I believe that was none other than me. Yes I was serious and no, you don't have to take it seriously either if you can't. I didn't imply that the lowering of price would be exactly at par with the counterfeiters scale - if I seemed to have, then I'm correcting it now. I did mention that I do appreciate the work and quality that comes into every figure, that's why I still buy them despite the price tag, particularly VP & Warriors. You don't have to try to pull out anything from a poor animals rear orifice anymore. So if that suggestion doesn't seem feasible - the world still turns. No offense but I don't buy from your products anyway if that helps.

Robert

Please, the way I read Taesung's post is he clearly identifies that buying on ebay with regards to this issue and I believe he was not refering to your post in any way. He goes on to state the obvious signs, no name, no packaging, too cheap, coming from China. All things yours had and specifically said caused you to think yours was genuine.

As for Mondo's bit of business advice and response, I can understand Taesung's frustration and as such his reply.

He's in business, and has been for some time, also note his prices are not out of line with other resin figure producers so don't you think there is a reason for this. The expression "don't try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs" comes to mind.

Alan

I've been in this hobby over 50 years.
Before there was an Internet --- there were figure pirates. Before there was EvilBay ---- there were figure pirates. There will be figure pirates long after I'm cold, dead, and in the ground. As long as there are customers! Just a cold hard fact of life, no matter how much we want to piss, moan and carry on about it, get upset, call each other names. They never ever are going to go away, as long as they have customers.
Ban him, hang him, close him down..... he still has his inventory, he still has his equipment, he still has his customers, and all it takes is 5 minutes to start a new Evil bay account, new name, new address, same old business. As long as he has customers.

The record and movie industry spends millions each year combating piracy. Any member got a few million they want to drop to fight it?
And all those millions haven't put a dent into it.
As long as there are customers there will be someone somewhere doing this.
It hasn't changed since the first pirated figure I saw back in 1972. Just the names, and locations, and material used.

As long as they have customer, they are never going to go away. I have a better chance of growing new teeth.

what an interesting thread, to say the least. I'm glad to see so many people take the issue to heart.

Clearly, everyone agrees that counterfeiting affects us all: it increases prices, it limits inovation and it (ultinately) limits choices by driving out legitimate business. It seems that all have no problem in condeming those guilty of couterfeiting, and that most, but not all take little pitty on someone who purchases such a good (knowingly or unknowingly).

But what to do? Or more appropriately what shold Armorama do??

Jim and the other excellant folks who run the site have suggested that there may not be a connection between the two "entities," that it's a "slippery slope" if they move towards banning members, they don't have the resources to investigate all the members on the site who might be guilty of either counterfeiting or buying counterfeit goods, and they can't be the internet police.

Let me offer a few points in reply.

These might not be the same "entities." You'll never know unless you ask [which Jim did - thank you]

The "Slippery Slope." We all realize that, business (and life) is full of difficult choices. Difficult or not, we make them or they are made for us. Slippery slope or not, there are good and valid reasons to remove, ban, or kick-off users. Shold counterfeiting model goods be one of the reasons? I would suggest it is for the reasons I mention in the 2nd paragraph.

The lack of resouces to investigate. This is misleading. No one is asking or suggesting that the staff investigate all the sites members. What has happened is someone has provided fairly good evidence that an individual is coutnerfeiting. There is a good reason to beleive it might be a registered member of the site. It is reasonable for the staff to contact the member in question to ask "what is up here," which Jim did. [thank you Jim]. It seems that this presedence is a good one to follow - someone raises a legit complaint (ie. has some level of evidence to back it up) staff should follow-up with a simple inquiry.

Staff can't be the internet police. Again, I think this is misleading. No one is asking any of the staff to do that. The only request is to follow-up on a seemingly legitimate complaint, and if bourne out by the facts, act appropriately.

So we are back to the original question: Should Aromrama ban someone for engaging in counterfeiting? I would say yes, but there is a more important constituency than myself, or any other member of the site for that matter, one whose views should 1) be respected and 2) acted upon.

What do the manufacturers and retailers who adverstise here think? This is the first question the staff should ask themselves. If I were a representative of one of the companies over there on the far right of this web page, I would make it clear that I would want a site that my company supports with advertising dollars to deal harshly with anyone legitimately suspected of counterfeiting.

Without the financial support of the legitimate industry, where would this site be? How many users would it have? would there be donated product to reveiw or build logs to post? I'm sure the site would be good and have some impact, but would it be the same??

Illegal activity cannot be tolerated, period. It is not a speech issue, it is not a fairness issue, and it is not someone else's responsibility. It is our collective responsibility. The users of the site have a responsibility to educate our colleagues in the hobby about not buying counterfeit material. The excellent folks who run this site have a responsibility in not only telling/reminding us of the harmful impact it has, but of pointing out known violaters and, if they happen to be members of the site, asking them to leave.

If we don't collectively stand up and demand ethical behaviour of our neighbors in this community, we forfeit the right to expect fair treatment for oursleves - whether it is from the manufacturers or retailers who supply us, advertisers who inform us, or even the judges at contests we enter, or frankly the forums we belong to.

This is a good read to get off subject here.

First banning him would prove What?

He does not sell here correct.

Okay so what is all the beef about?

What makes some folks the "Internet police"

If he is selling your stuff email him and tell him to" Suck Off" change that "S" and you get the meaning.

The most lively post and it is about some Freaking Dude From China making bucks off a Copy of a Figure.

Heck the Darn Chinese copy each other all the time so live with it.

And lets get back to Modeling not hanging some Damn dude that lives 10,000 miles away and maybe don't give a rats ass what you all think.

And BTW my Wife is Asian

Now I know why most of the Old Armorama folks are not here no more

I found his web site.
http://www.cmodeler.com/
It seems to be all original work, but then I don't know every figure on the market.
and there is no mention of an Ebay store.
I don't read Chinese, but it looks like he sells his work from this site, would he be selling his work on his site, and not mention his ebay store? I don't know.
Would he have a website, and not mention his Ebay store? I don't know.

Now the guy selling on Ebay, has some of members original work also. But he could just as easily picked them up as dealer, or pirated them also, because he's selling a lot of other stuff besides resin figures. Is it the same guy? I don't know.

And if he's busy pirating figures, how does he find the time to sculpt his own?
I'd rather give a guy who sculpts his own figures the benefit of the doubt, as to whether he is also pirating someone else's figures.

Scott,

What a great post Scott! You are spot on in what you are saying.

Taseung,

Sorry about that, I was going to but got distracted between running back and forth from work room and computer all day.

Jeff,

Im pretty old school myself...

This is not a waste of time subject like you seem to think it is. It is a mindset like that which just adds fuel to the fire.

Not a waste of time Anders I know it means a lot to you I have seen your work at the Tulsa show mighty good to be exact.
But the Hottest topic is about a Figure Pirate from china Not a Darn thing that can be done about it .
If you read his feed back a lot of folks will buy his stuff no questions asked so like kind of shooting yourself in the foot I am afraid.
Banning him would do what he probably has 20 sites in China he runs out of.
They are all Pirates and I think always will be.
Anders now we know what he is and will avoid him and if Jim wants to Ban him well so be it me I will be here buying my models from all the Chinese Companies that make them .
As that is the only maker of them.
Answer me this if I was to buy a Figure from you and I made a copy of it for myself would I be a Pirate?
Cause I should of went back to you and bought another one.
How many times in model mags where you see somebody say "well I needed an extra wheel so I copied so and so's wheel nothing said about it.
But what I know as long as I don't sell them I can make 1000 right.
Strange indeed.

Scott,
Very eloquent. However as I said above, does this mean we stop dealing with Trumpeter? Are vendors going to stop selling their models because of Mike Rinaldi's well documented complaint of copyright infringement?

Sorry but all I see here is a classic case of lynch-mob mentality. Let me repeat... There has been no absolute evidence presented to me that the user on Armorama called "caomao" is the same person selling counterfeit items on eBay. Many of you seem to want me to be judge, jury and executioner here. As a matter of principle I am not going to ban an account where no infraction has occurred on this site. We do have that idea that people are innocent until proven guilty after all. Or at least I thought that was the case.

Furthermore, if this user is the illegal counterfeiter he has not used this site to promote his eBay sales. So suspending his account has no effect on those sales. All it would do is remove any line of communication that people have on this site with that person. If you guys are so convinced it's him why not send him a private message and tactfully let him know how wrong you think his activities are. Perhaps that will actually have some REAL effect. Suspending his account (when he isn't even using the site lately) has no effect.

Lastly you said


Surely the first step in demanding ethical behaviour from your neighbor is not to have him forcibly evicted from his house? Sorry but I found that analogy very telling.

Regards,
Jim

Jeff,

Tulsa!! You should have introduced your self!

But there is something we can do, for example, let him know that his filithy dealings are not welcomed, and not welcomed here, be it in forums such as this or in the way of negative feedback on ebay. If we sit and do nothing there is no way to stop them...

If you were to copy one of our figures for your own personal use it is not copyright infringement, however, the moment you sell it or distribute it in any way shape or form it becomes an illegally copied item. Same thing with computer games, where you are allowed to make back up copies for your self, but if you sell you are breaking the law.

Mondo,
I apologize if my reply sounded aggressive.
But I meant to then, I admit. Now I wish I had
disagreed with you in a softer tone.



Robert, I'm afraid that you are the one who's assuming here. What I meant is exactly
what I wrote: anyone buying obvious counterfeit figures on eBay. I meant to take a stab
at those who had bought eBay counterfeit figures. Why would you be upset if it doesn't
include you?

I'd second Anders' praise of Scott's post.

I think every posssible convolution's been discussed from terrorism (JimR) to calling all of China pondlife (JimR again) to blaming teachers & parents (Grumpy). I think the only thing undiscussed so far is global warming.

The point people are getting wrong here, is not what we can do to stop counterfeiting ('cos frankly we can't), but what we can do to not tolerate it. We can't stop counterfeiting, but we can tell our members that if we catch you doing it, you're out on your backside. Why are paedophiles and other criminals prosecuted in their countries of origin and not just in the countries where the crimes are committed? It's a message to everyone -- what you do will not be tolerated here.

Having said that, yes, I agree that reasonable proof should be established that this member is the guy on ebay.

No, as you well know, I called into question the business practices of certain sectors of Chinese industry. At no point I called the entire population of China 'Pond-Life'.

No more than I would expect from you David - taking people's words completely out of context and twisting them round to suit your own agenda...




There are aspects of this I agree with, however, quite clearly, it isn't the responsibility of this site to demand a particular form of behaviour from anyone who registers on this site.

When they're on-line here there ARE rules - ethical gudelines for behaviour. As the person in question has NOT offered links to his e-bay store or advocated piracy within the Forums, where exactly does that leave us?

Some people seem to be advocating background checks on ALL registered users, others the suspension of a user's account WITHOUT solid evidence. There really is something for all tastes ...
Personally speaking, I don't like mob-rule and I certainly don't like lynch-mobs either nor do I like the suggestion we start 'policing' individual members...

I've been following this guy's "work" for quite some time now. You can not miss him on eBay; his knock-off figures are taking almost 1/3 of eBay's Military Soldiers, Figures auctions. He has ripped off most of the figure manufacturers: Verlinden, Kirin, Alpine, Legends... you name it. Some of the figures he sells are labeled "original" and claimed to be his original sculpts; i.e. the orc bust. I do remember "caomao777" showing some of his sculpts here on Armorama some time ago and that orc bust was among them: youthy orc.

Is "caomao777" the same guy as the eBay scumbag? Unfortunately, I do not have any proof... Does it really matter in the end? What does matter is to raise an awarness of the counterfitter named "model-incn" ripping off serious figure manufacturers on eBay. That guy has over 98% rating!!! People on all figure websites should know this guy sells stolen figures. Taesung made a good job by bidding on one of Alpine rip-offs and leaving a bad rating so that the guy probably isn't going to steal any more Alpine figures. However, he continues to sell other knock-offs... and again about 1/3 of the eBay's Military Soldiers, Figures auctions are auctions of stolen property by a guy that has a very positive ranking on eBay. How sad...

Mario

Now who's twisting things to suit an agenda, Jim. I haven't seen anyone say the above. We've been talking about one counterfeiter, and it has repeatedly been stressed that evidence should be had first. As for who you called scum-sucking pondlife, perhaps you need to clarify whether you mean the counterfeiter (I can only hope so) or Chinese in general. 'Cos to me, this...




...sounds like you're talking about China & the Chinese. Silly me.

And generalisations continue to be made. This isn't an ordinary crime, but an attack on the hobby and industry which is the sole purpose of this site. If you guys are saying it's OK to screw the modelling community over as long as you don't do it on this site, I'll take it as understood.

OK then, you asked for it.

Actually Global Warming is just a scam to scare everyone into giving political power to the Greens.
Many very good scientists have shown that it's just the Earth going through natural cycles far older than we are. All we're doing is just slightly speeding it up. That's all. It's going to happen no matter what.

So everyone, just CHILL!!!

Yes i know. I'm an idiot.

Andrew

That's ok. No real "Harmms" done.

I too had once studied and considered opening my own casting outfit. Had it come to fruition, I'd know more about how you feel on the issue of counterfeiting. And in one of those studies I did consider the pricing to combat or compete with counterfeits. I just failed to find sculptors in the local market. Besides, the market for the figures and kits I was thinking of producing was small.

No you are not as a Studier of Fossils yes the Earth has done this many times over the Millions of years it has been here.
Billions really.
Just a bunch of People that want to waste money so they don't have to work a real job.

Remember the Dinosaurs were here around 135 Million years in mostly a Warm Earth.
Plus only did Deciduous trees come about near the end of the Cretaceous.
Unless somebody can find Deciduous trees from an earlier time I stand my ground.

Sorry Dave but 60 years ago, parents and teaches actually taught right from wrong.
Unfortunately I'm old and really not sure who's doing it now. But I don't think they are doing a bang up job. And personally I don't give a crap about global warming, and I drive a gas guzzling suv, and my next truck will be another gas guzzling suv. But that sure is a pretty little car you got.

I'm happy to say that there are a few things we do agree on.
1. You are never going to stop the pirating of figures, no matter how much you, me, or anybody else wants to. It just isn't going to happen.
2. You are never going to stop people from buying them., no matter how much you, me or anybody else would like to. It just isn't going to happen.
It's 34 years since I painted my first real metal figure, and it's the same argument, nothing changed except the location and names of the pirates. I hate to break this news to everyone but 34 years ago they were in the Europe and the USA. Who knows where they will be in the next ten years?
3. I agree that reasonable proof should be established that this member is the guy on ebay.
So you see we can actually agree on a few things.
who knows, maybe we can agree on a few more things.
But I think 3 is a good start.
But I'll never agree with any sort loyality oath for membership.

Utterly pitiful. Considering i'm the person who has done a huge amount of work to bring Chinese manufacturers and Retailers to this Network, your comments are not just pathetic, they're positively insulting.




Yeah, right. Whatever rings your bell. Every single poster in this thread has been opposed to the activities of these pirates. What varies is how to approach it. So, as usual, if some-one deviates from your view.. Blah, blah, blah.....

Dave a.k.a Grumypyoldman

I don't think anything much has changed in sixty years, other than we now have technology in place that allows us to communicate with more people, at greater distance, quicker than ever before.

So much of what was good and bad in the world (like the figure copying you spoke of) existed just the same, it's just now we have the means to communicate that to a wider audience.

As regards parents and teachers, parents act in many ways as a follow on, a reaction to experiences from how they were treated as children. So if it's bad now it must be because of what they experienced, and in turn what their parents experienced, etc.etc.

The influences and "peer pressure" on children come from many more different locations than a few years ago. I think the kids of today do pretty well considering.

As for teaching being "better " 60 years ago, quite frankly that's utter nonsense if my experience is anything to go by.

I was pushed into dreary classrooms, with high windows so you couldn't look out, taught by ill mannered, bullying adults who showed very little compassion for the children in their charge. Taught in the most unimaginative and boringly, repetitive manner possible. In short school was not a nice place to be.

My kids go to school in classrooms that are bright, colourful, with personal work plastering the walls. They, on occasions, have run to school as opposed to me running away from it. Staff and parents meet and talk far more and in a much better rapport than ever before.

As somebody famously said "You've never had it so good"

Alan

Alan, I'm glad I didn't go to school in the UK.
I actually had really good public schools, we even had small class sizes. In grade school we didn't have more than 20-25 kids. Of course I didn't go to an inner city school. But we walked to school everyday, did our homework, and actually listened to the teachers. And yes we even acted up occasionally. Believe me, I did my share of time in detention.
I wasn't Lilly white pure, and spent plenty of time in the principles office. We actually wore jackets and ties. No matter how poor we were we didn't look like rag muffins. We learned to say please and thank you, excuse me, may I? Things I never hear young people saying these days. Not only to adults, but between themselves. Lord help my a^^ if I failed to hold a door open, or didn't wait my turn in line. I didn't have abusive parents, I wasn't beaten flogged or any thing like that. In fact my step dad-yes I had one of them- spanked me exactly 1 time in my life. I had fair and just parents, they believed in reward and punishment. If I did the right things I got rewarded and praised, if I did the wrong things, I had things taken away. No TV tonight- go to your room- no Saturday night movie. And when you got old enough to work, you got off your A^^ and went out and found a job. Mommy and Daddy did do it for you, and you didn't go to work for uncle Bob. My first paying job was shoveling coal in a boiler room, for 60 cents an hour. And I thought it was great. When I went to college, I paid for it, Mommy and Daddy didn't. Well, Uncle Sam did mostly, but I still worked a full time job.
Enough reminiscing ....
I glad you also realize that this problem has been around for decades. It just didn't start. The only thing that's different is the instant communications of the Internet, and a much more I have to have it yesterday mentality. A much more, instant gratification attitude. 34 years ago, everyone was doing the same thing they are doing today. Complaining about the guy with the centrifugal casting machine pirating lead figure, and hobby won't survive. I think the hobby survived pretty well, I think we all survived "Pirate Enterprises" as we use to call then. And yet the hobby still grew, in-spite of them. The figure industry is better today and stronger today than it's ever been. In-spite of "Pirate Enterprises". They use to advertise in the back of the magazines, people bought them, and yet the hobby grew and survived.
You'd go to a show, and Mr. Pirate would be selling his wares out side in the parking lot, and those that had integrity passed him by, and those looking for cheaper affordable figures bought from him, he wasn't lynched in the parking lot, he wasn't run out of town on the rails, he was ignored as a non entity and yet the hobby continued to grow and survived.
I remember when they removed the lead from the white metal figures, again the chicken littles cry, OH the quality will suffer, OH we can't get the details, it's the end of the hobby and yet the hobby continued to grow and survive. I remember when resin figures first came out, and again the chicken little cries, they melt, they turn to powder, you can't glue them, you can't convert them. And yet the hobby continued to grow and survive. Then some one figured out how to re-pop and pirate the resin figures, and "Pirate Enterprises" took on a new look. Took on a new identity, relocated itself, but it's been around as long as this hobby has been around, despite the constant screaming and yelling about the pirated figures. I don't think all the screaming and yelling fighting about it is ever going to make it go away.
It hasn't happened in the past 34 years that I aware of. I really don't think it is going to go away today or tomorrow. I don't believe I live long enough to see it disappear. You see, in all reality after the emotionalism, screaming yelling fighting and bickering hating each other because they disagree with you, over something none of you have the power to stop. You just might want sit back and relax, and think about why you'll never get rid of it as long as this hobby exists.
I was amazed at my stupidity when I discovered the answer. But you all know I'm a mean grumpy old bastard, you'll have to search your inner selves to find the answer, because that where it is. I'm not going to tell you the answer ever. And I'm not going to say another word on this matter ever.