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Would still buy a doll if the artist required a contract?

Jul 23, 2017

    1. The artist is over-optimistic thinking she can control the market this way. If you want to sell a doll that no one will modify, go ahead and make a super high-end limited that no one will change for fear of lowering the value. Like an Enchanted Doll $30,000 OOAK, for example. Until this artist is at that level, she's going to have a hard sell.
       
      #21 Alewife, Jul 23, 2017
      Last edited: Jul 24, 2017
      • x 6
    2. I neither mode nor hybrid dolls, and I still wouldn't buy a doll under those circumstances. Why worry about the hassle? If I style the doll a way she doesn't like or put some poorly made clothes on it, am I going to have to listen to complaining? I also wouldn't care to support that type of attitude in this hobby. There is no doll I need that badly.
       
      • x 6
    3. A lot of us have stress in our everyday lives. I wouldn't want to buy a doll that I have to worry about.
       
      • x 6
    4. I agree they're probably not marketing to the general bjd collecting public...

      Personally, if the doll as sold to me is deemed by the artist as "perfect", and it speaks to me, and the price is right, then I would buy it, with the understanding that the artist is explicitly reserving her/his VARA rights even though against hobby custom. It would be documented as a piece of art I collected, and I would abide by the spirit of the purchase contract. I think it's important that a living artist can decide what is done to the product of their blood, sweat, tear / pieces of their soul, without fear of judgment and reprisal.
       
    5. Yeah.... No. Nearly no one would buy a resin ball jointed doll with a special contract not to hybrid or modify it.

      I recall this person's views and they are not shared by the hobby at large. BJDs are about customizing. If you don't want dolls you sell to ever be customized, you need to make & sell different dolls, not BJDs made of resin, because the BJD market isn't what you want.
       
      • x 4
    6. Moderation Note

      This thread will only remain open if it stays centered on discussion of this idea as a business model and your personal reaction to this model within the BJD hobby.

      This is not a thread for personal comments about the maker attempting this business model. Any comments of that nature will be removed.
       
      • x 1
    7. I don't feel as if I would every buy a doll with this business model.

      I think that BJD are very creative and artistic things that we put our personal touches on in any way we can. Limiting something like that would personally strip some of the soul from my doll even if I would never actually want to hybrid or modify the doll. Knowing that I wasn't allowed would just make me want to more! I can't imagine putting money into that sort of investment.
       
    8. Back in the Mesozoic Era of BJDs, Hypermaniac tried to enforce a ban on resales of her dolls by refusing to sell a second doll to anyone who resold a Hyper. Within the relatively small (at that time) Korean BJD community, I think she must have believed she could track who bought her dolls and whether they put the dolls up for sale later on -- but even then it proved impossible for the artist to prevent resales, especially when collectors in other countries entered the mix.

      I don't think an attempt to control what happens to dolls after the original sale -- whether that's resale or modding/customization -- is feasible now, any more than it was ten or twelve years ago. How does the artist described in this thread propose to enforce these "contracts"? Is it really possible for him/her to monitor the entire Internet in case some buyer posts a picture of modifications? And what will happen when the original buyer sells a doll on the secondary market -- will the artist try to track down the second owner and demand a signature on a contract?

      I own a few beautiful works of art -- not in doll form -- and those professional artists never tried to control what happened to their pieces after the sale, or threaten buyers with VARA. It seems like a strange kind of tactic to employ, and I honestly wonder whether any collectors of art dolls would find it appealing.

      And to answer the OP's actual question -- no, I wouldn't buy a customizable resin BJD with threats attached. Life is fraught enough without taking on needless stress and obligation.
       
      #28 Cynthia in FlintHills, Jul 24, 2017
      Last edited: Jul 24, 2017
      • x 11
    9. I would absolutely not buy it.

      I enjoy customizing my dolls, and I almost never like a fullset or company faceup enough to pay for one, even probably half of my dolls are hybrids or have feet/hands from another company. When I get a doll, I want everything about it to be "right', which often means I do have to mix parts or mod it. I'm also a very creative person who needs constant change to be happy, so with any doll I own, I eventually decide to sell it, change the eyes/wig, repaint them and even get a new body or parts.

      There's no way I could enjoy having a doll that came with a contract. I'd feel like I was only caring for someone else's doll that I couldn't even handle. No way.
       
    10. I've never done any modding or hybrids, but I still wouldn't buy a doll from an artist with such a business model. Even if I didn't want to do either of those things to the doll in question, I think it's wrong to try to limit what the owner can do with the doll once it's in their hands. If I buy a doll, then it should be mine to do with as I please, except for recasting of course. I'd understand it being frowned upon if it were one of those art dolls that are not meant to be customized (and even then, it's the owner's choice), but BJDs are meant to be customized and I can't imagine having a doll and thinking "Ah yes, I can customize this doll to look exactly as I please, except for this and this and that". Sounds like such a waste to me!
       
    11. Okay... In reaction to the business model only then... Not only would I *not* buy a doll under those contractual conditions myself, I would strongly advise others against doing so as well. The sales terms are (to put it bluntly-) unrealistic, unenforceable and contrary to the normal accepted practices of this hobby.
       
      • x 1
    12. As others have said, it's unreasonable to expect participants of a hobby based on customization to forego customization just for your very special doll. I don't care what the doll looks like or how much it fits what I'm after, if the artist is going to be so demanding and self-absorbed as to demand a contract that I change nothing about it, I want nothing to do with it. Not even if the artist paid me to take it. That's not what the hobby is for me, and it's not what the hobby is in general, and I expect any business that attempted to break into the wider hobby with such controlling practices is going to have a very rude awakening. And if they don't recognize and abandon the idea, I expect they'll be a very short lived company.
       
    13. Some artists just go way to far... Like totally unenforceable. It's a consumer product, once you buy it, it is yours. Lol....just the sheer arrogance of that artist...lol
       
      • x 1
    14. No thank you to a "no hybrid/mod" stipulation. I've seen listings of OOAK porcelain dolls that are museum quality, the sort that would be at home in a fine art gallery. However, that is a totally different case from what this hobby is about. My dolls are hybrids in one way or another, with the very least having jointed hands from other makers because their parent company doesn't offer them for that size.

      Collecting resin BJDs is expensive enough as it is. Wouldn't want my already-limited funds to be spent on a lawyer if someone decides to raise hell and say I broke some contract.
       
      #34 AntarelNefertili, Jul 24, 2017
      Last edited: Jul 24, 2017
    15. Yeah that's the other thing- even if such a business model were enforceable- I don't know if I own a single doll I haven't modded or hybrid-ed. I could never promise Not to mod.
       
      • x 2
    16. For one it would be impossible to enforce such a ridiculous rule. You'd be unable to sell to anyone under the age of 18, as those who are underage cannot be held liable for a contract they sign. On top of that there are no adequate ways to monitor such stipulations. I can only imagine the judge's face when they are forced to look at a doll someone owns and a doll made by this 'artist' and the owner goes "Well your honor...I dropped her and broke her pinky clean off. I couldn't find it, I looked mind you...and so I just sanded it like a little amputation because I couldn't buy a replacement part". Or "Well, you see her eyes were bothering me, one was a bit smaller than the other so I just made it symmetrical." Lord forbid "You see, I've had this doll for four years, she was exposed to the sun to the point her legs were horridly yellow compared to her body (The defendant then shows pictures) so I saw on a forum I could dye her with a "De-Zombification Serum"...and thought I should try it. I didn't think the artist would be offended"

      Its unrealistic. Dolls are art, sure...people work very hard on them...but they're not meant to be in a museum collecting dust. Thats like buying a rug and expecting that, in the rugs life time, it will never get dirty AFTER putting it on your floor in the middle of your living room. As so many people have said Dolls are meant to be played with, everyone in this hobby (okay, maybe not everyone) wouldn't shy away from the thought of buying a cheaper body for a more expensive head, adding fantasy parts to a "nonfantasy" doll.

      The idea of a seller trying to tell me what I can do with my property after I purchase it is asinine. Warner Brothers doesn't get to tell me that I can't make a reflective art piece out of my DVDs when I switch to blu rays. Gucci can't tell me I have to buy a new purse just because my pen exploded inside of it. I could scribble a mustache on my Holographic Charizard Pokemon Card and there is nothing anyone could do about it. All of it is artwork, all of it his valued at high prices (depending on how you look at it. Movies cost a lot to film, Charizard was once worth a lot...I haven't collected since I was 10).

      The mere thought of an artist mentioning such rules, even if they don't actually commit to them (This is hypothetical) would keep me from buying any of their products. It could be a painter trying to sell me a fingerpainting with such stipulations and I would refuse to purchase their landscape paintings. A BJD artist trying to cast their first doll and I wouldn't buy eyes/clothes that they created.

      SOOM could come out tomorrow with this ridiculous rule and I would never buy another single thing from them (or any other company foolish enough to do such a thing).

      Personal preference is one thing, thats fine. Pushing your personal preference on me is another. I refuse to sign contracts I don't 100% agree with and refuse to do business with companies that I don't trust. I couldn't trust someone who didn't allow me to do what I wanted with something I purchased.
       
      • x 7
    17. No. I'd never purchase from such a shady company. Those kinds of rules sound like I might not even get what I ordered unless I agreed to those rules.

      I have three hybrid dolls. If the person had a problem with that I'd wish them luck and then make sure everyone knew what I thought. I don't mess around. You can't force someone not to do something with a thing they bought.
       
      • x 1
    18. For me, it's like...as an artist, your goal can either be to make art for your own personal happiness and gain, or make art to make money. (These can be combined, of course! The best thing would be to make art and be happy and make money from it, obviously. But anyway-) If you want to make art just to make you happy and because you love to do it, then great! Keep those pieces and smile whenever you look at them. If you want to make art to make money, however, you're gonna have to make some sacrifices, and one of those is accepting that others can do whatever they want with your art. Most artists that are now famous (Van Gogh, Monet, etc.) originally tried to sell their art because, though they loved making art, they needed to support themselves. (Some of them had a very hard time doing even that.)

      So...yeah, I don't think this business model can work. If you want your art to remain your own and only your own, never to be changed (other than copyright violations, of course), then you can't sell it. If you want to make money on your art and support yourself, then you have to accept that someone may do things with it you don't like. End of story. From my point of view, at least.

      I mean, you can try to bind someone into a contract to not change your art, but...? Are you gonna get much business? Obviously not, especially not in a hobby like this. It just seems kind of dumb to me. If you want to make money (and if you're selling dolls then you obviously do), you have to have a model that works, and this doesn't seem like a smart way to go about it, in my opinion.
       
      #38 KiyoshiSenshi, Jul 24, 2017
      Last edited: Aug 23, 2017
      • x 5
    19. I think that this is absolutely ridiculous in ANY context honestly, even for pieces of true fine art or other incredibly detailed handmade artist dolls. If I buy an item, it becomes mine entirely. Obviously I don't own the concept of the item or any kind of copyright and I can't, say, send the doll off to be reproduced and resold for my own profit but if I want to take the object I just spent several hundred dollars on and repaint it or hack it apart with a dremel or toss it in the driveway and run it over with my dang car, I'm going to! If you are an artist trying to start a business selling your art, you cannot think of every item/piece you produce as your special baby that you are going to watch over and protect forever. There is no way to even ENFORCE the rules you might make up against modification to your items unless you plan on literally following everyone you sell to around until the end of time with, like, a spray bottle or something so you can squirt them like a misbehaving cat any time they go near some Winsor & Newton or sandpaper.
       
      • x 2
    20. Mess! I could never purchase a doll under those conditions! It would feel too much like having a second mother! I'd be way too stressed to handle a doll like that for fear that the artist might be lurking in the bushes somewhere ready to press charges on me if I so much as sand an elbow! And unless the "Don't" rules are written in the most specific manner possible there just seems like there's too much of a chance to "ruin" her vision.

      It's all groovy or whatever that she's anti mod, but what does "mod" even mean?? I mean, to me something like opening an eye isn't a mod, I look at it and call it "eye opening" but won't necessarily jump to call it an "eye mod". But what about her? I haven't the slightest clue what her own personal definition of mod is, so there I'd be, thinking that sanding a joint for mobility reason is just me making the posing easier, but the artist could very well run out of left field shouting "that's a mod, I'm calling the police!" and I'd be left confused at how repair work could be so vilified!

      Honestly, where is HER line? I'd need to know her frame of mind extensively just to make sure I never cross over it!

      *Quietly whispering* also I'm an artist too and would like to be given the chance to use a blank canvas to my discretion, even if that means tearing it down and rebuilding it.....