Thanks for the background on the Marx molds, Jim!
Go to Planet Figure and search on "recasts" and "pirates", for some passionate discussions. I agree, it's a big concern. Some of the members there are particularly passionate, because they are manufacturers in their own right, and they're getting hammered, not just by the traditional source--the PRC--but by Russians and now, new pirates who have emerged in Poland and Hungary. One impetus for the increase in piracies is the availability of technologies that make it easier to copy and mass-produce figures.
Of course, while the sculptors at PF express their anger at recasts, one of the members just put up a thread to showcase his 1/35 figures of Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, and Karl Otto Alberty, as the appeared in the classic "showdown" scene of "Kelly's Heroes". When I asked whether there might be any licensing issues with Universal Studios, he laughed it off. "They're not the figures from the movie, just four soldiers." Of course, Andrea Miniatures does the same, producing figures readily identifiable as characters from movies, but they issue them under generic names--Spock from "Wrath of Khan" as, "Space Captain", for example.
And for another perspective on copying, go to the e2046 forum and read threads there. There, the discussion isn't about identifying pirates and how to stop or avoid them, but which recasters are better than others (the Chinese are the best, the Thai recasters, the worst). I think there are definitely differences between cultures, in how one looks at pirated copies.
Prost!
Brad
