I disagree.
Either you subscribe to honor amongst thieves or you support recasting. It's very black and white.
Well, this isn't the first time we've disagreed. You think that the community needs these codes to thrive. I think the community needs to be tipped up on end and shaken around a bit to sort itself out and really be a community.
I don't support recasting out of respect for the individual preferences of the artists in question. In fact, on our local 501st boards I'm usually one of the first people to speak up about why folks shouldn't recast other makers' work.
I may think the artists in question are being dumb, but it's not my call to judge the intelligence of their choices.
I sort of think of it like a risk assessment in the IT world. What could happen to me, and what is the damage if it does? If the damage is high enough, put controls in place to protect against it. If the damage is low, take the risk as a cost of doing business and move on.
So, my risk assessment is that If someone recasts something I made, I am not hurt at all by it.
Thus, I have no reason to get agitated over something that doesn't hurt me. There are so many more important things in the world to worry about.
The logic behind that assessment:
I don't make any money off the sales of my props, so I don't lose there.
I don't make a conscious effort to restrict where my stuff goes, but I also don't announce big public runs. I have neither the time nor desire to make 500 of any given thing.
When I do a "run" of something, it's usually within a few dollars of cost. I get paid to work. Hobbies are fun. I don't expect to be paid for fun.
I have no significant out of pocket expense to make the thing, so nothing to recoup.
This is a new experiment that's working out really well...
I've started to collect donations to help with my costs. For example, on the Animated DC-15 I'm working on now, I asked people to chip in for silicone to mold it. I had 15 or so people give me $20 each.
That paid for all my mold making supplies. When the mold is done, they'll each pay for the resin to pour in it.
We all get our props, with minimal out of pocket expense for a bunch of people instead of one person fronting it.
That to me is a community. People trusting and helping each other, so that we all end up better.
I'm not trying to establish a reputation as the top anything.
When I see a picture of someone and say "oh, I sculpted that", I don't really care if I slushed it or not. It's still my creation, it was just mass produced elsewhere.
Result
To me, as a propmaker, I don't find recasting damaging to my hobby at all. It would be like being offended by the existence of the armadillo. It's so far from relevant to what I do that there's just no need to care.
This is obviously very important to you. I respect that your preference as an individual. I think it's silly, but I respect it.
What I don't respect is the notion that people are either with you or your enemy. It would be fantastic if the world was so simple, but it's not. So, I speak up to the contrary because if you are here saying that the world is black and white and no-one contradict you, the readers of the board have no reason to believe you are not correct.
At least this way, the readers can see several people providing their opinions in a polite, adult manner, and can make their own decisions based on it.
In the end, I'm no more likely to try to buy something from you than you are to sell it to me. We travel in different worlds.
You've made it very clear that you have no respect for costumers, and I've made it very clear that I could care less what brand of duct tape was used to hold the foam in Boba's helmet.
So being blacklisted by your world probably won't change my life at all. I have no reason to be intimidated by the notion of getting kicked out of a party that I wasn't invited to in the first place.
But, ultimately, we're both here doing our thing, and to me, that alone proves that there are a variety of takes on the hobby.
