PlaymoFriends
General => News => Topic started by: Hadoque on May 16, 2011, 12:12:20
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I've heard (from European collectors) and seen (on "Klickywelt") that some customizers have succeeded of making very accurate custom-torsos - usually for 18th/19th century soldiers, like for Napoleonic Warfare - and this not by applying selfmade-stickers, but by making their own prints on the klickies.
Also I heard/saw that some of them show these off on public displays, which has caused raised eyebrows at Geobra.
I've also read on the German "Klickywelt"-forum, that it is now forbidden to post pictures there of such customs. But occasionally some show up in dioramas, "hidden" amongst other pictures...
What further info is there about this printing and what is your opinion on this subject?
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I don't have a problem with it. I really don't see why Geobra would have issues with it because they still have to buy the torso's from them.
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I have seen many on ebay, and bought a team of hussars last year (see attachment). The may look like the ordinary blue coats but they are also printed in the back.
I really like this kind of work but its usually quite expensive. I think, if Geobra is concerned, they should begin a line for collectors only and print such klickies!
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Hey Panos!
You found your jugular straps again!
I have loads to say on this subject but it will wait a few hours. Typing a long message on the iPhone is a real pain in the neck.
Arnaud
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Hey Panos!
You found your jugular straps again!
Sorry I did not Arnaud, these are the customs I bought last year from ebay, and I don't want to take their straps away... So my original hussars are still.... strapless :lol: :(
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I saw some in Wolfsburg! But have yet to find ones that are interesting enough for me to buy. I just bought decal paper so I am anxious to start working with that :-)
I think, like Elric said that as long as the parts are original then it shouldn't really concern Geobra. I don't know the law enough to know what they can "do" about it though.
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The may look like the ordinary blue coats but they are also printed in the back.
@ Wolf Knight: Would you mind posting a view from the rear? :)
To the initial question: I gathered from prior affairs and discussions about this matter that once in the distant past geobra has won a court trial against some competitor in which they claimed that their designs are under copyright (=Urheberrecht) protection. This means that (although Urheberrecht is rather meant to protect intellectual property like music/art rather than mass produced items) that the holder of this right can prevent his creative output/art from being 'mutilated' or canibalized by others without his consent. To protect this they have to consider to act if they get aware of any (even if small) infringements. Otherwise they might loose this right when there have been to many precendent cases.
They told already some time ago that they consider any change of their toys against their Urheberrecht and that they are merely tolerating it, e.g. when done by adult collectors (i.e. probably as long as it is not nasty things and it is not done in open public and/or with commercial interest in large numbers). The more 'unauthorized' printing on torsos could be considered an infringement of their rights if it comes to trial. The thread with an Urheberrecht trial is hence too a convenient instrument to control what is done with their products in public if they just do not like something at all because it would be just too much trouble/risk for the normally involved single private persons to go through such a trial against the company.
In other words: No need to be scared but if they feel like it their lawyers will claim that someone has infringed their Urheberrecht. So better be careful at last.
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i will write tonight , many things to say as well Henry Martiny is right .
(http://a.imageshack.us/img837/2224/gtfdcvb007.jpg) (http://img837.imageshack.us/i/gtfdcvb007.jpg/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)
(http://a.imageshack.us/img267/3664/gtfdcvb008.jpg) (http://img267.imageshack.us/i/gtfdcvb008.jpg/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)
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Presumably this also applies to the selling of parts of klickies and hence this topic:
http://www.playmofriends.com/forum/index.php?topic=7800.0
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(http://a.imageshack.us/img837/2224/gtfdcvb007.jpg) (http://img837.imageshack.us/i/gtfdcvb007.jpg/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)
(http://a.imageshack.us/img267/3664/gtfdcvb008.jpg) (http://img267.imageshack.us/i/gtfdcvb008.jpg/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)
Thank you. :)
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Is Geobra flexing it muscles towards commercial operations or towards individual private collectors?
What a great way to take old plain Klickies torsos and print a very beautiful custom image on them.
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@ Wolf Knight: Would you mind posting a view from the rear? :)
Its the exact same printing with the blue torso Jeremy has posted!
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I am also interested in how the printing is done; which technique(s) are used?
Can you do it "in the kitchen"?
Or do you have to have a big basement (cellar) with a huge printing-machine hidden in it?? :lol:
Is Geobra flexing it muscles towards commercial operations or towards individual private collectors?
Not sure if Geobra is acting differently towards this then in the past, I only brought the subject up now because untill a few weeks ago I wasn't aware of this custom-printing. I thought everyone who had these was just using stickers... :-[
Since most prints I've seen are very nice and done for 18th/19th century soldiers, I'm interested in the technique(s). If it is easy enough to do, I might give it a shot myself... for personal use that is. ;)
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nothing to add to this thread but one question :-[
where do the blue and red torsos (on the far right) come from? :-[ ;D :-[
http://a.imageshack.us/img837/2224/gtfdcvb007.jpg
:-[ thank you :-[
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I am also interested in how the printing is done; which technique(s) are used?
I'm surprised you have not heard it until now, its a technic called tampography
This was the best reference i could find: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Tampograph but I am sure a few months ago I saw a far more detailed article somewhere...
edit---
I think this is the one... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampograph
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I'm only just hearing about this in the last few weeks myself.
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hi , i will post tonight customs with tampongraphie and answer all the question , theses body are made by Albator 33 in france (i've no time to write this afternoon) , i stop communication with the seller of tampongraphie in france for other reason and i cannot help anybody to get some in here . Sure it's a great job , a sticker will become yellow with the time and it's very clean !! be carrefull : some have bad ink and i lost money to buy scratch body with some .
i called playmobil on that subject : as a collector you can do what you want with playmobil parts .
The problem if you sell some is that the ink can be dangerous for childreens and if there's a problem one day with that playmobil with consider his image is in danger and will plaint agains't the seller .Of course if you copy playmobil design , it's another problem , you make false wich is illegal !
For the marketing service in france a childreen can easilly take this for a toy because he know playmobil and they should protect their toy regard the law.
As you know the law is different on each country and is not always what want the marketing service even i understand the fact they want to protect and control their products .
As well for the custom made with painting (playmobil don't want that !) , you can do what you want regards the french law but if you sell some , you must be responsable and tell it's for adult and not for kids and if you're unlucky and a child have a problem , you will have probably playmobil lawyer again't you ...
Playmobil have money to protect his toys and if they do a process (even they lose ) , you will have to pay a lawyer as well and it can cost you money , that's why some seller of tampongraphie don't want their job appear on ebay for exemple .
The person i have on the telephone as me why people sell customs to earn few euro , i answer i had to buy kg to get rare piece and can keep all theses playmobils !! (i have 5000 playmobils and think i'm a good customer for geobra ...)
I respect the child and morality and that's why i agree with the fact to not make things who should heurt childreens (blood for exemple) , maybe i'm seem to be far from the subject but it's the same thing with doing politic with customs : geobra do a "us army want you " (i was the first doing that) and r unglick in his book show a cheguevara of someone else but attaque this person for a french president in custom ...
My opinion , it's very subjectiv , if customers can help playmobil to have ideas or to show it's a great toys with nice customs , it's free marketing for them , if they consider it's not good marketing for us , it's different ... if we made philosophie , the knights was violent , guns are violent and child play violence ... (better to play what they cannot do in reel for a psy !!)
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tampongraphie is the same technique used by playmobil and on a lot's of toys , you can do that by yourself and should make a lot for a "cheap" price . You pay the "tampon" ( master ) near 60E and after that it depend on the number of color , you cannot do that under 100 body and that's why people have to sell the exedent (and i never do my own one ...) you must find a lot of body and playmobil as you know now don't want that , a printing like that will cost you lot's of money : depend on the number of colors but with the body it could cost you 1,2E to 1,6E for one body (i buy theses body 2E or 2,5E and have to find the rest )
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Thanks for the link, Panos, and the explantions Gaspod :)
But I'm afraid I'm a technical zero and I still don't understand how it is applied on a klicky...
I've done some more reading on Klickywelt and there is heated debate there about the issue of showing pics of the printed-klickies.
On the issue of possible violation of Geobra-property/copyright;
it seems that it also depends on what design one uses for printing. If it is a design based on (or very similar to) existing Playmobil body-prints, one might get in conflicht with Geobra.
For example the 6 designs on the left here are based on a Geobra-design, the other 4 on the right are not...
http://a.imageshack.us/img837/2224/gtfdcvb007.jpg
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Thanks for the link, Panos, and the explantions Gaspod :)
But I'm afraid I'm a technical zero and I still don't understand how it is applied on a klicky...
I checked under Pad printing
Video
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS4-X_KBd7A)
and here is the one Geobra must not like
Video #2 (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xd7yvq_pad-printing-machine-with-linear-co_tech) :rock:
Edit: Fixed, I was wondering why that was such a long link code :-[
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Ras the fisrt link takes us to playmodb :)
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thanks Raspoutine , i don't have to explain how it works in english with your link !! cool !!
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:)9
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Thank you for these links Ras... One thing that I do not get is, are these people who customise the klickies like that have their own machines to do so, or are they paying someone who has the pad machine to do it for them?
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Thanks for the link!
I've just ordered my own machine. ;D
Now I now what was meant. I've seen this type of industrial "tampon"-printing before, but I can't imagine someone doing this at home...
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Yes but if you, your spouse, a friend, a relative or even a neighbor works at a place that uses a machine like these why not get them to crank out a few every week ;)
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Yes but if you, your spouse, a friend, a relative or even a neighbor works at a place that uses a machine like these why not get them to crank out a few every week ;)
Yes, that's true...
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you must contact an imprimery for that and pay for that (near 0,30E by color ) , i know some people have familly who work in an imprimery but i cannot tell you more in here , lol buy a machine !!!! you will become a huge seller to not lose money !!!
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I think it looks amazing. All I can say is that the people who have paid to have their klickies printed are VERY keen collectors. It is a shame Geobra doesn't take a leaf from their book and print front and back with some more creative designs.
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lol some people appear like collectors because they know some collectors doesn't like seller in the forums .... you can do diaporama and after that sell all !! for me there's no shame to earn money on a work you do , it's not a little bizness to print thousand body !! (there're collector and there're other )
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there are companys in germany they do it. its kinda cheap. 20 euro setup and when u have 300 or 400 its like 10 cent each..
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On the issue of possible violation of Geobra-property/copyright;
it seems that it also depends on what design one uses for printing. If it is a design based on (or very similar to) existing Playmobil body-prints, one might get in conflicht with Geobra.
For example the 6 designs on the left here are based on a Geobra-design, the other 4 on the right are not...
There is a difference between Urheberrecht (= lit. 'right of the creator') and copyright although 'copyright' is normally offered as a translation. Urheberrecht protects certain classes of products (as said before art and such) from being changed/misused (if done in public) by others, copyright protects against being copied. So all items are possibly Urheberechtsverletzungen, while the 6 on the left maybe break copyright too.
Klickywelt is quite cautious about any possible legal issues because they want to protect their respective owners from being held responsible. Hence they once removed pictures with printed torsos from a member who is asking in the above mentioned thread why other pictures are still visible on which as he assumes (erroneously) printed torsos are shown. The following posts are about the KW rules in this regard (and if those are printed or not), not about actual moves of geobra.
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hello henry ,
sure some body are very near playmobil one but not exactly the same ,i'm not sure these designs belong to playmobil , you think i do a mistake to buy some ? do you think showing theses body can be a problem ?
geobra on the contrary of lego don't use copyright , pirate of the caraibe theme for example is near the film but not exactly the same but ....
In klikiwelt , you could see a lot of the same tampongraphie i show you in here ,why the rules are not the same for everyone ???? i post one and it's in line !! i can give you many link from different forums if you want .
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Hey!
Well, thanks to Ras' links, we all know a bit more about pad printing so I'll refocus on another problem Geobra has with these. (BTW, geobra uses serigraphy, which is yet another method, ;)).
The root of such covert industry is providing enough torsos to make the price of one stamp worth it. And that's where Geobra doesn't like it: who can provide 300 white, 300 yellow and 300 green torsos in a wink? Don't tell me these guys buy 900 boxes to dimantle 900 clickies (I get blisters on my fingers after 20 or 30 at a time), and then pad-print them.
These torsos have to come from the factory one way or another.
When I visited the Malta factory, we went through a corridor where hundreds of bags of body parts were stacked. It was like: 5000 romans arms, 5000 plain white torsos, 5000 female klicky heads, and so on...I say 5000 but it may be more, the bags were huge.
Sneaking some out wouldn't be reeeeally difficult for one employee, don't you think?
Just my :2c:
Arnaud
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hi Arnaud , i know where theses body comes from : theses sellers tell me they buy huge quantity of playmobils and sell them in parts to earn more money , of course , now , i'm not sure it's true but it's difficult to say they comes from malta and were stolen to the factory . i wonder where comes the part like collars and belt comes from for the seller in france as well because i've never heard other things like legs was sold in another place ; maybe he buy to the same people ? on that point i just can ask question .
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You posted this in another thread:
these body are made by ALBATOR33 , FONTENOY-ROCROI , AND C..... WHO DON'T WANT TO BE NAMED .
ALBATOR33 body with my customs
So now I wonder about the body-parts shown in this ebay-listing linked to below;
Are they genuine Playmobil printed parts (they look just like the original torso from the French soldiers in sets like f.e. 3112) OR are they exact copies of the original, made by using the tampography/pad printing- method ??
http://cgi.benl.ebay.be/5-BUSTES-BRAS-DE-SOLDAT-FRANCAIS-PLAYMOBIL-/250781957085?pt=FR_YO_JeuxJouets_MiniUnivers&hash=item3a63c4fbdd#ht_2046wt_648
The seller also offers Napoleonic customs, obviously made with the tampography/pad-printing, so that's why I am not sure about the torsos he has on offer in the 1st link...
http://cgi.benl.ebay.be/MAGNIFIQUE-GRENADIER-HOLLANDAIS-CUSTOM-/250819747072?pt=FR_YO_JeuxJouets_MiniUnivers&hash=item3a66059d00#ht_1934wt_648
http://cgi.benl.ebay.be/MAGNIFIQUE-OFFICIER-GRENADIER-CUSTOM-NAPOLEON-PLAYMOBIL-/250819747099?pt=FR_YO_JeuxJouets_MiniUnivers&hash=item3a66059d1b#ht_1854wt_648
Btw, how resistant are these custom-prints? Does the print hold well, like with original Playmobil-prints?
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I seems to me that the torsos in the first listing are original playmobil. Why would someone want to reprint these? there are other designs that can work well for customs!
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i agree with wolf knight , it must be original parts . tampongraphie is more fragyl than the body of playmobil .
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Why would someone want to reprint these?
Well, I also think these are original but I'm not 100% sure (anymore)...
If one has the Georginetto-syndrome ( :lol: ;) ) and wants to build large armies based on this specific torso, it might be handy to self-reprint the body-parts if one has this cability, instead of buying the whole soldiers from DS? And sell a few torsos to other people?
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Point taken... the more the merrier!
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Point taken... the more the merrier!
Maybe but what if the inks used does not hold up to the test of time. I also have a problem with people, whom seem to be from Mexico, that sell exact copies of decals for the western buildings. I do not want to find out that I have a inferior counterfeit
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Maybe but what if the inks used does not hold up to the test of time. I also have a problem with people, whom seem to be from Mexico, that sell exact copies of decals for the western buildings. I do not want to find out that I have a inferior counterfeit
Good point! I have not put the Hussars to the test but a couple of them have wear off marks at the back... So such customs are only for display...
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it is the same with paint then. painted items looks great and original PM sometimes but the paint wears off easily most of all in the friction zones. :(
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So now I wonder about the body-parts shown in this ebay-listing linked to below;
Are they genuine Playmobil printed parts (they look just like the original torso from the French soldiers in sets like f.e. 3112) OR are they exact copies of the original, made by using the tampography/pad printing- method ??
{snip}
Btw, how resistant are these custom-prints? Does the print hold well, like with original Playmobil-prints?
Hi,
In your questions lie, I think, two of Geobra's main concerns: people not being able to tell a custom-printed figure from 'the real thing', and the possibility that people will complain to Playmobil about seemingly 'defective' parts if/when a custom-printed figure does not hold up well.
As Henry_Martini has pointed out, Geobra want to protect their Urheberrechte (would 'Intellectual Property Rights' work as an English translation? That's what I'll use in any event...), and they also want to protect their good reputation as a manufacturer of high quality toys. I agree with the points others have made, that Geobra's real concern (when they call the lawyers) comes in when someone else starts trying to make money from a product which is very, very similar to their own. In the case of these custom-printed bodies, obviously the bodies themselves are original parts; the printing is not original, but in many cases it is quite similar to Playmobil's own prints. If a third party (i.e., neither Goebra nor the folks doing the custom printing) then buys a custom-printed figure (or a whole load of them), Geobra will figure they are losing money, because that third party didn't buy the (very similar-looking in general) figures direct from them.
The other problem could arise if the custom printing doesn't survive well. Again, imagine a scenario where someone has bought a bunch of custom-printed figures (not knowing they're not 100% original Playmobil), and then the printing rubs off after their kids have played with the figures for a while. They will get annoyed and perhaps complain to Playmobil, but Playmobil itself can't help them: not original parts means not Playmobil's responsibility. BUT, the person who bought the figures with custom printing is still annoyed with Playmobil, and decides not to buy any more stuff (whether custom or original). Playmobil's reputation has been damaged, and their bottom line is affected.
I don't know for a fact, but I suspect it's these kinds of scenarios and arguments that IPR lawyers work with all the time. So I'm not really surprised that Geobra might try to get the people creating and (more importantly) selling these custom-printed parts.
All that having been said, I am personally very impressed (hah!) with the technical skill and attention to detail that hasa gone into these custom-printed parts. Not my time period and not my approach to customisation, but I do appreciate seeing something like this done well. And they've done it VERY well.
And I also don't agree with the IPR arguments I suggested Geobra may be working from -- I'm just setting out the way I suspect Geobra are thinking.
My (much more than) :2c:-worth...
Cheers,
AndrewL