A) Its stated on record that THG have 3d scanned my Serpent guard head mold, and my Staff weapon mold
Did you not hire them to replicate these items for the potential sale to the American market?
Did you expect them to remain in possession of the physical prop for all time while they were replicating it for sale to the American market as you stated?
B) The fact that we are now told that this was done with a kinnect and ended up in the bin is of complete irrelevance, as the method of 3d scanning and the 3D files being binned is just here-say
Would it not also be hearsay that they scanned the items in the first place, since both comments happened in the same medium of communication?
C) The undisputable fact, is that a "propmaker" is on record as stating what they have done -- this is a clear intention of what is intended to be done with these items and has been done clearly without the approval of the prop owner
A statement of fact and statement of intention are two different things. Also, you hired THG to replicate the props, so they had your contractual approval for the process of documentation of the props for replication.
D) Its also undeniably on record that THG have stated in conversation to someone, that OMG surprise surprise, they are going to be offering out amongst others, replica's of these very items which they have admitted to 3d scanning
Is it against the policy of RPF to produce replicas of screen-used props based on 3d scans, pictures, and measurements of screen-used props? Did they not begin advertising the upcoming sale of these props at the time they received permission from you to produce these props for sale to the American market?
E) Not withstanding that the original molds of these very same items have both astonishingly over exactly the same timeline of 19th June to 16th November "died" because of a cold garage and fluctuating temperatures
- yes the molds were old, but including Ra, then are we really to believe that over the space of some 3 or so months, that all these molds have suffered the same fate
You stated that you did not wish to pay for storage of the molds that you had no intention of them using for any purpose. These molds remained in a non-climate controlled location where they were subjected to variations in temperatures of eighty degrees or more and variations of humidity for a year.
The molds that they were creating took time as one would believe they were trying to be very careful to not damage the screen-used props and original molds to create the replica props and molds for you. However, prop silicone is very temperamental to environmental conditions. Perhaps if you had paid for proper storage of the items, there would not be as much degradation of the molds.
F) It is also on record that THG's items will be screen perfect, and will be from "restorations" [ not from pictures and measurements of my items that another of their posts allude to ]
- now maybe I read the wrong articles, but a "restoration" is based on a cast of an original item [or from an original mold] which is then re-worked to iron out any production use imperfections
Did you not hire THG because of the higher level of detail of their prop reproductions to offer “restorations” for sale?
Are you now stating that the same high level of prop reproduction should be used against them?
Also, where did your evidence state that they were using restorations of screen-used items rather than your contention that it is based on scans, pictures, and measurements taken?
G) Luananko ( Kim Kieser ) wishes us to believe that Ron's health issues prevent him from answering back what is on 2 occasions, a clearly posed accusation that my stuff has been and is being used without permission
-- yet OMG, surprise surprise, It can clearly be seen that it was Ron who initiated the email conversation to me on multiple occasions,
-- and yet Kim fully knowing better than anyone else Ron's health condition on a given day to day basis, NEVER stops Ron from posting updates to the THG Facebook page stating what they are doing, and what's gonna be offered out as their replica's, ie, she never stops Ron from being the face of THG to the outside world
I’ve actually known Ron for a while and his disorder did get worse for a time, to the point that he was no longer able to attend costume events (which he enjoyed). It is just now starting to improve.
Also, since you were told that Kim was your new contact person, why did you continue to contact Ron for information? What part of her information that she allows Ron to post for THG after she reviews the post did you not understand?
This begs the question: Were you told that Kim was your contact and are using those 2 occasions that Ron did not return your message as an excuse for stating it as “evidence” here?
1) Labour
…
Its also never been denied by THG that I was charged 800 dollars plus 332 materials for the leather parts to a Jaffa costume, and that this was because it included the making of dressmaker patterns
-- and even the people who THG subcontracted the work out to are on record in this thread as stating that nobody else will be charged such price now that the have the said pattern
-- Not withstanding that fact that even given the said "research" that the dressmaker states was done to make the pattern, that my original items were undoubtedly used as part of the pattern making process
Do you know the price on a leather Darth Vader costume? The undersuit, with the simple 1” quilting would run about $400 on the current market. I say this because it is probably one of the most well-replicated leather costume suits on the market. This costume is a simple 1, 2, or 3 piece costume made to readily available patterns (it’s a coverall) with little else required. It is not really that labor intensive as my mentor made one in front of me during a 7 hour period.
I bring that up because it is a simple costume to make with no real adornments. The Jaffa leather pieces include multiple flaps and folds at unusual angles, filled folds on the vest, and fall in a curved manner on the skirt in two pieces on each of the front and back skirt pieces. There was no basis for the overall pattern, nor was it ever done before on a site that documents such construction. We had to do everything by hand and by eye.
You say that we “undoubtedly used [your skirt] as part of the pattern making process.” I find this very laughable for two reasons. First, our piece is constructed with different seam formats to yours. Second, we were unable to pattern your pieces and simply replicated it based on visual inspection. If we had been able to pull apart your original prop (thus destroying it), then it would be your pattern because we would have just traced the parts out.
At no point did I state that others would not see the higher cost of RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF A PATTERN THAT WE HAD TO MAKE ON VISUAL INSPECTION ONLY. I stated that the cost of pattern resizing would be split up among several purchases. The reason we charged you a higher amount was we believed that the suit was going to be a one-off. We were hired for the single reproduction of a costume piece, not to make a run of them.
Later, when we looked at the response to pictures from THG, we began looking at the possibilities of making the suits again and selling them. We were hired to reproduce a single suit. As you do not own the rights to SG-1, and you do not own the work that we did to pattern the costume, we have the right to offer it for free if we see fit. You are not a controlling investor in our company and have absolutely zero say in our business afairs.
I would like to say one last time: We were hired to produce a hero-quality costume based on picture references and about three hours of hands-on inspection of a stunt-quality costume and various picture references and screen captures of hero-quality costumes on the internet. We produced the one costume we were hired to produce under the impression this was a replica for a private costumer. We retained the pattern as it was created by us, using various forms of investigative media, including a screen-used stunt suit.
At which point in this process should you own the patterns that we made through our own research? You claim that you should own our patterns because you own a stunt-quality piece that we used in our research, but it was one of about thirty individual pieces of media that we used. So, if you want to get technical, you own only one-thirtieth of our patterns.
However, if you would like ownership of the pattern, we can negotiate a use agreement of them with a commission for each item sold. However, this would require us to get detailed records of your sales as well as a minimum number of sales per quarter. If you are unable to produce at least 3 sales per quarter, which is what it looks like the demand is here for at least two years, then we would have to reach another agreement. Oh, and if you wish to hire us to produce them, then we would need materials plus a greater percentage of the profits because of the time and wear on our machines.
2) Time
-- After their full time prop girl left, then they had no real prospect of themselves getting all my stuff replicated and run's done of them for sale into the community as Kim has a full time office job
-- I could not leave my stuff with them for years before I ever saw it myself, so I pulled the plug
I’m not sure who this “prop girl” is that you are talking about. However, since THG is a multi-person small business, why would you make the claim that one person did all the work? Yes, Kim does have an outside job, but it’s no different in my small business (my wife works at an outside job). That doesn’t mean that nothing gets done. This person you’re talking about still assists them. So, I don’t know why you are claiming she did all the work and was the reason you reneged on your contract with them when she stepped away from full-time with their business.
3) Quality
-- after the resident prop girl left, the quality of their work on my items went down the pan -- recall that "bad staff we did" comment, and Andy19422 can confirm that the 16 Minigates that they cast for me are complete crap -- I sent him them all for re-work
I was actually visiting while the “prop girl” was casting those mini-gates. So, that argument is invalid.
Are you now claiming that THG does not do good work? If you did not believe them capable of doing the reproduction work you wanted, why did you hire them? From the reproduction pictures I have seen that they made for you, I’d have to say that their level of quality is at least equal to the screen-used items. People don’t even have to take my word for this, they can see it themselves in their
FACEBOOK PICTURES.
But at the end of the day, this thread was not started because of quality, or because of price, or because of the seen lack of time that could be put into doing work for me, or because of molds that we're all supposed to believe were damaged by cold and fluctuating temperatures over the course of just 3-4 months, and were not damaged by the taking of unauthorised casts from them
Is it since September of last year or just three or four months? Your story changed. They received the shipment in September of 2013. So, unless they sent everything to you in January of 2014, your story had changed about the period of time they had the items in their possession. So, which is it? If you stick to a specific period of time, it will lend greater credibility to your allegations.
Also, did you not hire them to take molds of your items? Are you now claiming that took molds and are keeping them? What proof do you have of this? The only item they are selling was sculpted out of clay. So, unless they disguised their cast as a block of clay and slowly sculpted it down to an item that has better detail quality than any of the screen-used pieces, your argument is invalid.
This thread was started and evidences provided that clearly state that my items were 3d scanned, measured and had hundreds of photographs taken with the sole express aim of doing their own replica's of my items and then selling them into the community, and to which those very same items that they had in their possession are unequivocally on record as being items which they have stated that they ARE going to be releasing replica's of
So, you are saying that they took 3d scans, measurements, and hundreds of pictures with the purpose of recreating screen-used items to sell. Isn’t this what you hired them to do? Just because you renege on the contract does not mean they have to reformat their hard drives, retract any sales preview statements, and erase their memories of what happened. You did not have them sign a non-disclosure agreement with regards to an intellectual property that you do not own. They made promises to the community that they would be reproducing and selling these items
WITH YOUR APPROVAL before you decided to pull the plug.
The hard fact is, that if THG had not had those said items of mine in their possession, that they would NOT be in a position to be offering out replica's of them
They are not in possession of a Supernatural Angel Blade, but they are selling a screen-accurate recreation of that item. They are not in possession of a Star Wars Scout Trooper Blaster, but they are selling a screen-accurate recreation of them. They are not in possession of a Master Chief helmet, but their first huge run of sales was just that. Do you believe that you are in ownership of the only screen-used items from SG-1? Do you believe that you are the owner of the intellectual property of Sony? Do you believe that all of the pictures they have seen of SG-1 items are from you?
The fact is that they had the screen-used items in their possession because you hired them to reproduce them. They took multiple pictures, scans, and measurements for the reproduction of those items, as you had hired them to do. You are now upset that they are using those multiple scans, pictures, and measurements to create what you feel should be only yours to sell.
I am NOT averse to other people selling Stargate items into the community (apart from the mentioned banned RPF member who placed a misleading ebay ad for Ra Masks)
-- but what does not sit right, is a propmaker having done all their stated (and unauthorized) things with my items, going on record as stating that they are going to be offering out those very same items as replica's to the Stargate community
-- THIS is something that does not add up
Can you please tell us what you believe was unauthorized? You hired them to replicate the screen-used props. You hired them to prepare to sell to the American market on your behalf. You hired them to document the details of the items they received from the sale you purchased. As you do not own the intellectual property of SG-1, they are free to recreate any and all items as long as they sculpt those items themselves.
Unless you can prove that they did anything you did not wish them to do in the course of their work, all you are doing is throwing a tantrum that they are planning to use the pictures of items you own (but shipped to them without paying for storage) to recreate with their own molds and sell. You are only alleging recasting because you believe the use of pictures is the same as recasting.
I will leave you for now, with what were THG's final words in their post above -- because they are in a way, pretty damning
"" forced us into accepting business models/contracts that we were not only unfamiliar with, but disagreed strongly with ""
ie -- THG were obviously NOT happy to work under a good labour commission based contract of 20 dollars an hour
ie -- THG wanted a bigger slice of the pie , and this was to be 90% of the profits per item
Did they not try to negotiate a percentage of the sales of the props rather than the much-higher hourly rate? You claim they wanted “a bigger slice of the pie” than the $20/hour, but you don’t seem to be showing
their post that would back up your claim. I’ve known them for a while and cannot see them ever suggesting 90% commission. I can see it as more of a 50% after materials costs, but if you have proof to the contrary, then please provide it.
Rather than agree to a commission and materials, you instead hired a three-person company at $20/hour to do this work. That’s $360/day for a six hour workday. You were paying them the probably cost of one pull of a staff weapon per day rather than paying them per sale of a staff weapon. And you were paying them this amount during their time to clean up your props and molds and prepare them to be used for production. How is this some form of desire for more money than taking a commission from the sales after materials costs? Once the molds were completed and they were able to produce casts of the items, they would have made more money with even a 25% commission (though that would be low-balling it since they are doing all the work).
I have seen them cast 10 Star Wars blasters in a 24 hour period. Let’s say they can cast 5 staff weapons in a 24 hour period. The current price of replica staff weapons are about $1000, but let’s say they sell them for $750, so that would equate to a daily income of $3750. Let’s say $1000 is the cost of materials, so the profit after materials (which are far cheaper in bulk) is $2750. So, a 25% commission would equate to $687.50 per day, or about twice what they would make hourly.
How can you believe they were money-grubbing for wanting a commission of the profits rather than hourly pay when it is them doing all the work. And this is assuming that all 5 staff weapons turn out during the demold process, does not count maintenance or remolding necessary, or days when they might not be able to produce items due to one reason or another. So, in essence, they will be making the same as the $20/hour pricetag regardless but will have the extra joy of reporting it to the IRS and trying to reason why they are being paid hourly for a small business that is taxed as per-commission.
Its quite clear that for THG everything revolves around money, and the best way to get ALL the pie, is to do copies and casts of items [from 3d scans and otherwise ] that were in their possession and then re-master these into their own screen accurate replica's
You hired them with the claim that they would be able to produce and sell SG-1 items on the American market. They began to advertise on their facebook page that they were going to begin production and sales of SG-1 props. This happened back when you seemed happy with their work and you were making positive comments in the various posts.
You should remember that it was you who reneged on the deal you made with them. How is it them wanting all of the pie when it was you who pulled out of the agreement? They had told their supporters, followers, and customers that they would be offering SG-1 props. Would you like them to post a retraction because you broke the deal you had with them, or is it possible that they will be producing their own replica pieces to meet the demand they advertised based on pictures they took of screen-used props?
Also, why do you believe that your pictures are the only pictures they are using? There are other items from the collection that are in possession by others who post the pictures online for all to see, rather than hording them. These include higher-detail models from close-up shots of certain scenes (the ultra-detail staff weapon where it is close-up shot taking the power core out). There are also the prop department pictures, production pictures, and concept pictures.
Your main contention seems to be that they are providing the services you contracted them to provide to the community, but backed out on. You claim they are doing this for the money, but would not they still have made money if you had upheld your end of the agreement and let them produce the props for the community to purchase?
This all goes back to the same issue, you do not own the intellectual property they are making and feel wronged that they are providing something to the community that you feel they should not because they touched screen-used items. This is not recasting, my friend, nor whatever kind of argument you are trying to level at them today, or whatever different accusation you try leveling at them next.
Though, you no longer are claiming that the sin they are guilty of is recasting, or the sin of using pictures which you do not own. It has now seemingly changed to the sin of wanting to make money. Could you please get your story straight about why you are upset and want them banned from the community? It might help to convince others.
