Juan

Whilst what you are saying could be the case in some situations, I don't think its the case here. I don't think many resin figure companies would outsource their manufacturing to any company in China or any other part of the world without getting assurances regarding security, illegal copies etc.

You also seem to forget that the manufacturing companies rely on providing a service to whom they deal with. If they were to take the short sighted view of earning extra income by making copies and selling them on via the black market it would only take one instance of this to become known and they would lose all the trust of their customers and ultimately their business. Word would spread and they wouldn't have any more customers, just for the sake of a few copies sold on ebay etc. I don't think so.

Although you make a valid point as Mario says it has nothing really to do with this thread regarding the ebay counterfeiter and their illegal castings.

Alan

Okay I get what you are saying but this is not the case with Hornet, Bravo-6, Alpine etc. They don't outsource their casting to china and the pirate figures are not

The buyer however is not to know that because very often the recaster will use the original artwork.
Forgive me if I get this wrong but you seem to be saying "This happens- live with it" and I can't agree with that.

Not only this... here's a quote from Juan's reply on another "recaster" tread on Armorama.




Just to get the idea who are we dealing with here. The whole tread is here: link

Mario

This debate is getting interesting. So why should we agree with the zero tolerance? Our hobby is small, profit margins are small. A recaster causes much more damage to a one-man operation than downloading to a huge movie or game company. This is why i believe anybody who truly supports our dwindling hobby should buy from legitimate sources.
Simple, no manufacturer=no new kits.

The example with the gun truck conversion is completely wrong. With this reasoning almost every conversion would be considered pirated. My first conversion was the HKCW strv122. The turret was clearly based on modified Tamiya parts. Did they pirate the Tamiya kit? NO
Anyway, the manufacturer is gaining profit, when someone converts their models. There were, of course, examples of original kit parts being copied and sold in resin, but this is not the general practice.

Juan you will never win this argument as anyone who purchases from these people selling copies (for the most part sub standard) is in a small part helping to kill the company that made the original. By doing that it will ultimately result in no more of the figures some crave for and a reduction in choice. We here cannot prevent people buying these items but we can make them aware, and in a worse case scenario let them know the result.

What false moral? What are you talking about?

Many figure sculptors who are getting ripped off are my friends. I don't want to see scumbags stealing from them and getting money from recast figures. Isn't the story of Roger Saunders, who stopped sculpting because of these recasters, really sad? Do we want other figure sculpting talent to go to waste because of the same thing?

This isn't a story of globalization or any other First World false moral nonsense you talk about, Juan. This is about right and wrong. And recasting is wrong. I'm sorry if you see it differently... End of story.

Mario

Mr. Juanito

You didn't shut nobody up with the "Apple to Orange" comparison.
It just reminded me of my wife how she brings up just about anything
only to put up an argument. It makes me say, ".... uh... what?"

If you really want to make a connection to other genre of the hobby,
more appropriate comparison to counterfeiting resin figures would be:
Academy copied the entire Tamiya Pz. IV kit and sold them as their own
back in the 80s. It is wrong, everybody acknowledges it, there should
have been a lawsuit between the companies, and Academy gave itself
a bad reputation which still lingers today.

You mentioned " speak with the freedom".
FYI, freedom of speech is not free. You practice your freedom of speech
any precious way you want but will pay for it.

Juan, this can be explained via a very simple and straightforward example.

Say you are a one man operated, resin figure manufacturer. You sculpt some figures and sell them. Eventually, if all goes well, you'll break even and make a profit when you make enough sales. However all of a sudden someone else is taking your figures and recasting them and selling them at a fraction of your price. This recaster has effectively undercut and stolen from you. This person is making money from your invested time, money and effort for nothing in return. Say because of recasted copies on the market you don't make enough sales and can't recoup your capital. You make substantial losses, forcing you to close your business operations.

Now what you're saying is that, it's okay to buy recasted figures. If the scenario above happened to you, how would you feel? Pretty f___ing angry I'd imagine. Recasting is stealing, period and if you're fine with that, you've got a major problem.

Dear Juanito,

Obviously you have nothing relevant to say about what I wrote...
which is very much consistent throughout all your posts.

with the internet and global shipping, scale models can be made from large corporations as well as "garage manufacturers" allowing many new products to be available to us.

it also opens the door for counterfeit products to do business in the same manner as legitimate companies. most likely the recast items in question here are not only cheaper cost-wise than the originals they will likely be of poorer quality... something the purchaser may be disappointed by.

the point i may throw out there is not only does the counterfeiter "steal" sells from the original sculptor, they may also be hurting his name brand by chucking out poorly cast products that tarnish a good companies reputation.

i am an amateur sculptor and i would be livid to find my pieces being sold not only because of lost revenue but because i would not be ENSURING the quality of the reproductions.

but people are always looking for DEALS and may be naive/uninformed that scammers are out there selling knockoffs. bummer, bd.

Jaun, I think everybody has been fairly tolerant with your comments on here even to the level of trying to explain by giving examples but your persistant comparisons are not really connected to the subject and frankly are becoming tiresome.Good day sir