Well, well. I wander outside my subscribed threads for a change, and what do you know? A one-day-old thread on recasting, already over a hundred and fifty posts, and all the usual points being raised. Some pertinent. Some impertinent. (See what I did there?)
I think iFrack pointed out what should be a bright line for collectors. Yes, the stolen work is usually unlicensed and so the recaster knows he's got an edge. The sculptor can't take him to court, so gotcha! It's still theft. If you didn't sculpt it (or commission it, or buy the wax original from whoever did commission it), then don't sell copies. If you know you're being offered a recast, don't buy it. If you buy a recast, swallow the loss (after all, you were buying something you knew wasn't licensed, right?), and let other collectors know that there's a recaster at work. Because in the end, we're all complicit -- customizers want figures that none of the companies are making, or making to our standards. We need to support the sculptors who cater to us. Or they end up watching someone else reap the reward for their talent and time, and we wind up with inferior copies.
I sometimes wish the term "recaster" had never been invented. I prefer the term "counterfeit," as in, a counterfeit Bergholtz Bale head, which makes the situation quite clear. "Recasting" also casts a cloud over a useful customizing skill. There are legitimate reasons to learn to make molds and castings. Stealing customers from an artist isn't one of them. It would be great if we could develop the kind of mutual respect and support evidenced on The Clubhouse board, where the garage kit community alert one another, and their sculpting champions, to the presence of recasters.
As for this digression about actors' rights, Punishment1218 has it right. Actor's basic contracts now give the employer all rights to the actor's image in character. An actor can try to bargain for a share of merchandise income, but they're not a given, and the only actors who can get a share of it are those who have crossed that magical line between where an actor can't get nuthin' to where they can have whatever they want. Big stars, not just headliners. In the case of the actors from an earlier time like Karloff, Lugosi, Monroe or Dean, whose images generated piles of money complately apart from their films, contracts at that time didn't specifically claim image rights, so the families and estates were able to sue and establish image rights that could be handed down to heirs, like a copyright. But today, this will be settled when the actor's contract is signed (and that's when someone who simply doesn't want their face used, rather than to be paid for it, will put their foot down). Studios may have their own business reasons for not extending the actor's image to a toy company even when they could, like wanting to have a good relationship with the actor. But this is, I believe, a digression and a distraction. The actors mentioned probably wouldn't be paid for action figures, but that's not the issue.
The subject is counterfeiting works that are often not licensed. "Two wrongs don't make a right," as the saying goes.
