Manufacter Announcement [MAXNUT STUDIOS] - Warning on Toys Wonderland

[hellgrammite00]

FYI, that MAXNUT is ending its relationship with Toys Wonderland (business partners of Justin Collection) after they said Toys Wonderland has been releasing bootleg copies of its headsculpts.

While the third market can always be a somewhat dicey area, this is a heads up from a manufacturer that a site is selling fakes. Be careful collectors.

 

[ArtDamage]

Fakes like...trying to pass off bootlegs as the original product? Or fakes like some company knocked off the headsculpt and they're selling that in addition to the actual originals?

 

[hellgrammite00]

Fakes as in they get a protype from Maxnut, make a quick copy, and pass it off as a maxnut. Maxnut actually just finished taking pre-orders for their real one. Granted all of this is unlicensed, but still shady since you expect the distributor to be a somewhat neutral party, not actively replicating.

 

[ArtDamage]

Fakes as in they get a protype from Maxnut, make a quick copy, and pass it off as a maxnut. Maxnut actually just finished taking pre-orders for their real one.

Ah sounds like poor form.

 

[DioramaMaker]

It will be interesting to see how/if Justin responds to this.

 

[hellgrammite00]

It will be interesting to see how/if Justin responds to this.

It was fishy in his review video marketing a prototype, that is extremely unusual. But there is money to be had. His only saving grace is to say he did not know it was a fake, and end his relationship with Toy Wonderland (if he didn't know.)

 

[hellgrammite00]

Justin has replied. I want to take him at his word, and if there is something fishy going on, he said he is an independent reviewer. Although, he is business partners with Toys Wonderland...so he isn't really independent, but I believe what he is saying is he was simply unaware of potential business practices.

 

[The Buffinator]

It appears he's saying SooSooToys is stealing his work, and he's implying TW must be passing along his prototypes so they can be copied.

 

[hellgrammite00]

It appears he's saying SooSooToys is stealing his work, and he's implying TW must be passing along his prototypes so they can be copied.

That is how I am reading it. This stuff gets so tricky because you have a third party manufacturer, a seller/distributor and a reviewer/advertiser all in business dealings with each other regarding unlicensed merchandise.

 

[DioramaMaker]

Justin's response is pretty measured especially with how volatile Max's is. If anyone's recasting it's probably TW proper, I think they just leverage Justin's review skills. But that's speculative. By promoting buying from TW he is complacent, at the basic level. That's a lot of muddy waters very quick.

It appears he's saying SooSooToys is stealing his work, and he's implying TW must be passing along his prototypes so they can be copied.

SooSoo was accused of ripping Eleven's John Constantine as well. To hear they're doing it with another popular sculptor doesn't surprise me.

 

[hellgrammite00]

Justin's response is pretty measured especially with how volatile Max's is. If anyone's recasting it's probably TW proper, I think they just leverage Justin's review skills. But that's speculative. By promoting buying from TW he is complacent, at the basic level. That's a lot of muddy waters very quick.



SooSoo was accused of ripping Eleven's John Constantine as well. To hear they're doing it with another popular sculptor doesn't surprise me.

Normally a reviewer like Justin would not be dragged into this, but his promotion of TW brings him into a messy situation, I agree. There is some sales/promotion intertwining that blows things up. TW and Justin are business partners.

 

[Entropy]

Justin reviewed a 2 pack of Tony heads supplied by SoSo toys. SoSo toys apparently ripped off several of Nut?s heads in the past and Maxnut doesn?t want to do business with Justin and TW if they are going to promote the work of thieves, aka SoSo toys. Best I can figure is Maxnut are trying to use their business leverage against SoSo toys where they can, Justin's reviews and TW sales in this case.

 

[hellgrammite00]

Maxnut says it is having a meeting and potentially a joint statement with Toys Wonderland tonight (tomorrow for most of us.) Let's see what TW says.

 

[awf1031]

And these are the days of our lives....(cue music)

Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk

 

[gmoney5000]

Wow, who would have thought the toy industry could be so seedy and dark?!

 

[becausebatman]

This is pretty juicy

 

[Omega9300]

Wow, I agree there is a lot of drama cooking here, time to get the popcorn ready I suppose.

I am a strong believer in intellectual property rights so I have a significant problem with pirating of other people’s designs/ work etc.

That said, as someone mentioned above isn’t this all non licensed stuff anyway hence isn’t it sort of like when one drug dealer rips off another drug dealer? Not to say this is the same as that crime but the law isn’t going to enforce an unlawful agreement so isn’t this sort of analogous?

 

[medicomsucks]

Wow, I agree there is a lot of drama cooking here, time to get the popcorn ready I suppose.

I am a strong believer in intellectual property rights so I have a significant problem with pirating of other people?s designs/ work etc.

That said, as someone mentioned above isn?t this all non licensed stuff anyway hence isn?t it sort of like when one drug dealer rips off another drug dealer? Not to say this is the same as that crime but the law isn?t going to enforce an unlawful agreement so isn?t this sort of analogous?

It probably depends on if these are recasts of hot toys with slight alterations to begin with. If so it would be ironic if they were complaining of having their copy ..well...copied.

 

[DasMuse]

I get the fuss, but when it comes to this un-licenced stuff, it's the wild west. Eat or be eaten. Not like that sculpt is anything to call home about either. As a consumer, this means nothing to me because I'll always pay for the better quality. Someone will make it, or they won't... Get your stuff licenced and maybe I'll share some concern.

That being said, Toys Wonderland has always seemed shady to me regardless of some claiming they're legit. I won't buy from them regardless of this.

Also, I thought I seen that same guy claiming that TNS did the same thing to him. I don't care enough to dig into it, but to me its sounds like he got a bad deal and wanted to make excuses to get himself out of it.

 

[hellgrammite00]

Well, the thing to remember is that most of these places start out doing unlicensed stuff, and eventually get licensing deals and take off. Hot Toys was not always releasing things up to code, but its good work got noticed and deals were made we all enjoy over the years. Overseas, that often is the avenue from going from a very tiny company to a larger successful one.