I’ve started getting adverts on Facebook from a company called Skyofshop who are advertising a “Limited to 300 worldwide” set of “Pokémon Muscle Show” figures.
Fortunately I’d already seen these before: Back in March this year Facebook user Chan Yen Yee started sharing posts about some new “Ultra swole” 3D-printed Pokémon figures they had been designing. Starting with Pikachu, then Charmander, Bulbasaur and Squirtle, eventually he published the full set for anyone to freely 3D print for themselves. If you’re interested, you can find them all on his MyMiniFactory page: www.myminifactory.com/users/cyenyee.
Unfortunately a few companies not affiliated with him started taking advantage of this and started trying to sell these figures on. These fortunately disappeared pretty quickly, but now this new Skyofshop company is trying to sell them on again.
Here is Chan’s most recent post about this fresh wave of adverts:
https://www.facebook.com/chyenyee/posts/10158934049392022Just figured I’d share this here before anyone gets sucked in by the advert. This is not in any way limited to 300 worldwide and is not in any way an official Pokémon product.
Out of curiosity: how can someone make this kind of products if they are not official Pokemon products? Isn’t there like intellectual property protection or something?
Chinese companies can basically do whatever they want when it comes to copyright of products from other countries. So many powerful nations in the world today are dependent on China for cheap goods, and the enriched Chinese line the pockets of international politicians. Hence why China has no incentive to enforce copyright law–because other countries won’t do anything to punish them for it since they eat out of China’s palm.
As for this product, under normal circumstances (or at least maybe a few years ago) I would say that this individual shouldn’t be allowed to make this product without a license to do so/TPCI’s approval, and the companies stealing his product are equally in the wrong (just thieves stealing from thieves).
However, in the modern age, I am all for undermining major international companies in any way possible. They get away with everything with zero punishment or regulation and have undue influence on essentially every nation’s politics, doing much more harm than good for average people. If governments aren’t going to punish corporations, then at least maybe people can to some small degree. But even that is miniscule if not completely negligible to their profits.
if your an “artist” you can get away with just about anything, but not everything. Designer toy artists get away with this stuff all the time though I do know an artist that did a series of stoned care bears and he got a C&D.
It’s a shame you can’t do something free and decent without someone else capitalising on it. Though why the hell anyone would want to buy these in the first place is beyond me
