won't fetch as much as the 'real thing'

 

Yep, there were -- and the most interesting part was that they had two head molds, one that looked like the existing doll, and one that looked like the 'rival' doll they hadn't even released images of to the public yet at the time.

I actually had a few of them -- still might, I don't know, though if I do they're probably in bits and pieces in a box somewhere. My mom bought some for me thinking she was doing something nice, and, uh... not so much. She can be a wee bit on the clueless side so while I gently lectured, I just used them as repaint test cases, taught myself to root hair on them, did a few unique experiments with dye, and more or less mangled them as dress forms.

 

I find this very interesting as well. When these copying discussions come up, I always see two basic streams of thought:
1) one that is worried that the fakes will somehow destroy/ take money out of the pocket of the legitimate artists,or put decent sellers out of business;

2) and another one that is not so worried about the destruction of business but more of a moral concern or community-standards concern that if a lot of fakes come into the hobby, it will somehow "ruin it for everybody" because the collectors will be less serious, the quality of the goods will decline, we'll have undesirable dolls or people with undesirable morals (who don't care about copies) or people who are just too lazy to educate themselves (and thus buy copies) running around.

I never worry too much about (2) because by the time I got into this hobby, it was so huge with thousands of members that it had gone beyond being what I consider a "community" which is a fairly small, intimate group. There are plenty of doll owners who might look here for information on new releases, buy things in the marketplace or even post on the board sometimes, but aren't particularly interested in being part of a social community beyond that. Also, I think the social problem of undesirable people or people buying fakes overrunning any group is usually just taken care of by exclusion. For example, there are plenty of people who'd buy a fake Gucci bag, but they'd be unlikely to run around in the same social circles as people with real Gucci bags, and would probably face some disapproval if they did so. By the same token, this board bans the copied dolls so if someone had one, they wouldn't be able to post it here and might feel some wrath if they took it to meets.

Coming back to (1), the economic concern, it seems more likely to me that "copycat" companies would just serve some other sector of the market, probably one for people who just wanted a cheap doll and didn't care so much about quality. I doubt that those people are going to be the same who collect Volks or other name brands, so it's not so much money out of the legitimate dollmakers' pocket as it is just creating a brand new market for copies. Even if a Volks collector did want a copy doll, they're unlikely to get rid of all their Volks in favor of knockoffs - more likely they would just buy the knockoff in addition to the Volks, just like Gene collectors would buy the knockoff in addition to the genuine Gene.

 

Someone like me who is inexperienced could probably be fooled by a fake, but an expert or at least more experienced person could probably tell.

Fakes are for the finacially challenged, morally imapred, and ignorant masses.

 

sure, blatantly making a cast out of another person's mold is wrong. (and illegal.) but if a doll looks similar to another doll, yet the differences are there, i wouldn't mind going for the cheaper one ^^; in art class we often used classical pieces to garner inspiration, so if someone wanted to follow in the footsteps of some of the great dollmakers out there, i wouldn't jump down their throat.

so anyone who buys a knockoff oreo is ignorant? i think that is incredibly shallow. i realize that oreos aren't expensive imported hobby items, but it still takes a company a long enough time to come up with a winning recipe, to have a cheaper company try to duplicate it. this is what keeps "oreo" prices from reaching unreasonable heights, i think. while BJDs tend to be a more underground hobby, there has been much growth lately and knockoffs will come. i won't support downright stealing, like recasting a doll, but if a company wants to be "inspired" by another company, who am i to look down on them? it's not like i could make a doll myself, anyway. it takes skill regardless.


HOWEVER, i think all this has gotten a bit off topic from the original question . i don't think it would be right to cast stones at someone who had inadvertently gotten a hold of a recast doll, especially with the way people tend to get attached to those hunks of resin ;D hopefully we can just discourage mold-stealing and try to keep it from happening. and since there seems to be some hawk-eyes in this community, it doesn't take long to find the "fakes" XD as for the consequences? i don't think there would be huge repercussions if a few "fakes" did happen to make it out and about. just accept it and try to stop new ones from getting out ^^

sorry for the tl;dr XD

 

I interpreted that as saying people who buy fakes are EITHER:
a) financially challenged
b) morally impaired
c) ignoarant
d) more than one or all of the above

And you go on to say later that you would hope people who buy a doll through ignorance aren't shunned. I don't think ignorant was meant as the kind of insult it can be, more like "people who don't know enough about dolls to know it's a knockoff".

Anyway, the thing is... the cases we're talking about ARE direct recasts. I don't think anyone is discussing dolls that have a similar style to others or that take ideas from others. All of the doll companies take inspiration from one another- everything from common sizes to double joints to resin colours and even facial styling to a degree- and from historical ball jointed dolls and other types of dolls. In the cases the thread is about, it's someone who has taken a doll, made a mold, and recast fake dolls from that mold, selling them to make money without giving the original company (which sculpted everything) any money. Pretty clear cut!

 

Well said. I don't think people trying to defend copying realize the discussion is about direct recasts. Using molds of someone else's dolls - not "inspired by" dolls. Using a mold to recast is piracy.

 

I have a question. I understand that knockoffs are bad, because they take a finished product that represents someone's creativity and hard labor to bring it into the world, and then just simply recast it and sell the finished product with fairly little effort on their part.

But how is that any different from say, brand-name and generic medication? I realize that there a vast difference between dolls and medicine, but in the pharmaceutical business, a lot of money and research and blood, sweat and tears goes into developing and testing new medicines. And that's why they cost so much. But now, you can go to Rite Aid and buy the generic copy, with exactly the same ingredients but made by a different company, for usually half the price. Is it wrong to buy generic medicine, knowing that you're not paying for the research and development it took to create your pill but you're still getting the benefits of it?

I know the comparison seems a bit far-fetched, but I do think there is an interesting parallel. That said, I'm not saying knock-offs are good. I do believe the artists and companies who produce the original deserve to reap all the benefits of their hard work and creativity. But I also think that the issue of copied dolls isn't purely black and white.

 

Patents do expire after a certain length of time. They were designed to be limited. When a patent expires, then anyone is free to make and sell whatever the patented invention is. Also, when the patent is alive the patent owner is free to license the rights to whoever he likes, such as a company that pays him for the right to make the item.

Generic drugs in the USA are a very legally complicated special case. The short version for non-lawyers is that most of the generic drugs are generic versions of patented brand name drugs. The patent is held by the brand company for an amount of time, and may be licensed to other companies. When the patent expires, there are special legal provisions set forth in the law conferring exclusive rights to the generic drug maker. Some but not all generic drugs makers are owned by brand name drug companies; in the cases where a brand company would also own a generic company it's so it can take advantage of these legal provisions for generic companies. The laws are basically designed to encourage generic manufacture of drugs at a cheaper price but they are, like I said, SUPER COMPLICATED and nothing like anything else that is sold under a patent. I would suggest that you not even try to compare the drug industry to any other industry in the US because there is no comparison - no other industry has special laws just for generics.

 

No problem. There are many lawyers who literally spend all day long doing nothing but generic drug law.

 

Suersure, coping is bad and all that. And yeah, we have no way of telling if a doll is real or fake. But at the end of the day if its the same doll, right? just cheaper and sometimes of lesser quality but I guess the companies make up for that by making it cheaper...

 

My question is why does anyone, aside from the doll companies, really care.
Perhaps some of us may be too personally invested in what is, in the end, just an object.
I like to think I am humble enough to admit my personal opinion is just that, an opinion...not a fact.
Maybe if I paid over $1000 for a doll I might care...but then again...I would never pay $1000 for a doll. Again just my opinion.
Sometimes you just see something you become mesmerized by (in a sense) and it's a "have-to-have" item.
I'd have to say, assumption, that the doll companies never designed these to be investments but objects of art and like all art are subject to knock-offs.​

 

People do care, because there are issues with the possibility of passing fakes off as the real thing to unsuspecting buyers. Some of those quality issues can be severe, too--you don't what your doll's resin to make you sick or break easily, do you? A lot of folks also have a certain amount of respect for the artists that created the real thing and want to see their rights protected as well, which is a reasonable attitude to have in what is basically an art oriented community.

I understand really really wanting something, but it's still "I want to have it" not "I have to have it". No one is going to suffer real negative consequences because they couldn't get a doll they wanted.

 

If you want to take your chances with questionable resin, have at it. I think it's a stupid risk over something you really don't "need" but if you don't care about your health, I'm sure not.

 

I've had work pirated before. Whether there is a monetary loss involved or not it feels like someone is stealing a piece of -YOU- in the most disrespectful manner possible.

All it really takes is a reasonable sense of empathy.

 

I've had my art stolen. It's not even tangible (I work all digital) and it still bothered me to all heck that some moron was trying to get praise off my work.

It's just dishonest and disrespectful...

Buying a knock-off of art is like saying "I don't think the artist's work is worth that much" to me.

 

Well there are 9 pages on this thread so far, and hundreds of posts on other threads about copied dolls all throughout the forum in various threads. I'd say that's a fair indicator that people do care.

Anyway, what people care about isn't so much the object itself. It's that someone is profiting from another person's hard work and inspiration, when they've done nothing more than copy it. They've basically done the three dimensional equivalent of sticking something in a Xerox machine and selling the result, why should they be rewarded for their 5 minutes of IP theft, when the person who spent hours drawing or writing (or whatevering) the original gets nothing?

EDIT: Imagine if the same thing happened to you, if someone else claimed credit for something you'd done, and profited from your work. In that situation, wouldn't you want people to stand up for you when you've been wronged? When someone makes a bootleg copy of a doll, the original company is wronged, both morally and legally. I don't think it's that unusual for people to stand up in their defense, standing up in the defense of those who have been wronged is pretty much the basis of laws and a justice system. This is just a more informal version of the same.