Sidkit and me, racprops

[jarvis]

let me understand something here.

you recasted original pistol parts and sold a kit.
sidkit, took your pistol parts(basically no different from casting the original guns) and made some things on his own, made the kit out of metal, and improving on his own kit.

why have i heard more about a sidkit than yours? when is streyr going to be contacting you?

this recasting grey area in this community is absurd. you're just as guilty as he is.

So you think it's ok to drop a member's lightsaber in some rubber because it's made out of a real gralflex? Alny prop that's assembled out of real world parts should be fair game to recasters? That's absurd.

 

[WinstonWolf359]

Also WinstonWolf's post on IP. Not sure I'd take it quite that far and Rich does have every right to complain IMO, but modified or not, I can't see why Steyr and CA wouldn't have the same right.

The only reason I took it anywhere was based on the comment about a "recast is a recast is a recast." That sounds great in principle, but in practice the line between "good" and "bad" recasting moves so much and so arbitrarily there will never be agreement.

But I do know if I was going to call someone out for recasting, I'd be damn sure I wasn't guilty of it myself, no matter where the line fell. The fact is, Rich, Sid, or anyone else out there could have sculpted the whole thing themselves, but chose not to. Whether for ease or accuracy, both of them dropped someone else's work into rubber to get to a finished product.

Rich claims he changed things about his recast gun parts, which in his mind makes them "his" because he improved them for his purposes. Sidero claimed he changed things about the recasts he made, again for ease of building purposes, but either way the two key primary building blocks of the blaster were built from the work of others.

But in my mind I can't separate one from the other in effort of naming a bad guy here. They both had the materials and the methods to make a Blade Runner gun, and they both recast someone else to do it.

The bottom line is I think it's in bad taste and hypocritical to waste any time calling out a dead man when the item that was recast was the product of recasting itself.

 

[Mutant-Enemy]

Well, from the guy that was banned from Propsummit
(a while after Rich was)
The thing Rich ISN'T mentioning is this:

While Siderio admitted to using a cast of one of Rich's frames for his Sid-Kit Blaster AND appologized for it AND offered to make a deal with Rich on his next Blaster, Siderio's World-Con Blaster was completely ORIGINAL and Siderio fielded questions from anyone and everyone that wanted to give input on what they would like to see on it.
Only Rich seems able to "tell" that Siderio's World-Con was a recast and THAT only after his business deal fell through with Siderio.

I mean, REALLY...If the guy was such a HORRIBLE recaster why would Rich have even entertained the notion of going in on a business deal with him in the first place? Was it because he thought he could make a profit?
Can anyone else see the POT calling the kettle Black here?

I post this NOT to try to get a level headed response from Rich, because he's proven time and time again that he's not capable of such.
Since he's felt free to mention MY banning from PropSummit I'll go ahead and point out that Rich was banned from PropSummit before I was and for this very thing that he's doing now...although here he hasn't YET slid into using Racial Slurs to try make his point, though he obviously STILL hasn't gotten the hang of "spell check".

Those who mention that there are TWO SIDES to every story have hit it on the head here. Rich has alway's felt that if he keeps repeating the same old BLATHER it will eventually be true.
I won't be commenting here again so...Rant on Rich!

 

[knightone]

Rich isn't making a competing product with Steyr. He's not making a real firearms based on the Steyr and undercutting them.

Also, the oriiginal prop used parts from or based on the parts of the real gun. No reason Rich shouldn't use or cast off he same real parts.

 

[Grey]

EDIT: Nevermind, i've got no business in this thread and won't add to the pile of crap.

What I will say, is that it's real easy to talk about the "truth" when the other party isn't around to defend himself.

 

[defstartrooper]

One things for sure these threads always bring out inventive ways to justify recasting.

Yes the guys dead and can't answer why is that an issue ?

The guy said himself while very much alive that he recast parts why are people still questioning this ?

As far as i can see all Rich is doing here is informing people about the origins of Sid's blasters and the reason he is doing that is because someone is still producing and selling those blasters and he would like those who are not aware to be aware and make an informed choice as to whether they want to buy those blasters or not.

He's not making anything up he's just stating a simple fact that the guns are based on recast parts something which was not denied by Sid.

Why is that a bad thing ?

 

[themanwoaname]

So you think it's ok to drop a member's lightsaber in some rubber because it's made out of a real gralflex? Alny prop that's assembled out of real world parts should be fair game to recasters? That's absurd.

im not getting into antoher who's right whos wrong recaster arguement.

he casted pistol parts, his pistol parts were casted, the only difference is he was a middle man to the pistol parts.

he's just as guilty of recasting as someone who sells casts of graflex tubes. streyr should be sending him a letter. anyone can pick up a real world item, cast it and sell it. it takes some massive balls to call foul on that which is what i see racprops doing here. is he claiming that the gunparts are his original from scratch gun parts that he made from scratch to cast and sell?

no. to say he is the original maker of real world props that anyone can cast is absurd.

as far as recasting is in this community, what is what, what is good and what is bad, and a grey area is absurd. i suggest you read a topic before you pick me out. if its wrong, it should be wrong across the board. no exceptions. otherwise get over it.

matt munson has a level head.

In my experience, you have just summed up the ethical limitations of the RPF. Everyone likes to take a stand on how wrong recasting is. But the minute a recast is the only way to get something that you want, it's open season.

There's all kinds of justifications for it, and people have written hundreds of posts on how to justify their actions based on their needs.

I think the real trick is to just not let it bother you. Yes, it bothers me when it happens to my stuff, but I try not to let it. There's nothing you can actually do about it, other than make a stink and try to keep customers informed. After all, there IS the off chance that a customer will pay more for a better quality product. Though again, that has not been my experience.

 

[racprops]

Let me try to make this perfectly clear...

I am not attacking Sid.. I was asked and I have answered what happened.

And if there was no NEW KITS being sold only fans trading OLD kits made by Sid, again I would not have said anything.

It is the fact that someone is selling NEW KITS on eBay, I believe it is his old partner.

The fact that the thread I posted on was telling about these NEW KITS being sold and people were going OH BOY NEW TOYS that inspired me to step into this maelstrom again.

Once-bitten dry up. And read Andy’s post.

Rich

 

[nick daring]

themanwoaname, I know you've only been on the RPF for a few months now but making castings from found objects is a major part of prop making. I don't think you have a very sound argument here.

Nick

 

[themanwoaname]

themanwoaname, I know you've only been on the RPF for a few months now but making castings from found objects is a major part of prop making. I don't think you have a very sound argument here.

Nick

oh i completely understand its a regular thing. however the OP is saying the same thing like its news to him and he is not new...

 

[androidandy]

I think it is a big mistake to make "recasting" a black and white ethics thing, because the whole hobby of copying someone else's intellectual property is not essentially ethical to begin with, as has been pointed out before. Even that has varying shades of "ethicallity" to it depending on if the creator is making it for themselves without profit in mind, or as a way of making large profit without compensation to the rights holders, on the other end of the scale.

"Recasting" is a community law, that helps keep peace in this place, and in the prop making community. It was probably originally meant to keep fights from breaking out at conventions. Some have compared it to "Honor amongst thieves". To say that it is okay to copy a studio piece, but not a copy of a studio piece copied by someone else is absurd to anyone else but those in this community. The problem is that those without access to the original can profit as much as those who do, and that is a bit unfair, and even lazy.

The important part of this law is that people need to know about it first, and I am sure Sid did not know it at first. He did later and had offered compensation to Rich, but Rich wanted more than he thought fair. The reason Rich asked so much is that this IS Rich's livelihood. While in the past competing model makers would pay each other off with a few kits and casts of each other's work. Rich needed more to stay afloat. Sid also was getting support from many people here in the RPF, and possibly even staff at the time, confusing him even more on the "prop laws" he was supposed to be breaking.

Siderio had told me he was less about making a profit than filling a niche, and making the best model he could with the resources he had available to him. Rich himself had also said that it is okay to use an older molder that is no longer being made, and Sid's base was Rich's old V3 gun. Rich was already onto V4 and working on V5. At this point now it is a 13 year old version, though only about 5-6 when Sid started.

On the counter point, Rich is still using parts from that gun himself. Original gun parts that had to be extensively cut down to fit, even to just enough of a unique way as to distinguish them from the real gun in some almost major ways. If this was a court of law Sid would definitely be guilty, but as a profiteer, just making cash off of an easy recast off of someone else's work without doing their own work, he certainly does not fit that bill. The same could not be said for the new seller of these props.

The few good things that did come out of this is that Rich is now offering metal kits, and has fixed some of his previous problems with his replicas. Still I think Rich needs to do more to improve his model, and help market it, but he seems to be on the right track. Hopefully dragging up old issues doesn't derail him.

Andy

 

[Clutch]

Noname, a blade runner gun isn't as simple as a light saber. I think what Rich is saying is that he took real world parts and modified and tinkered with them so that when they are brought together, make a blade runner gun. Anybody can cast a Steyr, but can they make the necessery modifications to one or cough up the $$$ it is gonna cost to buy one?

 

[themanwoaname]

clutch i was responding to this

So you think it's ok to drop a member's lightsaber in some rubber because it's made out of a real gralflex? Alny prop that's assembled out of real world parts should be fair game to recasters? That's absurd.

 

[nick daring]

Also take into account the the initial investment of the Steyr parts! Locating and purchasing original parts is an investment of money and time as well.

Nick

 

[nick daring]

clutch i was responding to this

No you weren't. You said earlier that that people should make casting of found items.

Nick

 

[Clutch]

clutch i was responding to this

Gotcha. Your post almost sounded the other way around.

 

[jts1031]

Forth: Recasting a studio made models is OK. They made millions off it with the film and up to now did not offer any kind of prop reproductions, only real crappy toys.

While I have no dog in this fight and couldn't care less, this is a pretty weak argument to justify the grey area of recasting. Coyle no doubt made money on his reproduction. So what is your cut off for when it's okay to start recasting? A couple million? Hundred thousand? A thousand? The argument could be made that you, Coyle, got your money out of your repro so it was justified for Sid to copy it, based on that argument. All that being said, I don't believe anyone has the right to make exact copies of someone else's work directly from their work, i.e. no recasting at all.

 

[Grey]

While I have no dog in this fight and couldn't care less, this is a pretty weak argument to justify the grey area of recasting. Coyle no doubt made money on his reproduction. So what is your cut off for when it's okay to start recasting? A couple million? Hundred thousand? A thousand? The argument could be made that you, Coyle, got your money out of your repro so it was justified for Sid to copy it, based on that argument. All that being said, I don't believe anyone has the right to make exact copies of someone else's work directly from their work, i.e. no recasting at all.

You've hit the nail on the head. Of course, without that, that's no RPF. So we have a madeup honor system for the sake of making everyone feel better where "it's cool to copy from production pieces but when it actaully hits close to home and another member gets ripped off, THEN its serious business"

 

[Clutch]

Noname, I THINK what you said at first is that Rich recast a Steyr, so it's ok for Sid to do the same. But then it sounded like you were defending Rich because he did more work than just drop a Steyr in rubber.

When is it ok for someone to use someone else's work as a springboard for a new and improved version? I think that is the question. If Sid made a carbon copy of Rich's gun and undercut him on price, then I think we would all agree that Sid is in the wrong. However if you read what Andy has said about Sid, it sounds like Sid was a fan who wanted to make a better product for the masses.

I'm confused.

 

[racprops]

It is called a code of honor among thieves…

I already stated the rules as I have understood them for about 30+ years.

Rich