My Helmet's Been Recasted And I Need Your Help

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thorssoli

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A while back I sold one of my helmets. The buyer, a man in Spain named Beatriz Álvarez de Lucas (ebay username: beamoviesculpt) is now selling a HALO helmet on ebay that is an obvious recast. You can see my helmet(s) at this listing: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180496243602. You can also see them in my build thread or my occasional for sale thread.



Here's "his": http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220593404231 If you look through his feedback history, you can see where he bought the original from me.



When I sent him a message telling him that I hadn't given him any permission to recast my helmet and asking him to remove the listing, here's what he sent in reply:



Dear thorconsignments,



- Hi. Do you have any license or permission from Bungie or Microsoft to

make a Master Chief helmet? If you have it, please send me a copy, and I´ll

write to Microsoft to verifyng that the information it´s real. In other

way, I don´t need your permission to sell a helmet that I buy on Ebay. If

you are sculptor, you have to know that anyone can buy this helmet and

casting after. Many of my sculpts are casted after selling and relist too.

But I can´t do anything. If you are not in agreement, I´ll ask to Ebay for

a solution.



-beamoviesculpt



To paraphrase, he says that recasting happens, so there's no reason he shouldn't do it too. Note also the none-too-subtle threat that he'll report my work to Microsoft/Bungie. On one hand, he's right. There's nothing I can do. While I have no legal recourse, I do have an idea.



This is where you come in, good people of the 405th: If you've got a few minutes, check out his auction at the above link. While you're there, click on "ask seller a question." Then ask him a question. Ideally it should be a question completely unrelated to the item, but it really doesn't matter what you ask. The object is to fill his inbox with so much spam that selling recasts of my helmet will be such a pain in the ass that he won't bother next time. It will only take you a moment and I could really use the help. Better still would be to load up the auction with bogus bids, but I can't ask anyone to do that.



Either way, if you come across this guy, for my sake, please don't buy anything from him. For your sake, please don't sell anything to him.



Thanks for your help. Together we can at least annoy the hell out of one recaster.
 
Done.

LOL d00d that HALO helmet is AWESOMSE!!! I love Halo I have all teh games and i wuld love to hvae a helmet like that 1. i cant waate for the new game to cum out!!! did u make that hlemet if u did how???? i dont think i can buy it because my mom told me stealing is wrong and only bad ppl do it but maybe i can majke 1 liek u did! plz tell me how u did that i ttly want a HALO MASTER CHEIF HRLMET!!!

What a prick...
 
lol that message is a mouthful.



Sorry to hear about this dude, thats why if I ever get round to selling casts of anything ive made ill keep it mostly to this forum.



EDIT:Not only has he recast your helmet but he is also selling for a lower price than you, that guys a real piece of work
 
not your personal army bro



im really sorry about that, i couldnt describe how raged i would be. Unfornuateley, theres really nothing you can do about recasters. Please understand that risk you take when you sell items on ebay. <<< I really hate have to say that but, its the truth and it sucks





Is there any possible way to erase your ebay history and possibly report his sales to bungie?
 
I would report it to ebay. They have a fantastic customer support service for things like this. I recently had a deal go sour on a set of golf clubs and they did everything to get to the bottom of it. They were very prompt and personable. I would recommend sending them an email or giving them a call. I know how much work goes into a helm, yours in particular. Its VERY VERY well made. I know that is one of my biggest fears is that my work will be recast. I sent an email, it wasn't nice, but it wasn't rude either. Just, well, sharp, or clear if you prefer. Hope you get it figured out.
 
As a fellow artist and vendor of costume parts I feel you. I HATE recasters and will do what I can to help you. I find it funny the Haji guy who is saying that there is little you can do to stop recasters also has a thread asking about how to pour stone into a vac form piece to make a new molding buc...

At any rate, I know what its like to have some A hole take your hard work and pad his business selling it. He sounds like the kind of guy who WOULD spite you and try to report you. I had a guy do that to me when I was doing Wolverine claws and he wanted to cut me out of the market, the guy reported me to Marvel and I got slapped with a 30 grand lawsuit from Marvel. Recasters as the worst scum.



"All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"



Just reported his auction. We had a guy a while back who tried to start up his own business bootlegging a buddy of mines Batman stuff and a goodly portion of the adult costuming community made it a hobby to report the guys auctions and also get him banned from most every board for prop and costuming.

I also try to keep my sales now to people who go to conventions, that way if they ever recast my stuff they will have to live in fear of meeting me face to face at a con one day...
 
that's horrible dude, i was gonna give some negative feedback but couldn't figure out how so i asked him this 'question' for you V



"never recast you prick, i don't care if the original sculptor doesn't have rights to it, neither do you and you didn't put a second of your damn time into making it so don't pass it off as your own. people like you make people not want to sell things they make online. you should be ashamed of yourself."
 
thorssoli said:
I reported it. It's still there. Ebay doesn't really have a policy prohibiting recasting.

Trust me if they get enough reports from different emails they will eventually at least suspend the auction. My report to Ebay I simply explained that HE doesn't have the liscence to sell the item and that I would be bringing the auction to the game companies attention...he screwed himself by using too many keywords that can get an auction pulled. There are a lot of really stupid tricks to pull in order to skirt legally how to post/list a prop replica and he didnt do ANY of em.
 
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Another thing you might be able to do is create an auction for one of your helmets, using the exact same title that he's used (so that those searching for these terms will also find yours). Then in the auction description, include the re-casters ebay I.D. and mention that he is making unauthorized re-casts of your helmet. At the least, it could knock him out of a potential sale.
 
^^^^that's a pretty good idea.



I just asked a question.



i hope this F&%*!#$ loser goes out of business.



if there is anything else i can do don't hesitate to ask. :)



good luck!
 
thorssoli said:
I reported it. It's still there. Ebay doesn't really have a policy prohibiting recasting.



This is why as a caster, you should always put some kind of mark on your casts(ie with your ebay member name, etc) in a place ,where if they try to recast, and "remove" the mark, it'll only end up ruining the cast they make.



Actually, you do have claim. As an artist, you can show the history you had with the buyer/seller, by showing how he bidded and won an auction from you and a short time later, he has the helmet (and several copies) for sale under his member name.
 
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i spammed qustioned him, my questionA:



-Hey dude whats up,have heard about the bird , everbody knows that the bird hates recasters that recast off thorsolli helmets., b-bird is the word, b-birds the word. Do you know about the bird.- LMFAOO obvious point in a flashy song.

Hope this ends sometime sooon.
 
[quote name=Message sent Via Ebay]

why would you buy a helmet just to recast it?? don't you have any talent of your own?? Perhaps singing?? Can you dance?? Maybe cooking is your true calling. But to buy a helmet from someone as well respected as thorssoli and then recast it is a new low sir. Try making your own works, then molding and selling those. Buying a helmet for the low low price of $160 from auction # 180476907217 and then recasting it and selling it without even having another transaction to balance out, for-shame sir. You do realize we can all see your transaction history right?? and that you bought a helmet Mar 14, 201005:37:24 PDT, then recasted it to call your own. I also hope you are aware that none of the people who would actually pay full price for a master chief helmet will buy one from a recaster, and everyone in that field knows who thorssoli is, and the quality of his work.

[/quote]



I know it made me feel better, hope it helps sir
 
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