Bootlegging and its moral implications

[tyrantqueen]

I would imagine the difference in this case is that the toy bootlegs are being made by faceless corporations and will exist and continue to be made regardless of our activity and and what we say about them. The locked topic is question was started by an individual who was actively trying to get support to make a copy of a model and in his attempt was directly involving forum members. A bit more close to home. It's one thing to talk about preexisting bootlegs but it is another to lend a hand or gather support in order to make one.

I addressed that issue earlier in the thread. That topic wasn't about bootlegging as he had permission from what I understand to ask for support/interest by the owner of the rights to the piece to ask.

Now that, I did not know.

No worries. Here's what I said :

Actually the recent model topic did involve recasting but it was an effort based on the holder of the license to do it from what I've been told.  The owner of the now defunt company that made it was looking to recast an existing  kit to make it available again as I think the mold was destroyed in an accident.

I said to get us a quote from the license holder and we should be able to open the thread back up.

I emailed Dr. Admin about this issue as soon as I saw the thread was shut down, but never got a single response...

Here's what was written on the Clubhouse forum:

Some of you are old enough to remember Saurian Studios from the 1990s. If I am not mistaken, they produced some of the most iconic and best dinosaur resin kits in their day.

Well, I was chatting with the owner of Saurian Studios on an unrelated matter, when he dropped the following news on me - he is planning a comeback.

Here is the relevant portion of his email elaborating on the news:

I have told Mike Fredericks from Prehistoric Times of my plans, so it is only a matter of how much time it takes me to get these done and remolded. I recently retreived some of my old Saurian pieces and then people talked me into resurrecting Saurian Studios. I will start with a few kits and see how things go. Hopefully, if they sell well enough, I will be able to keep producing new kits with the revenue from the first ones.

- Dave

If anyone has spent any amount of time on the Clubhouse forum, they would know they have a very strict policy against recasts. If the kit was being produced without permission, it would have been dealt with very swiftly.

[dinoking]

I must be one of the fortunate few who have the Carnotaurus /prey in my collection. I bought it from Saurian Studios owned by Dave Aldin back in the mid 90's and it is one of my favorite piecies. It is 1/20 scale in case anyone is wondering .

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

I would imagine the difference in this case is that the toy bootlegs are being made by faceless corporations and will exist and continue to be made regardless of our activity and and what we say about them. The locked topic is question was started by an individual who was actively trying to get support to make a copy of a model and in his attempt was directly involving forum members. A bit more close to home. It's one thing to talk about preexisting bootlegs but it is another to lend a hand or gather support in order to make one.

I addressed that issue earlier in the thread. That topic wasn't about bootlegging as he had permission from what I understand to ask for support/interest by the owner of the rights to the piece to ask.

Now that, I did not know.

No worries. Here's what I said :

Actually the recent model topic did involve recasting but it was an effort based on the holder of the license to do it from what I've been told.  The owner of the now defunt company that made it was looking to recast an existing  kit to make it available again as I think the mold was destroyed in an accident.

I said to get us a quote from the license holder and we should be able to open the thread back up.

I emailed Dr. Admin about this issue as soon as I saw the thread was shut down, but never got a single response...

Here's what was written on the Clubhouse forum:

Some of you are old enough to remember Saurian Studios from the 1990s. If I am not mistaken, they produced some of the most iconic and best dinosaur resin kits in their day.

Well, I was chatting with the owner of Saurian Studios on an unrelated matter, when he dropped the following news on me - he is planning a comeback.

Here is the relevant portion of his email elaborating on the news:

I have told Mike Fredericks from Prehistoric Times of my plans, so it is only a matter of how much time it takes me to get these done and remolded. I recently retreived some of my old Saurian pieces and then people talked me into resurrecting Saurian Studios. I will start with a few kits and see how things go. Hopefully, if they sell well enough, I will be able to keep producing new kits with the revenue from the first ones.

- Dave

If anyone has spent any amount of time on the Clubhouse forum, they would know they have a very strict policy against recasts. If the kit was being produced without permission, it would have been dealt with very swiftly.

Ah ha, thank you TQ.  I spoke with another fellow who sculpted a really large Acro and Allo for Saurian Studios way back when , he had told me about a fire if I recall that destroyed many of the molds.  So if the owner of SS who commissioned the pieces is looking for copies to recast to get his molds back to sell legitimately I see no issue with this sort of recasting. 

I'll have to ask Adam if we ca reopen the thread based on this news.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Good news, based on the new info this thread is re-opened : http://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=2144.0

[0onarcissisto0]

Thank you for this thread, TQ. I feel like my reputation was tarnished somewhat when I wasn't given a chance by the admin to clarify to members that this CERTAINLY was not an attempt to ILLEGALLY recast a defunct kit.

A little while ago on the Clubhouse forum, Dave Alden, the owner of Saurian Studios voiced his desire to re-open his business. I then asked whether or not he would be reviving Tony McVey's Carnotaurus and sauropod prey kit. Unfortunately, he no longer had the moulds, but he did express an interest in remoulding it if he had the opportunity. Just by luck, another member, turoksos, generously offered to lend his unbuilt copy for this purpose. Seeing this as a chance to bring back a grail kit that many of us seem to have missed, I opened a thread on the Clubhouse and here in order to start rallying interested members. But alas, my thread here was locked down despite emails to the admin (but I can imagine he must be pretty busy so oh well).

I have been part of the model kit community for several years now and I certainly understand what illegal recasting is. And had I been attempting to actually do so, I certainly wouldn't have been as transparent as posting on forums for everyone to see. As TQ already mentioned, the Clubhouse has very strict rules against recasting and my thread still stands in that forum.

So never fear, no illegal attempts to recast a kit here

[tyrantqueen]

Thank you for this thread, TQ. I feel like my reputation was tarnished somewhat when I wasn't given a chance by the admin to clarify to members that this CERTAINLY was not an attempt to ILLEGALLY recast a defunct kit.

You're welcome, glad to help