The paper toy network

Pirated paper toys

So some one recently pointed out to me that a store in Singapore was selling my FREE templates as flat packs. When I confronted them they pointed me to the company from which they purchased them. http://item.taobao.com/auction/item_detail-0db2-d564d045b68b66e7123...

Isn't that awesome? They also use my logo here, but I have no idea what anything says. http://shop35118716.taobao.com/shop/xshop/wui_page-16276919.htm

You might want to check and see if you find any of your work here as well.

So I asked the store to contact this other company to ask them to stop selling my stuff, and they said they will stop. I guess we'll see.

I guess over all it is very flattering, but it really sucks when an artist spends so much time on something, and then gives it away for free, and then someone else just steals it and makes a profit from it. Lame. :(

Oh well, onward and upward I guess. :)

Brian

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by VinsArt on October 9, 2009 at 3:12am: Even if I have not found again my stolen personal models, the thing makes me a lot of anger and worries a lot me;
more times it has happened to me the same thing with my photos or others my artistic things.
the attempt proposed by DMC seems me the best,
to contact them as group and to threaten them of legal cause.
in more each of us should always have open eyes in the web, and to signal here and to the author if it finds some stolen models, even if they are not his.

to castleforte I would want to say that probably if theirs remove indeed his/her models from that site,
it is only a bluff, because they will put him on another similar website, because these websites are born and they close as mushrooms.
Vins; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by CGD on October 9, 2009 at 5:12am: You are absolutely correct, I'm afraid.
Taobao's parent company is called Alibaba. A search for 'paper toy' on alibaba revealed this:
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/210421355/DIY_paper_toy.html
to be ordered in lots of 10000 apparently, from the East Billion Printing Company. These guys are making between $1000 to $5000 a sale.
http://dyysc.en.alibaba.com/
Their website is in english, however, so this might make communication a bit easier for those of you who don't speak chinese. This might be where some of these pirated toys are originating, however, since they seem to be sold in much larger volumes.
Here is a link for more info on the Alibaba group:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alibaba_Group; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by CGD on October 9, 2009 at 5:45am: *correction* Those prices might be in Yuan, rather than dollars, and it should be noted that the $1000 - $5000 (or Yuan) was the asking price rather than profit margin... it's still brazen and disgusting, just wanted to correct the statement...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Imawan Atmosudirdjo on October 24, 2009 at 6:09am: Hey Eric
mau gw tranlatin?
Kira-kira gini nih:

Hai, orang Indonesia yang suka bikin papertoy yang bagus-bagus.
Terimakasih karena telah memberikan link gratis untuk kami jual kepada orang-orang bodoh yang terlalu malas membuka website kalian dan lebih memilih membelinya dari kami.

Jangan kapok ya membuat papertoy yang lucu, karena klien-klien kami tidak cukup kreatif untuk membuat ini semua.

Salam sayang dari kakak Yoko dan Bibi naga kecil.

Kalau ada apa-apa yang baru bisa menghubungi: 310013

atau kantor perwakilan kami:0571-88155188-17726
atau kalau tidak bisa ke nomor ini: 0571-88155188-19260 (maklum rada sibuk nih soalnya karya kalian laku-laku banget sih)
email saya: qiuxin@taobao.com

Udah yah, saya tidak bisa lama-lama bales emailnya, oh ya ngomong-ngomong kamu jadi tidak mau contribute buat majalah anak-anak gratisnya si Imawan? kalau untuk november temanya adalah: Pahlawan Lingkungan.

Selamat Berkarya!

)&%(&^& ^&*^*&*^&^%$%$#$@#$^%*&*$!!!!!!
becanda Ric, gimana kabarnya?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Matt Hawkins on October 9, 2009 at 7:07am: I just wrote alibaba.com and alerted them that my toys and several others were being offered without permission. I don't know what will become of it. To contact the seller threw the site you have to put your address and phone number in and I don't want to do that. Doubt anything will come of it but had to try something.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Castleforte on October 9, 2009 at 12:40pm: I also just wrote them a letter, as well as sent one to the seller. Fingers crossed.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Cooper on October 9, 2009 at 5:19pm: This sucks! I feel so bad for you! But just remember, we are here and ready (we also love you!).; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by cubeecraft on October 9, 2009 at 8:05pm: I see my Obama Cubee on ebay from time to time, and people are often forwarding me auction sites in europe with my stuff (of course the logos etc have been removed). I also here that Cubee's (and maybe others) are being sold at conventions in Asia and South America. Someone forwarded me a Brazilian commercial for a web portal that was stop motion Cubees. T-Shirts are also common infringements.

I recently got an e-mail inquiring about using the template commercially and when I mentioned a licensing fee they turned around and said "but i see your stuff being ripped off all the time why should I have to pay?". How ignorant is that?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by VinsArt on October 10, 2009 at 4:42am: :^O; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Saltnpaper on October 11, 2009 at 9:44am: Huff... so much for an idea of sharing fun free things... who would have thought that our free things end up getting ripped off by shameless people. I've lived in China for a couple of months, people there sometimes just don't realize that ripping somebody's work is a big issue. Privacy ethics is also an issue that few people understand there, it's the cultural gap I guess...

Maybe he/she didn't mean to offend us, he/she might thought that 'hey, this is good stuff... let's sell it here'... On the other hand he/she might really as well understood the copyright ethic but choose to throw it out of the window, it's China anyway (no offense, but faking things is a very common thing to do in China)... The internet really force us to become a citizen of the world and break this barrier right? Let's learn how to handle this thing in a civilize way.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Siobhan on October 14, 2009 at 4:22am: the link that you have on the top does not go to there anymore but know they have alot more papertoys that they are selling from Dolly's, Canon, Paperpokes amongs many others. does this mean that those who actually enjoy the free paper toys are going to get punished for this. cause that would totaly suck. I enjoy building these toys up and would hopefully actually pluck up the courage in customizing and making a few of my own ones.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by paulo on October 16, 2009 at 2:15pm: thats wrong way to proceed!they must asking your permission ,in the first place!; ▶ Reply to This