Beware the Recaster(s)

[thenammagazine]

Please elaborate.

I think you're trying to avoid the question. Per your idea, when an artist creates something and ships it to a single paid client or 10 or 100, that grants the owner of the piece the right to recast it.

My point, as GB pointed out in his "general rules," is that unless that's the agreement going into the commission, meaning the buyer clearly states his intentions of recasting and selling it for a profit, ownership of a piece =/= the right to reproduce it for personal profit.

 

[mmmmBrains]

What I want to know is how Q STILL has no negative feedback? Surely people buy the sculpts and those that are educated enough can see it's a recast.

 

[pixletwin]

I would say the majority of people who buy they are likely aware that they are recasts.

 

[youbastards]

7) If a license holder issues a cease and desist then nothing else can be produced or sold for that license.

So should there be some kind of crack down on artists that ignore this rule? Bans, infractions, etc? Not saying I want that to happen, but if it is okay to overlook one rule being broken, isn't that a bit hypocritical to enforce the others?

 

[pixletwin]

So should there be some kind of crack down on artists that ignore this rule? Bans, infractions, etc? Not saying I want that to happen, but if it is okay to overlook one rule being broken, isn't that a bit hypocritical to enforce the others?

No need to. No artist here has openly ignored it once a thread has been removed from the site. If they did, I reckon they would be infracted/banned without question.

 

[galactiboy]

What I want to know is how Q STILL has no negative feedback? Surely people buy the sculpts and those that are educated enough can see it's a recast.

He's no longer a member of this forum as he was banned, therefor it's not relevant to leave feedback here. On eBay, again I'm sure those buying know what they are doing so unlikely they would leave a negative.

So should there be some kind of crack down on artists that ignore this rule? Bans, infractions, etc? Not saying I want that to happen, but if it is okay to overlook one rule being broken, isn't that a bit hypocritical to enforce the others?

So far I haven't seen this happen... maybe the only example are the "grey market" 1/6 figures like the "Metal Boss". They are not allowed to sell those figures here, links and information are okay to share, but no solicitation of sales.

With individual projects either the custom artist has complied on their own and asked for the threads to be deleted, or action is taken by the board. Regardless of how, those are shut down. I guess the only possible exception is if a run is already completed and a C&D comes after the fact... nothing can be done then except to prevent any additional runs.

 

[youbastards]

Without going into details, I can say for a fact that it has happened more than once with a specific artist. I have one of their pieces in my collection.

 

[karamazov80]

I think you're trying to avoid the question. Per your idea, when an artist creates something and ships it to a single paid client or 10 or 100, that grants the owner of the piece the right to recast it.

My point, as GB pointed out in his "general rules," is that unless that's the agreement going into the commission, meaning the buyer clearly states his intentions of recasting and selling it for a profit, ownership of a piece =/= the right to reproduce it for personal profit.

I think you were selectively reading his rules. GB said:

"Custom items can be recast and sold/given away if the person paid for ownership of the item or has an agreement with the artist."

If the agreement is for total ownership, then that includes the right to do whatever one pleases with it. This seems quite straightforward to me. The exception is if the agreement expressly precluded such action (which apparently was part of previous agreements by Rainman to do 1-off sculpts). Sure, it is good form to ask about this ahead of time, but if you pay someone for a pure commission, then once the commission is done the artist no longer holds the right to dictate how something is used.

 

[SwedishHeat]

No need to. No artist here has openly ignored it once a thread has been removed from the site. If they did, I reckon they would be infracted/banned without question.

I guess we're not counting the fact that Trevor ignored the C&D from Showtime??

 

[karamazov80]

Regarding the C&D, I think there is a distinction regarding who the C&D was sent to, no? If it was sent to Dave directly or indirectly, then he may feel an obligation to no longer allow its sale. If it's sent to another retailer/artist, then they would usually be the one taking the risk in allowing its continued sale.

It is possible some artists may receive C&Ds the board doesn't even know about.

 

[thenammagazine]

I think you were selectively reading his rules. GB said:

"Custom items can be recast and sold/given away if the person paid for ownership of the item or has an agreement with the artist."

If the agreement is for total ownership, then that includes the right to do whatever one pleases with it. This seems quite straightforward to me. The exception is if the agreement expressly precluded such action (which apparently was part of previous agreements by Rainman to do 1-off sculpts). Sure, it is good form to ask about this ahead of time, but if you pay someone for a pure commission, then once the commission is done the artist no longer holds the right to dictate how something is used.

No, you're not understanding my point, which was reiterating exactly what GB posted. My reference of "ownership" just implies possessing the piece, which is how you worded your initial post. You implied that simply by owning the piece of work, one is granted the permission to recast it. My point was, no you aren't. If someone or 100 people commission a piece from an artist that doesn't automatically grant them the right to recast it once they get it in the mail. That is an agreement that should be made between the artist and his clients.

 

[pixletwin]

I guess we're not counting the fact that Trevor ignored the C&D from Showtime??

Care to show me where this was alleged to have occurred? I am pretty active here as reader and poster and I don't ever recall seeing this.

Again, please show me where this occurred.

 

[thenammagazine]

Care to show me where this was alleged to have occurred? I am pretty active here as reader and poster and I don't ever recall seeing this.

Again, please show me where this occurred.

It's still highly ironic that that C&D hit Trevor only while two other popular artists also producing Dexter heads didn't even get mentioned.

 

[galactiboy]

Man, I'm behind on this thread... a few things I'd respond too.

Though, there's also the flip side where many OT elitists embraced the modified OT (I can never remember the name) and bought the illegal versions over the official releases.

Those are the despecialized editions... they were offered for free from the person who put them together and the only people I know of selling copies were essentially doing it at cost for those that did not have BluRay or DVD burners.

I think a better question is, why don't I (or someone that would actually buy a recast) deserve to get one?

Deserve has nothing to do with it. Theres a demand, so someone will provide a supply. No one is going to ignore that supply just to appease Nam's self-riteious moral code.

Just the general point that if you miss out on an offering then that's it. It is not a justification to create or purchase recasts. If you respect the artist and the quality of the piece you will either find one and pay possibly more for an original or go without it in your collection.

That's extreme gray area. If it's only 15% though, it's gotta be almost unrecognizable from the original. Like, keeping the nose or something. Seems like they might as well just restart from scratch. Only speaking for myself, but I don't know if I would feel totally comfortable with it unless I also owned an original of the version that was modded. Truth is though, I'm not sure we would know how often things like this happened.

If it's something like Rainman modding his own sculpt (Bill Butcher into Daniel Plainview; Grove's McFlys or Walter Whites) then there's no issue IMO.

I think many of the reworked heads are purchased by people who already own the original figure and want an upgraded sculpt. For instance if you bought Darren's Legolas or Aragorn I'm 99% sure you already had the Sideshow figure as it's not something you could just assemble on your own. If anything these kind of heads would increase the sales of the original figures, or add to the secondary market price as you could have a better than stock figure.

And agreed, if the artist chooses to offer a variant of their original sculpt that is generally their own decision. I think the general caveat there deals with if the items was sold as a limited edition or single run/etc.

For instance if an artist sells a piece and states there will be only 10 copies made then I believe that only those 10 copies should ever be produced by anyone at anytime. Like with licensed figures the edition size is an agreement between the customer and artist/creator. I think the same could apply to variants... if it's open ended or even discussed that a variant is coming then it's the artists discretion, but if it's touted as limited or the "only offering" then it should remain that way.

 

[galactiboy]

It's still highly ironic that that C&D hit Trevor only while two other popular artists also producing Dexter heads didn't even get mentioned.

I think those had not been "in production" for quite some time, but since that C&D I can think of many new that have popped up and been deleted. You can show new custom work like that, but not solicit sales on this board.

So if I did my own sculpt of Dexter, or one of others that's been hit with a C&D then it's not going to be an issue. But if I offer it for sale, then it becomes an issue. Not to mention if I did one it would like like ****

 

[aesthetics]

Just out of curiosity, but have any sculptor tried to get approval of the likeness by reaching out to the lets say, the actor himself and asked him?

If you told straight up that "Hey, I am going to do a run of 20 sculpts, I wont be making much profit, and you can have one for free once i am done".

In the end it is the person, not the movie company or such that owns the right to his own likeness, so it should be that person who decides if its ok or not? Am i right?

 

[SwedishHeat]

It's still highly ironic that that C&D hit Trevor only while two other popular artists also producing Dexter heads didn't even get mentioned.

I think it hit everybody. Both Dave and Kato mentioned getting one. Likely xeno and rainman just ignored it, because they'd stopped selling long before all that went down. This board just chose Trevor as their martyr. I don't see anyone martyring WGP or Sosa or iminime for TWD. Meh, at this point I'm just thoroughly annoyed by the hero worship.

 

[galactiboy]

I don't think any one martyrd Trevor for the Dexter heads... but with the Breaking Bad it wasn't because of a C&D, but the mistreatment of him by a member that was being reacted to.

I think if anyone did to a customizer or artist what Q did to Trevor we'd be up in arms as a community to support the artist and condemn the member.

With TWD figures, that C&D hit everyone and did not discriminate.

 

[pixletwin]

I think it hit everybody. Both Dave and Kato mentioned getting one. Likely xeno and rainman just ignored it, because they'd stopped selling long before all that went down. This board just chose Trevor as their martyr. I don't see anyone martyring WGP or Sosa or iminime for TWD. Meh, at this point I'm just thoroughly annoyed by the hero worship.

You skipped over my post. Care to answer it?

 

[LipSmack]

You skipped over my post. Care to answer it?

well a couple people have answered as to what happened, is that not proof enough? I dont know anything about it personally but people seem to know it happened