"Piracy Warning from FAA" Topic

I think Maxxon is right to some extent, the great China pirate industry is not going to bother itself with the Historical Wargames market, but I think GW have real concerns.

The small size of the hobby makes 'local' piracy much worse. It would really effect a small manufacturer to have a pirate in somewhere like Glasgow for example, supplying the local club with all their needs for the next project. And if it works once they'll keep doing it. It really must be stopped.

I'll have a little rant now. In my experience of these petty thieves, they knock out a load of cheap 15mm figures to a local area, half price usually. The guy that buys them up for the next 'project' is often on a higher yearly salary than the total turn-over of the company they are ripping off. The whole thing is small minded and mean.

eBay is making the world 'local' of course.

Hmm! This topic caused me to check my most recent Testudo purchases from Stonewall.

I've some from Triples and some from mail in over the last twelve months. They are lighter, and smaller than me original purcahses with the ones from Triples being of very poor quality.

I wonder?

Just to confirm Mike's posting. On Saturday at Triples, I did purchase from Stonewall a pack of FAA figures whose packaging matched the pirate packaging as described by Baxter from FAA. Stonewall had about 40 to 50 packs (possibly less but no more) of FAA figures in a tray behind his table. It should be noted that while the tray and the figures were in plain site behind the table, they were not being promoted on the table. He did mention that he had some left (refering to what was there) and I got the impression that he was not going to have anymore (apperently selling off what he had left). Some of the packaging did conform to proper FAA standards but some did not and some of the figures in the non-conforming packaging seemed to have a bit of extra flash. I turned the package I purchased over to Trading Standards in order for them to investigate the matter properly. It is now in their hands to determine if this was indeed a case of pirating and if so for them to handle appropriately. If it is not and Trading Standards determines it is not then I will post that here on this site.

This case and ones such as AB's concerns are causing a great deal of problems for many in the industry and in the end it effects us all. As many figure manfacuturers are very small businesses, struggling to make ends meet, any loss of revenue for them is major. Eventually if we all are not vigilant to pirating then the small traders will be driven out and only the large GW's of the world will survive, severly limiting the selection we enjoy in this relatively small hobby.

It should be pointed out that the hosts of Triples, the Sheffield Wargames club was not invovled in this incident nor do they condone the sales of anything other than legimatly manufacturered products.

Are thes old figures? What did the previous incarnation of FAA use for packaging? IIRC, they were originally a UK company. I haven't gone through all two pages of above, but has anyone confirmed that these figures were not manufactured by the original FAA back in the '90s?

One other thing that may be happening is the selling of painted pirated figures by them too.
At Cavalier they had some bags of painted figures that looked to me like pirated AB figures.
They were quite badly painted actually so I would not buy any but given the previous AB incident I suspect they are selling the remaining pirated figures as painted units.
The brand of the figures is not marked on the bags and so it is possible that they are genuine but they just dont look right to me.
Check the figures out if you see them at a show and ask what figures they are before buying.

"Do you British members have any traditions similar to the US propensity towards Vigilante Justice??"

I sincerely hope not.

Rob

Prior to your comment I would have thought that the only persons 'sincerely hope(ing) not' would be either the persons counterfeiting or lawyers. I trust that you are neither?

A number of us in the UK have been faced with this problem. The most effective way of bringing matters to a conclusion is to some degree 'sending the boyz round'. I know of a UK company which spent thousands in legal fees on a counterfeiting problem and got nowhere. Another party in the Stonewall has acted very properly - and got nowhere!

Sad, but....

Mike B

Altfrtiz wrote:
"Are thes old figures? What did the previous incarnation of FAA use for packaging? IIRC, they were originally a UK company. I haven't gone through all two pages of above, but has anyone confirmed that these figures were not manufactured by the original FAA back in the '90s?"
John Bruce used a white header card with an orangish red lettering. I switched the colours to grey with Maroon lettering in 2001 when i purchased the company and have used the same printer ever since. And I have never used that type of paper in packaging. We only started labeling last year as my handwriting was a bit illlegable and it would make it easier to identefy what the contents of the pack were. All of the lettering was done in black ink.

LeiFang,

I do not think the remanufacture of miniatures is a huge problem in Asia right now. It is not impossible for it to become one but you never know. Lets say you are a manufacturer with a detailed line of ancient armies from Asia. There might well be a market for such a product in shops thru out Asia and the person who made them would never know so long as they stayed primarily in Asia.

The Iranian customer wanted one of every figure in my Ancient Persian line. Now after due dilligence (and I think that is key here)I might do business with him as he has a very specific market he wants to reach. However, it gives me pause and I think that is warrented.

Do not fear I will always ship figures to every corner of the world. I have shipped product to over 30 countries since I started in the miniatures business including a lot to China, Asia and the South Pacific. I do not have any qualms about doing so. I welcome their business in fact. I have a large order going out to your part of the world tomorrow.

The problem really is more about other products and I do not think we small time manufacturers are in any danger. I only wanted to point out that the foundations for a problem may (I stress may) be getting laid now that many miniatures are being manufactured in the region. It is the existence of both a market and means to manufacture that create the problem.

The FAA issue was only discovered because of close physical ties between the U.K. and the U.S. Had that person wanting to handle the figures not been on hand the recasting (if that happened here) could have continued unabated. For how many years might counterfiet Han armies sell from small shops in Asia before some one found out? It is just a thought.

All the best to you LeiFang, it has been an interesting conversation.

Jeff

Hi Jeff

no worries- as China and other parts of the world become a part of the global economy we can only hope IP infingements become less of a problem.
Funny, I was in my local model shop today, the owner casts his own terrain, displays and photoetched kits. He started saying he was thinking of launching a minis line. It didn't even enter into his head to think of copying anyone elses stuff, he has his own sculptor and casting facilites.
He has a site here lionroar.net
Hopefully more strenth to his elbow :) and to yours :)

Of course due diligence is always wise

This is smelling rather worse than it did last night.. sad times and hopefully some good will comeout of it.

Please will FAA keep us all informed of events (as appropriate) as it would not be good for this to slip under the horizon and out of sight?

(PS - fwiw as a retired UK police officer you dont need to hack you way through lengthy and assinine Trading Standards issues: if you have a solid enough case {and its looking that way}- just go immediately to the "local" constabularly HQ and pursue a criminal complaint. In this case devon-cornwall.police.uk Devon & Cornwall Police.

Given the limited imfo~ above any mail-order offences (selling fake figures) would be commited at the company site, retail sales at trade shows would be covered by the appropriate regional constabulary i.e. the crime is committed at the site of the show and would be initially recorded as a crime in THAT force area. {We don't have any federal crimes so an individual crime is recorded within each relevant force area for each offense - not one crime that then covers ALL areas}

Initial steps though I would suggest emailing D&C constab~ and going from there. They are very internet-savy and one of our best forces, dealing with international issues shouldn't be a problem for them and, as i say, there would be UK criminal offences committed with this in anycase {deception offences to name but one for sales at Triples IF that was the case} irrespective of any international offences realting to mail order to other parts of the world.)

Just FYI btw.

I also find it ODD that Stonewall still list the entire FAA range , when FAA siad they stopped selling their figures to them sometime ago - i remember the story of the shipment FAA sent them and Stonewall returned ( after refusing the package ) to the USA .

There are also several figures in the newish stonewall 14th army range that are 'cut up/head swop ' figures from the FAA Chindit range - i have the kneeling figure with bren gun at one side in front of me .

It is definately bad to copy or reproduce another's line. And it is also good to not support people who are selling recasts on Ebay, etc. I think that is pretty much a hands down question.

The only Hard question is what about lines that are being made for 'IP' that is not being pursued. Commercially of course. While perhaps 'not right', it also could be considered 'not right' to prosecute someone for doing something you have no interest in doing. Is it wrong to sculpt/kitbash a Cylon from Battlestar Galactica if noone is making them? And what if your kitbashes are wanted by others?

Another interesting one is buying from Flea Markets or 'Estate Sales' and finding recasts or custom jobs someone converted or cast for personal use.

My friend has some old Ral Partha Colonials that look great, but he bought them off Ebay after Partha was off the market. When Great Endevours brought the packs back, it was then pretty easy to see that their gunners only came in one pose. He was not (as) familiar with the line like the rest of our group.

I once picked up some 40K figures cast in 'lead' not 'pewter' myself... got to watch those loose figure auctions with primed and mounted figures. It made me pretty upset, especially considering they were out of print so going for ludicris prices even for GW. Ebay tends to not enforce things.

LeiFang,

That is great news. Best of luck to him. For what it is worth you can let him know I am perfectly willing to be a sounding board for him if he has questions concerning the process as I not only sculpt and paint my lines figures but also do all elements of production and casting. Mini production is a really interesting trade. Even with 12 years under the belt I am still learning.

Jeff

Did Stonewall ever get back to Bill about this? If all they are going to do is sit quiet then I think that in itself speaks volumes.

I agree with Antenociti - I dont think this should just disappear as a news story. If Stonewall are guilty then I'd like every show organiser in the UK to know about it and ensure they dont get a stand for their knock offs.

Unfortunately its my experience that people like this just change the company name and come back doing the same thing.

You don't mean the new 'Fantassin Miniatures (UK)' do you Crusader?

Mike B

Please dont tell me my Fantassin figures I bought from Stonewall are recasts!
By the way-does Fantassin mean uniform in spanish?

"You don't mean the new 'Fantassin Miniatures (UK)' do you Crusader?"

I thought Fantassin was a Spanish company? Anyway - no - it wasn't them I was thinking of. More of a generalisation really.

I was told that Stonewall went under the name of Fantassin Miniatures (UK) at Sheffield by someone who spoke to Mark and bought from him.

One should not look too closely at half of an AB horse and the same half of certain Fantassin horses.

Mike B

anyhow Jeff, as they say in Shanghai, reputation is worth more than money