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 JesterThump on September 26, 2009 at 2:38pm: Maybe they're charging for the 'made' models and the effort it took them to make them.

Who knows, it's bad but I've seen this happen before in Powerkiting and I've had some cartoon work stolen before too. You can stop it but it requires effort and a whole lot of hope.

:/; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Castleforte on September 26, 2009 at 4:52pm: No they are actually selling flat packs at wholesale to venders and they have removed my web address and copyright/trade mark info, so the stores buying them have no idea. I would actually be fine with them selling the built models. But I still thinkits pretty cool that places want to sell them and people want to buy them. So I guess I got something good out of it. :); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Sal Azad on September 27, 2009 at 12:42am: oh man.. there some of NPT members having pirated in that site...
i have see yours, Kobico ( http://item.taobao.com/auction/item_detail-0db2-b3d847ceacf6b7f3306... ), cubeecraft ( http://item.taobao.com/auction/item_detail-0db2-371af57aef7a64af21d...) and some from paperkraft.net..

... i hope they not removed the trademark ...
"free like papertoys - taken from Yebomaycu"; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by kobico on February 3, 2010 at 11:41am: mine there? wow. I don't know whether to be proud or to be sad.
thanks for the heads up, sal azad!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by JesterThump on September 27, 2009 at 5:08am: In that case, tell them you want $1 for every sale or you contact the people with briefcases..

:]; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Eric Wiryanata on September 27, 2009 at 6:55am: maybe at first it feels flattering, but after a few thought it sucks.
since actually you're not get the credits for it...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Castleforte on September 27, 2009 at 9:13am: Well, don't get me wrong. I'm not that flattered. I'm much more angry about the whole thing. The trouble is there really isn't much we can do about this sort of thing. I mean, they really aren't costing me any lose of sales, because all of my toys are free. They are stealing my credit though, and that is unfortunate. But I certainly am not about to pay attorney fees to stop them. I only have a trademark on my NiceBunny character, not the rest of them, and not the HedKase name. And the only reason for the NiceBunny trademark is just incase I were to ever go big with that brand, and then someone started selling my merchandise causing me a loss of sales. Only then would it make sense to take action. Not to mention that unless you have total international trademark perfection, our laws do not apply over there in China. So that leaves us with even less power to act. So, all I can really do is hope that they will actually stop selling them as promised. And also hope that this doesn't happen elsewhere too often.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Eric Wiryanata on September 28, 2009 at 12:27am: i see that problem too about the trademark stuff...

it kinda sucks, to see people steal and selling this stuff that we actually made it for fun, and they erasing your credits. (erasing the credits are the worst part of this).

the community have to do something, but if we confronting them using the law, it will cost too much money, and since we're not selling this (or in some case selling it, but i believe not getting much revenue). doing this would lead us to a big loss... except your character already made some big bucks already.

but we have to do something for this.

what we can do maybe, campaigning about papertoys, so more and more people know about this is not just a papertoys, it's a work of art (borrowing the slogan from Kidrobot's box)...

so people would prefer to get the stuff from official sources for it's originality. and hopefully the buyers of the counterfeited stuff would decreased so the theft wouldn't get much profit from it.

...

and after seeing, that this counterfeiter, can actually selling a papertoys, maybe someone should start an official papertoys company. :) where someone can print/distributing the papertoys for sale and official...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by JesterThump on September 28, 2009 at 4:10am: Just to clarify:

I wasn't really suggesting you hire lawyers - just threaten to do so.

It's amazing what the mention of them does.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Eric Wiryanata on September 28, 2009 at 4:49am: somehow someone did that to me.
even if i know his lawyer wouldn't come to Indonesia to sue me.
i try to respect him.

he wants me to change TV Boy name, because he own a trademark of the name in spain.
so i change the name to TV Nino.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by JustUs on September 28, 2009 at 2:36am: I did a search in that site and found more ppl's works.
Sal azad, lou lou, speakerdog, horrorwood, dollyoblong, rommy, nanibird, and more.

Gladly i didnt find my own designs for now. I dont see any Eric's works too.

If u want, u can try searching this : 纸模型 (It means paper model in chinese); ▶ Reply to This