Recasting....Scares me!!!!

[OCELOTL]

So I found this site....
http://www.toy-in.com/The-CMS/wholesaleandprocessing.html

They seem like recasters, but I dont know. What can one do, if anything to prevent/stop people like this?

I fear for my IP's once I get started sculpting and selling/advertising ...

Gabe

 

[khorgor]

last time I checked, there is really no way to stop them unless the country in which they belong have very nasty copyright laws.

Normally recast companies set up shop in places where the laws are lax

Other forums sometimes set up a "name and shame" for recasters
Some sculptors also petrol the web for thier kits and make sure to keep a C&D handy for anyone they find.

Ultimately, its a nasty part of the hobby and you just have to hope the people who buy your kits don't sell them on to a recaster or recast themselves.

Regarding your site you posted - I would be avoiding that one anyways.

 

[thegoodsgt]

Buy only from known, respected dealers.

 

[housecarl]

Buy only from known, respected dealers.

Easiest option, and someone selling a one of on Ebay is unlikely to have gone to the trouble of casting that.
Carl.

 

[OCELOTL]

Thanks for the info guys, it's appreciated. The site I posted isnt anything I'm interested in going to, I just "bumped" into it and it raised some red flags for me.

Gabe

 

[Jeff]

Toy-in is a notorious re-caster. He recasts everybody if he thinks he can make money. There are a few areas of China that are hot beds for this sort of thing. Any toy producing area usually has a huge number. Things are going out the back door of just about every toy factory in the country. There is a revolving door of prototypes that are sent there. Trust me on this. I have been part of the toy business.

When I worked for 21st Century toys we would spend weeks and months working on new figures. Then we would send the prototypes over to China. Two to three weeks after our figure would got over there an add would appear in the trades showing "Dragons new figure" and it would be an almost exact copy of our figure. Except for the head sculpt. Dragons figure would say coming soon under the photo. So even though they were copying our prototype exactly. Dragon made it look as it we were copying them, because they had a photo of their figure out before ours even saw the light of day.

Toy espionage is nothing new, but in China it hardly seems like a challenge at all. They are all out to get rich off the West and they do not mind teaming up to do it.

 

[renarts]

Thats very interesting Jeff. It makes me wonder how the general public (market) would react if this were common knowledge. I knew Dragon did some pretty nefarious things with copyright stuff regarding photos etc. but this is pretty major copyright and intellectual property theft. I wonder if everyones modeling and figure darling would be so popular if they knew that Dragon was really no different than Toy-In?

 

[Jeff]

Our owners thought that the photos of the figures were getting out at the Toy fair in NY but it was just obvious what was going on. The figure was going right out the back door of the factory in China. Other guys who worked there and went to China have confirmed this. We were covering the same material as Dragon but down to the exact same extra's no way. I can see us both doing the same sort of figure once in while but this was happening all the time. Just about every toy company knows what is going on, but they just look at it as the price of doing business in China. That price is so much cheeper then in the U.S. they can suck up the lost revenue.

21st Century is no more due to its own bad business practices. I stooped caring once I no longer worked for them. I did have a lot of fun working there though. It was great group of guys. Like I said Toy spying is nothing new. It is just in a whole new league in China.