dragon momoko shut down

[TimMather]

the chinese 3rd party gundam kit maker has been raided and shut down.
the company that started as a bootlegger, but then started making their own improved designs of kits in the last few years.
they had 2 kits in pre production a perfect grade destiny gundam and a blue astray 3rd form, both of which were not bootlegs but designed themselves, retailers will be issuing refunds for pre orders in the next few days.

i you were thinking of buying any of their kits that are already released, i suggest you buy now as i think their price will rise soon when stocks run dry.

[Will Vale]

They might not be making exact copies of the Bandai kits anymore, but they were still profiting off the designs so I guess this was inevitable at some point.

 

Maybe they'll survive the experience and start producing their own designs?

 

Will

[Blastvader]

8 hours ago, Will Vale said:

They might not be making exact copies of the Bandai kits anymore, but they were still profiting off the designs so I guess this was inevitable at some point.

 

Maybe they'll survive the experience and start producing their own designs?

 

Will

That they are doing so is undeniable, but is it not the case that the likeness of the F14 belongs to Grumman? Did Tamiya pay them any royalties on their recent 1/48 release? That's a genuine question by the way I'm not a lawyer of any sort but I would have thought that it was comparable. There's a million and one models of the king Tiger (half of Hannants warehouse must be made up of that wretched thing ) do the rights for its likeness not belong to Tyssenkrupp? 

 

Just saying that from my view it appears that most of the model industry is profiting from another's IP. 

 

 

Also it would appear to be a false alarm; a bumfight between DM and Daban in concert with Chinese New Year with the cherry on top being the usual FB poo-stirring from people with some odd agenda. 

[Will Vale]

I'm pretty sure Tamiya license their car kits, but I don't know about the Tomcat. I assume there's some kind of age limit on WW2 stuff but I don't know what it is as (particularly US) copyright law seems keen to move the goalposts on a regular basis.

 

It's all a giant can of worms really isn't it?

 

Cheers,

 

W

[rockpopandchips]

Oh , I for one would like to see DM continue. Wouldn't it be nice if Bandai let the likes of Super Nova and DM use there old inner frames to build new designs on to, a bit of healthy competition. Don`t want to open the can of worms that is 3rd part licenses and all that, just my own ramblings . 

[TimMather]

im sure that all aircraft is also licensed, i only say that because on video games, you can see the licensing agreements by boeing and all the other firms.

personally i think its a real shame, even though most of my backlog is bandai i hold zero loyalty toward bandai they do alot of shady things like charging extra for waterslide decals, charging more for kits with only different colored plastic, making a kit and then 6 month later they make an upgraded version with a few new parts but dont sell the parts seporately so only way is to buy a whole new kit, making some gundam model kits only for japanese market.
 

[solowing666]

CMIIW... Gundam franchise is a intellectual property of Sunrise (an entertainment company), with Bandai as one of their license holder for various product (toys and kits), which means Bandai has been granted rights to design and manufacture products based on Sunrise's design. Same thing applies with their Star Wars kits (with Disney-Lucasfilm).

Sunrise provides media, and Bandai provides products based on it, a supposedly perfect money-milking scheme.

 

Except....

 

Some 3rd party companies produce kits that are based on Sunrise's design without permissions and royalties, which many loyalists shout 'bootlegs!'

They are thought to be taking advantage of Gundam enthusiasts' knowledge of a particular product that has not been produced by Bandai. The same applies with some kits which are considered improved products with richer details than Bandai.

3rd party resin full-kits or dress-up kits generally do not receive many attacks from loyalists since they generally do not compete on same market, but the plastic kits are always in full debate.

 

Note that in effort to lessen the dependence to copyrighted products/designs, some of 3rd companies produced their original line of kits, but without media to promote and publicize the products, marketing sense dictates that such efforts hold little point.

 

Like many here, I don't enforce the idea that Bandai is above everything else, but I stopped buying 3rd parties after personal experiences in building those kits. The costs vs efforts does not balance out for me.

[Blastvader]

Though the Bandai/Sunrise thing is a little more complicated by the fact that they're both subsidiaries of Bandai Namco Holdings. 

[TimMather]

On 03/10/2017 at 8:55 PM, Blastvader said:

Though the Bandai/Sunrise thing is a little more complicated by the fact that they're both subsidiaries of Bandai Namco Holdings. 

yeah, i dont buy the idea that sunrise do all the design and make anime first then bandai figure out models, im sure bandai do kit model designs first, then sunrise make the anime to fit the models.

[Gav G]

They must have upset some local party official as exact counterfeiting, nevermind "based on the intellectual property of", is pretty much officially sanctioned, if not actively encouraged.  Former importer from China

 

On 10/18/2017 at 4:47 PM, TimMather said:

yeah, i dont buy the idea that sunrise do all the design and make anime first then bandai figure out models, im sure bandai do kit model designs first, then sunrise make the anime to fit the models.

They generally work hand in hand so that what you see on screen can be easily manufactured / what can be manufactured looks good on screen.