virgil samms

I have three 1/144th Gundam models underway. A Gelgoog Marine, a GM Command, and a Rx-77D Guncannon. I also just started Hasegawa's 1/72nd scale Jet VTOL from the original Ultraman tv show. It is a totally awesome kit and fun to build, especially if you are an old school fan like myself.

Stamppeed I will point out that I never addressed the problem you are having with Tanmen but rather the comments made by Neova and his/her rationalization for recasting. Since you brought him up however, I think the best thing you could do is exhaust all avenues for reaching a satisfactory settlement with Tanmen. From what I have seen so far it does not look like he is acting in good faith with you but there is a cultural/language barrier involved and it would be sad to see a bunch of people take up arms and attempt to damage his business if this all turns out to be a misunderstanding. After what, 16 months? I doubt that is the case but you never know. If he has taken your money in good faith and then decided not to live up to his side of the deal the best thing to do is persue legal action. If you mailed him the money and he stiffed you then that is mail fraud and the post office will go after him. The fact that he thinks he is safe in Japan will do him little good except to force the post office to go through the Japanese government for satisfaction.

I don't think this argument holds water. I have seen a lot of people trying to justify the recasting of the monster and other models but all of your arguments on why it is ok just don't hold up. Before some of you get mad let me say this; I am not trying to anger you or insult you, I just think you are rationalizing a point so that doing something wrong seems ok because of circumstances. In the case of old models out of production the original seller of those models paid a fee for a license to produce and sell those kits. If the maker of the kits still retains the license and you copy and sell his work, even if you don't make a profit, you are still potentially taking money from him as he may reissue these kits later. If the license has expired or the company has gone out of business the ownership of the material in question reverts back to whoever issued the license in the first place. The original owner has the option to renew the license with the kits maker or to sell the licnese to another company to make another version of this kit. Now not only have you stolen from the original kit maker who paid for the license but you could also be stealing from the next company to produce this model. Saying that this model is not coming back and at least by copying it you are allowing fans to enjoy something they would otherwise miss out on may sound ok but it is still stealing from those who legally own the rights to the item in question. Who among you can tell the future? Who can say with certainty that no one will ever buy the rights to reproduce this kit at a far off date? Did anyone investigate the possibility of contacting the owners of these licenses and trying to buy rights for a short term production run to legally supply all the MW'ers who want one? Back when the original Napster was running at full steam I downloaded a number of songs from them. I stole them in other words. I did not pay anything for them and the artist who put all the work into them received no money for what I downloaded. Thats stealing. If you are going to bootleg these models then don't hide behind excuses, just step up and say "Hey I want this and this is how I am going to get it!" If your conscience is ok with it why spend so much time trying to convince everyone else it is not wrong?