stand up pro bjd artists

Since thanksgiving is near, and this pro bjd artists day is almost at his end:

THANK YOU to all the artists: sculptors, designer, faceup artists, seamstress, wigs and eyes maker; for your hard work and inspiration

THANK YOU to all the collectors that choose every day to buy legit, saving up, being patient, making other sacrifice, aware of the importance to support their fav artists.

THANK YOU to all the people that became aware of the botleg problem and stopped buying fakes.

THANK YOU to all of those that share their support, info and awareness in a positive, ironic, passionate, personal way. Spreading awareness is your best weapon.

THANK YOU for the owners in the web that shared their experiences, experimenting mod and hybrid, their O.C. and stories, your opinions, stimulating discussion and enriching thoughts.

It’s a pretty short list of people who bought Abaddon. One of them is straight up a total piece of shit, or somebody didn’t do a background check on their secondhand buyer.

The BJD secondhand market (outside DoA) is dying. Dolls are being sold for way under the value and even then many people find it way too expensive. 

Selling dolls outside DoA has become a hassle. I am selling several dolls now and I cannot wrap my head around how many messages and comments I have had with “It is too expensive” “I am not paying that.” 

One of the dolls I am selling has a value around 500$. I bought it for that, it is in mint condition, and there are extra parts with it now. The highest offer I got is 150$. Normally you could sell dolls around minus 50$ of the value, but now… Now the biggest excuse is “I can get that one for a lot cheaper from China.”

Recasts are destroying the secondhand market. 

And soon there won’t be any chance to sell legit dolls for the usual values. Then legit secondhand dolls can’t cost more than the price of a recast. As long as people grow up in this hobby with the option to buy a cheap fake compared to an ‘expensive’ legit, the secondhand market will crash.

Recasts are destroying the hobby.

I saw on @puffypuffers insta with screen caps from a Dollfie Dream FB group that Luo, one of the top recasters in China, is now in the process of filing for trademark of various BJD companies to own their trademark.

Which means that those companies he’s filing for to “own” were to sell in China, from Taobao to even doll shows, they could face legal actions and could never sell in China again. The list of companies that have been effected and having pending trademark is already extensive, companies that aren’t even in China such as Dollshe, Fairyland, Iplehouse, Soom, Lillycat, Marina Byockova, Peaks Woods, DOLK, Bambicrony, Cocoriang, and so much more, he’s also even added trademarks in the US for some companies as well. Luo has every intention of chasing out the “competition” of the companies themselves so he can sell freely with no repercussions.

(Full list of companies he’s filing for in China: http://m.tmsearch.cn/search/?keywords=罗礼贵&stype=sqr )

(Source for US trademarks: https://www.trademarkia.com/company-luo-ligui-4866177-page-1-2 )

Here’s the screen caps from the group of what’s going on.

With him doing this, he’s literally eliminating the companies that he recast from, so will probably be a point where you no longer be able buy originally cast of those companies doll, but you’re only be able to buy cheap resin copies because those companies will eventually shut down due to losing a part of the market they sell to

what can we do now to help?

share and inform, a lot now than ever is important!

please, don't support recast market, don't buy it on aliexpress, ebay, amazon, don't make excuse, don't support this thief!

To the OP, it’s as others have said: suing across country lines is very difficult, particularly when most recasters are in China, and China’s government does very little to enforce copyright protection laws. The other problem is that Amazon, eBay, Taobao, Alibaba etc. don’t do much to remove counterfeit items from their sales websites. Iplehouse has publicly stated that they’ve copyrighted their designs in the US, but they still have to file complaints with Amazon etc. each time a recaster lists a counterfeit Iplehouse doll. It’s an unending amount of work, because the recasters just keep making new accounts and changing their names.

Some manufacturers make private label items for sale in retail stores to be labeled with the grocery store’s own label, but those are items that don’t have a lot of artistic investment in them: bread, beans, basic t-shirts, etc. Most of these manufacturers *only* make private label items; just a few brand name manufacturers make private label items as well, usually with food because food is perishable. And they’re not usually items that would compete with the company’s own brand names, if they have them. Plus, the product can be made with a different formulation than the brand name.

There are generic playline dolls, but those dolls *aren’t* clones of Barbies or Monster High dolls. They look distinctly different. When manufacturers are making copies of dolls or toys intended to fool people, the companies fight back. I don’t buy any LOL Surprise dolls, but I did get an Instagram ad that was multiple pictures comparing the packaging of real and fake LOL dolls, to educate people on how to avoid the fakes.

Doll companies are not so big that they can afford to produce a product that directly competes with their own product. Volks is the largest BJD company. There are almost never recasts of Volks dolls listed on Y!J auctions, because Volks is able to defend their copyright on a website that operates in their own country and their own language. And many Volks dolls aren’t recasted or take a while to get to the recasters, because of Volks’ limited and controlled selling model. If any company were going to be big enough to allow “private label” dolls it would be Volks, but they don’t.

People who can’t afford a sculpt should buy a different one, or save. Lots of people with recasts do actually have money to afford the legit, they’d just have to buy one doll instead of multiple. But buying recasts gives the recasters more money to steal more IP from artists.