^^Also, there's a clear distinction between small run custom heads made by fellow boardies and mass produced figures with lawsuits involved. But there are shades of gray here, for sure.
Good point
He did seem to be strongly inspired by Snake Plisskin (look no further than his alter ego's name in MGS 2), and the old box art for the NES version ripped a shot of Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese.
Look, there is often a gray area where these things fall. The knock-off Transformers raise this issue, customs by guys like BobbyC and Rainman raise this issue, as do figures like this. Personally, I'm willing to buy unlicensed figures if it passes the smell test to me, but if I think that a company is really getting hosed then I probably won't. It's like the whole thing with Napster from years ago. It's easy to ridicule and criticize Lars Ulrich for doing what he did. But Metallica made and owned that music, and have a right to benefit from profits made off of that music, even if they are billionaires. If you were in their situation, you would feel the same. Sometimes rights and principles outweigh our own shallow desire for getting something, particularly for getting something cheaper than we could elsewhere. As I've gotten older, I've come to realize that intellectual property rights are really important, and help to promote creativity and art. Take that away, and you take away a key incentive for creative people to do creative things.
But if you "don't have 'morals' and don't give a ____ about anyone that does," as seems to be the case in your post, then good on you. I don't approach any of this kind of thing with a black and white, "this is absolutely right and this is absolutely wrong and if you disagree then you're an _______" mindset, but there are some things I think are inappropriate and won't buy (such as recast Sideshow statues), and others that I think are acceptable and will (such as the "Screaming Jack" figure and HD versions of the original Star Wars movies--neither of which has a snowball's chance of being released legitimately). The legal system can tell you what is legally acceptable and what is not. Dave says what is allowable on the forums or what isn't, but each person has to make their own mind up as to what is OK and what isn't in their own behavior. And as I said in the Transformers thread awhile back, I think it's important that we bring these issues up and have these conversations, because the "if you don't like it, don't buy it" mentality just isn't gonna cut it for me, as these issues are legitimately important IMO, and warrant some thoughtfulness on our part.
They even have a knock-off Hot Toys logo there with the skull on fire
