Is Our Community At Risk? The Threat To Artists

Our reborn community has always been a niche market.

This fact has made it increasingly difficult to make anything to do with it your sole income.

For those that have, that security in itself may be under threat from the increase in the of cheap knock offs available.

Now i know that each sculptor has the responsibility to protect their own work by copyrighting it and it feels that now the time has come to have to do that.

But this community used to be surrounded by trust.

Times I guess have changed, but I question if the sculptors will continue to spend the time and effort to create new sculpts with the  increased threat.

I am hoping that they will of course and that the added work of having to copyright the sculpt does not put them off.

There are many people within the community that want a cheap baby and are willing to purchase one of the knock offs just to be able to own the kit they love.

Then there are others who will only buy direct from the artist.

They will communicate with the artist and build up a relationship.

For me personally I prefer to buy direct from an artist.

I have to confess to being a little worried about how this community will look if this trend continues.

Now I am not opposed to change.

Not all change is a bad thing.

But I am however opposed to theft.

If going forward all sculptors copyright their work the cheap knock off groups will find it increasingly difficult to keep up and offer customers what they want.

My suggestion is that artists copyright many of their sculpts that they have made and all future sculpts they do make.

Would you buy one from the Chinese company?

Do you think there is space in the community for them?

Should the police be brought in?

I would love to know what you all think.