Re: 1/6 Hot Toys - TDKR - Batman Spotlight w/ Robin and Gordon (Various Sets)
Let me rephrase that: I would be willing to bet that you have never actually created anything of value.
Now, I don't say that as an insult, but instead because I can promise it would affect your line of thinking on this subject.
Your fundamental argument is that Intellectual Property infringement doesn't rise to the same level of damage as literal physical theft.
I create things for a living and couldn't disagree more. I am an artist and rely on IP laws for my livelihood. If someone were to copy a design I made or print posters of an illustration I created, this both weakens the brands I produce and derives me of real world earnings. If someone copies my work, I literally lose something.
If something is considered by the general public, within either a small and devoted niche audience, or a large mainstream crowd, to be significant and sought after, it creates a value in that thing. Marvel/Disney and DC/Warner Bros have created IPs that the public has deemed to have significant value. The demand creates that value. Hot Toys creates incredibly well done collectibles that we, their audience, have declared to have value.
By purchasing and enjoying these items we have given their individual IPs value. The companies that control these IPs have full right and very well should protect them. Corporate America does plenty of incredibly ****y things on a daily basis, but IP protection is not one of them. This isn't some limited natural resource that they have cornered and are keeping from us. These are products that we have deemed worthy of our time and money. We have dictated their value.
Plenty of hardworking and well paid artists are responsible for these works. And I can guarantee they are well paid. And I can guarantee that they know what they are doing when they sign their contracts. When a talented artist makes something good they are rewarded. Nobody is being taken advantage of.
The only artists who get "hoodwinked" out of their art are young ones who are desperate for any opportunity, and who, more often than not, are not the caliber of artists capable of creating something so amazing that it would inspire others to rip them off.
I make very good money as an artist. I am compensated very well for signing over the IP rights to things I create for other individuals and corporations. IP theft hurts the artists even more than it hurts the big horrible corporations. If someone is making and selling cheap copies of an artists work, then that cuts into the profits made by the company employing them, and ultimately the ability of that artist to continue to create more. And obviously by copying it, they have acknowledged the skill and quality of the original piece and the artist who created it.
This isn't about big greedy corporations, it's about hurting the artists and people who create the things that we enjoy. We assign them value by enjoying them. If a company spits out cheap ****, no one will buy it.
Your argument seems to be one of justifying IP theft, and maybe you are just arguing for the sake of arguing, but I can promise you, IP infringement hurts artist more than anyone else.
It's infringement specifically and technically. Most people know that. "Theft" as a legal term means something else, but in common language it's almost always going to be the default synonym used. So if you want to argue semantics, that's equally off topic for this thread. If that was your purpose, you didn't make it clear in your original comment which was instead very strongly biased toward an argument of legality. I really hope that no one's going to waste cycles in another thread arguing that point.
Woot.
