Tokyo Toys and counterfeit goods

Tomodachi

Completely Average High School Student
Tokyo Toys are pretty much the most well known seller of anime/manga related merchandise in the UK. Unfortunately they don't just sell legitimate goods, they carry a mixture of legal and counterfeit goods.

The guy who calls himself Hideki (one of the owners of TTs, and it's not his real name) has posted admissions that TTs sell counterfeit goods on the MCM Expo forum in the past. His excuses for it amounted to 'people buy it and seem happy, and other people sell the same kind of stuff so why shouldn't I?' He also pushed that bogus line that 'unlicensed' goods are somehow okay to sell. They aren't. Unlicensed goods are just another type of counterfeit goods. You can confirm that by talking to Consumer Direct if you need to: http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/

Complaints have been made to Trading Standards about Tokyo Toys selling counterfeit goods, and links to what Hideki posted on the MCM Expo forum were given to Trading Standards as part of the complaints. Not long after that the posts were deleted from the Expo forum. Guess someone wasn't too happy to leave Hideki's admission of guilt in the open.

Anyway, Tokyo Toys are still selling counterfeit goods and the best way of saving yourself from buying them is to know the kind of Chinese wholesalers of counterfeits that supply the UK market. Here's a couple of them:

http://www.salesmanb2b.com/
http://www.frontwinner.com/

If you spend a few minutes going through what they sell and comparing them with things that Tokyo Toys and others sell here it won't take you long to match things up. You'll also be able to see the big fat markup that gets applied when they are sold here. Given that the goods are actually worthless due to being illegal that amounts to a hefty rip-off for you if you buy any of them.

If you have bought anything from Tokyo Toys that turns out to be counterfeit and you still have proof of purchase you should report it to Trading Standards via Consumer Direct (URL above) and they should be able to get you a refund. You will also be helping the rest of the community and the people that create the anime and manga in the first place by doing so.
 
I see your point (sort of), but I for one can't stand the fact that someone is trying to make money off of someone else's hard work by producing unlicensed goods. And it's for that reason that I wont buy fake merchandise, even if there's no official equivalent.
 
I suspect there are legitimate Akatsuki scarves available if you look hard enough, though the Naruto merchandising behemoth is tailing off now. It was taking shelf space away from K-On! character goods.

Most mangaka embrace doujinshi and several even produce their own (sometimes for their own series). It doesn't compete with any legitimate product; indeed the story-based ones make no sense at all without some knowledge of the original material. Doujin goods are probably the more logical things to attack here, though again they seem to be more tolerated as they don't use existing materials or artwork.

R
 
Stuart-says-yes said:
ilmaestro said:
This guy is a complete tool, but making money off other people's work without compensating them is not on, stu.

True, but Dōjinshi is unlicensed in most cases but it doesn't stop
you or other people from buying it, I mean I doubt money is
going back to the original creator eg Kubo, if said
doujin contains characters or story's arcs from bleach.

surely that makes doujin just as bad as buying unlicensed goods or counterfeits then.
People don't really make money off doujinshi, nor do they really set out to make money off them. Nor do they re-use assets from the original work, or directly copy official goods. As well as what Rui mentioned (many manga authors starting off as doujinshi artists, and even continuing to produce doujinshi after they "make it big") and a couple of other more technical reasons, I think this is part of why doujinshi are accepted, in the same way that fan-fiction has been accepted since the time of Star Trek or even before (not sure it was so big until ST came along, though).
 
Someone gag this guy and put him in a dark room or something,

Honestly depressing bloke, complaining over the same things in 2 threads....
 
I assume he made this thread to be able to talk about the thing most people agreed was a problem without the distraction of his initial approach alienating almost everyone. Let's keep the other thread separate to this one. If it helps even one new fan who cares about such things spot a bootleg, it's been worthwhile.

Anyway, please no more teaming up on the guy; if the thread isn't of interest to people it will fade away and die on its own without being bumped periodically, by complaints followed by me complaining about the complaining :p

R
 
I had an interesting chat with a friend who works as a patent and trade mark lawyer. So long as you're not using a trade mark (ie a logo or specific name) or a registered design (the coke bottle shape being a classic example) or using a direct copy of an image (ie from a DVD, website or the such) then its pretty much in a gray area in UK law.

Using the example of my Tokyo Toys Harihu mousemat. It doesn't say have any text or logos on the mousemat or the package and I'm pretty sure the image on it wasn't in the series.

It falls into the same category as Doujin. The characters are named the same and look very like the ones in the original but they have been re-drawn by someone else and not directly copied.
 
Just Passing Through said:
This guy is the human equivalent of this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg

May have a valid point, but is so bloody annoying, patronising and holier than thou, that he makes you want to break the law just to spite him.
And because of how dumb and rude you sound to any form of logical sensibilities and principle should we go full circle and just not buy the stuff out of spite from rebellious idiocy? I think I'll go that route instead, it works best since it stops stupid rebellious attitudes towards decent principles and doesn't support piracy rather than supporting it and being awkwardly dumb.
 
<object width="420" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/07AwZQ4DQ7Y?version=3&amp;hl=en_GB"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/07AwZQ4DQ7Y?version=3&amp;hl=en_GB" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>


sorry........ Huey Lewis and the News seemed to obvious
 
--Sigil--Otaku-- said:
Just Passing Through said:
This guy is the human equivalent of this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg

May have a valid point, but is so bloody annoying, patronising and holier than thou, that he makes you want to break the law just to spite him.
And because of how dumb and rude you sound to any form of logical sensibilities and principle should we go full circle and just not buy the stuff out of spite from rebellious idiocy? I think I'll go that route instead, it works best since it stops stupid rebellious attitudes towards decent principles and doesn't support piracy rather than supporting it and being awkwardly dumb.

Thread necromancy to pull me up on a bit of facetiousness I posted two years ago... Kudos!
 
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