Red Fox - Hot Trick Repro - RC Lohas

[CNA75]

There is one other dilemma which you don't seem to understand. You bootleg highly desirable part X. Someone sees it on ebay, listed by someone who bought the part off of you. They fail to mention that it is in fact not a vintage part. The buyer puts in a huge bid and wins it. Now that person has been ripped off. You are at least partially responsible.

Now that I agree with (and do totally understand), and it is called plain and simple fraud. As you rightly point out, that comes down to integrity. But I think it is a different debate to the repro / bootleg distinction. Fraud can exist at any level and just comes down to lieing about (in this case) what you are selling - one could lie about selling an original or a repro.

In terms of whether repro's need to be exactly the same or just similar. Does it really make a difference one way or the other? At the end of the day, one is always going to be a repro and the other will always be an original. That will never change. And for those to whom it matters only the original will do. I agree that if repro's are exactly the same as the originals then it makes it easier for sellers to be fraudulent, but those that will be fraudulent in such circumstances are likely also to try and be fraudulent with non-identical repro's.....like you say that comes down to plain and simple integrity (for which, unfortunately, there is never a 100% guarantee)...

[MelvinsArmy]

So why would we want to make life easy for these people? There is no reason to make an exact replica of anything other than to deceive people.

These are not Hot Trick parts. They never will be. But they are made to look like they are. There is absolutely no good reason for them to be nearly identical to Hot Trick parts. It would be so easy to change them slightly enough so they could be easily distinguished from genuine Hot Trick parts.

[CNA75]

So why would we want to make life easy for these people? There is no reason to make an exact replica of anything other than to deceive people.

These are not Hot Trick parts. They never will be. But they are made to look like they are. There is absolutely no good reason for them to be nearly identical to Hot Trick parts. It would be so easy to change them slightly enough so they could be easily distinguished from genuine Hot Trick parts.

I hear you and it is a fair point. I do think, however, that making exact replicas does have a bona fide beneficial side to it (as well as the unfortunate negative side that you point out) - it does mean that I and others can own something which is as close to the original (which we were /are never able to get hold of) as possible. It is not and will never be the same as the original. Once I've built my Red Fox I'll always know that it is Lohas' Red Fox and not a true Hot Trick Red Fox. Alas, that is what I and others have to live with as the complete Hot Trick Red Fox (new) is now impossible to get hold of.

As for differences, I understand that the quality of the Lohas materials is far (and noticeably) better than the Hot Trick stuff, so that may well be one easier way of distringuishing them.

[MelvinsArmy]

Nothing is impossible to get ahold of. Except patience. If there is one thing I've learned in all my years in vintage r/c and vintage bmx, everything comes up for sale eventually and I do mean everything.

Instant gratification is the bane of this generation.

[scr8p]

scott, do you have problems with reproductions that are given the right to be made by the original manufacturer?

[MelvinsArmy]

scott, do you have problems with reproductions that are given the right to be made by the original manufacturer?

Not so much. Ideally it would be nice to have some kind of change from the old part.

Honestly I was pretty excited when it looked liked the Tecnacraft guy was talking about possibly making wheels again.

[shirochanwrx]

A lot of content here...

I am a little concerned that five of the six posts that followed my last one were site admins, and one of them sounded agitated ... I am not trying to get banned in here (!) ...

I want to elaborate on a couple of things I posted earlier and respond to some subsequent comments about Lohas/HotTrick and repro/replica stuff in general.

Firstly though, I think that it is great that a vintage/retro R/C car on-line message board is an environment in which people are considering a topic like intellectual property and "authenticity", although I am a little hesitant to use the latter term as its use is not etymologically intact and it is a notion of on-going debate.

So ... I want to get it out there up front that I think that it would be a *great* idea if repro/replica products were effectively and indelibly identified as such. People who honestly ply repro/replicas and their customers would have no problem with it.

Wow, where to start. You couldn't possibly be sympathetic to my concerns about reproduction parts because you don't seem to have any idea what they are.

"Sympathetic" is not the same as agreeing with you. It means that I understand that you have strong feelings about the matter. If I wanted to say that I understand your feelings *and* feel the same way, I would have used "empathetic". And actually, I think that whole notion of empathy is garbage, but that is a different topic...

First, my beef with reproductions has less to do with who owns the rights to what and more to do with the fact that I like vintage radio control cars. Not bootleg replicas of vintage radio controlled cars. Yes, parts made as exact copies of other people's work is bootlegging. It is fake. By definition. Words mean something, and those two words perfectly describe these fake Hot Trick parts.

I agree that "words mean something". "Bootleg" is an interesting descriptor, and we even know where it comes from, and it is actually the exact *opposite* of how you are using it. Bootleg liquor was illegally made, illegally distributed, and sold to knowing consumers. Fake R/C car parts are *legally* made, *legally* distributed, and sold to (in many cases) *unknowing* consumers. However, when people refer to "bootleg" DVDs sold in the street for $5, that is correct usage; they are illegally made and distributed, and knowingly purchased by the jerks who buy bootleg DVDs.

Why not make an original part for these obsolete cars? For the same reasons those Asian bootleggers you mention do perfect knock offs of designer hand bags, nobody would buy a cheap crappy bag that looked like a cheap crappy bag.

I definitely did not "mention" or implicate Asians or any specific racial, ethnic, or national group. Some repro/replica stuff is made and sold by white people right here in the ol' USA.

They want a cheap Louis Vuitton bag to impress their friends with. That is the "fakes is okay" mentality. If they were genuinely into a certain brand they wouldn't bother with the fake one. They would do what someone who is really into something real would do, they would save their money and buy the real thing when one became available.

This is a statement that comes from a very privileged place; you or I could save money and "buy the real thing". For most people, however, this is not a reflection of "fake is okay" ... it is a reflection of "fake is the only thing I will ever be able to afford". You could pick up 2 NIB Turbo Optimas with the price of a smaller LV handbag. For many people, genuine LV approaches a year's rent. Still, fake LV sucks.

I can understand reproduction bodies, decals and even tires to a certain extent. They are all perishable parts. Not unlike shock oil or paint.

This is really the crux of the issue. You have drawn an arbitrary line for reproduction parts you can accept. Sure, bodies and decals are "perishable", but in an R/C car, especially off-road cars like the RC10, the whole car is perishable in normal use. If suspension parts and even chassis were intended to be "non-perishables", why would the manufacturers sell every single part in an individual baggy with a price tag? RPM made a name for itself because major components of an R/C car do break, and they break often enough that people will buy more durable parts in anticipation of them breaking!

I don't disagree with you that repro bodies and decals are extremely useful to have around. I've had a bunch of body-less chassis wanting a new skin. Looking at older posts on RC10talk.com, there were all of these awesome refurbs and builds without bodies. By your logic, we should all be waiting for originals to come up on eBay or otherwise, but you know even more than I do that it had become completely impractical as a hobby. JRX2 bodies coming up every month or so and going for over $120 on eBay ... even the most hard-core vintage enthusiasts balked at those prices, especially when most people needed not one but several.

So ... it becomes a personal issue of what you are willing to accept. Are fastener-express 8/32 3/8 aluminum screws ok? Seriously, I think that unless the whole car is built straight from a sealed box, it is possible to make a compelling arguement that some of the original object-experience is lost. Something is different in opening the box and building that thing inside compared to having all the parts NIP on your bench. Which explains why people not infrequently buy sealed box vintage for more than the parts might cost separately.

[shirochanwrx]

You all need to read Mel's post knowing that he's an artist by trade and in the 5 years I have been around it always strikes a nerve with him, rightfully so, we'll have an opinion.

Thanks for the heads up ...

"Everyone is entitled to their opinion and they can say what they want, but I am not in it for profit. Not to sound pompous, but I make a very good salary with my day job. If I can't live off that, then I am an idiot. I have been blessed in my life on many fronts and I use that one blessing (salary) to do this as a hobbyist for the hobbyist, as I grew tired of having naked cars with having the once a year opp to bid up through the nose on a NOS body."
In the end I do this for myself (not at face value of what that means), but because I am literally obsessed with lexan, always have been even BITD and for you guys so you don't have to parade around naked. I want new unpainted bodies of stuff that is impossible to find. The End (of my book.... for what it is worth).

Right, and we all owe you greatly for the service.

Legally made, legally distributed, and to consumers who know that the item is a reproduction, i.e. not a bootleg. And if you or someone else made or sourced a replacement rear bottom shock end for Losi's 5-link suspension, I'd knowingly buy those from you, too.

People are going to draw that line differently, what they think is permissible and not permissible in their pursuit of the "hobby", or whatever you want to call it ... but I think that everyone should be allowed to make those decisions for themselves, within reason.

Unless someone convinces me otherwise!

And I don't think that I've totally finished reading the thread ... so maybe I'll have to take it back tomorrow ...

[mrlexan]

scott, do you have problems with reproductions that are given the right to be made by the original manufacturer?

I am surprised that Scr8p hasn't brought up the 1:1 Car Restoration analogy yet. Screw restoring those old Oldsmobile classics with repro parts. We should just let them rot in the back yard polluting Mother Earth. We are just a throw away society anyway, we don't need that old JRX2 anymore cause we can't find parts for it any more. I'll just toss it in the trash.

[shirochanwrx]

Yeah, someone who creates original work and would never, ever, ever, consider stealing or copying someone else's work.
There is a word that has been missing from this brief debate. Here it is.
Definition of INTEGRITY
1: firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility

(Aside: What kind of dictionary puts this definition of "integrity" above "soundness, completeness", etc?! Even the NSOED has this definition, like, #3 ... and that's the *Shorter" edition!)

Now, the following is coming from a guy who thinks that there are 2 kinds of people in the world, people who *make stuff* and people who *don't make stuff*. So an artist critiqueing another artist, or the artist's critique of his/herself is superior to the critique of the art historian, curator, dealer, or critic, and I don't care how highly Don Kuspit and Chuck Saatchi rate themselves.

I think that deceptive reproduction of *anything* and passing it off as genuine is reprehensible. However, to say that an artist would never consider copying another person's work is ridiculous; people who "make art" have been copying each other in varying degrees since prehistory.

Just the stuff that comes readily to mind...

...Romans making direct copies of Greek sculpture and architecture. Renaissance artists copying Greek and Roman work before striking out on their own advances...

...Velasquez doing "Innocent X", then he (or his studio) allegedly making 2-3 more due to demand; then Bacon doing a bunch of "popes" based off Velasquez's, some "with meat" (con carne?) in the 50s...

...J Pollock doing "No 11./Blue poles" in the mid 50s and then Bidlo knocking out "Not blue poles", what, less than 30 years later? Some of Bildlo's appropriations were even more contemporary (and exacting) ... of course, I'm not sure that Pollock would have been that thrilled.

...Hirst's "Hymn" was a 6 ton *copy* of his kid's Humbrol-brand anatomy set in 2000, and he made and sold more than one of them totally several million pounds Sterling in profit (allegedly); he settled out of court with Humbrol, but I'll bet he still came out ahead...

...Jeff Koons' work comes to mind too.

Bidlo's are copies, covered by the thin veil of the "not" moniker. Hirst's was an *enlarged* copy, covered by the thin veil of an out of court settlement. The others are different degrees of derivations ... but these people are considered artists, they are "art-makers" in my view, and they definitely, definitely copied someone else's work.

And they would say so themselves.

They were not trying to deceive anyone, but:
1) They are all artists by trade.
2) They copied someone else's work to varying degrees.
3) Many of them profited enormously in doing so.

I think that the "integrity" lies in them being honest about the appropriation, not in the act of copying some (or all, in Bidlo's case) of another artist's work.

[shirochanwrx]

scott, do you have problems with reproductions that are given the right to be made by the original manufacturer?

I am surprised that Scr8p hasn't brought up the 1:1 Car Restoration analogy yet. Screw restoring those old Oldsmobile classics with repro parts. We should just let them rot in the back yard polluting Mother Earth. We are just a throw away society anyway, we don't need that old JRX2 anymore cause we can't find parts for it any more. I'll just toss it in the trash.

Totally.

I've rebuilt 2 Weber Genesis grills with high-temp paint, custom rims (really) ... it would be much easier to put them by the side of the road and buy some new crap.

But these ones were made in the USA, will last forever with some TLC (well, some of the "loving care" is pretty hard core >> tender), and keeping this stuff out of landfills is a noble thing...

...but I don't think that anyone is picking up a Lohas to keep their old Ultima or whatever out of a landfill.

And I would be upset if someone told me I was restoring with genuine vintage parts when they were contemporary knock-offs, even if it were for restoration purposes.

[MelvinsArmy]

First, don't worry about getting banned because you disagree with me or if I come off as agitated. I get agitated all the time. When you rip someone off or threaten someone, then we'll ban you. We believe in freedom of speech here and we don't get rid of people because we don't agree.

I don't agree with you. I started to itemize everything you've said, just like you have with me. But that would take a good chunk of time out of my life that I could never get back.

"Sympathetic". Yes, I used that word. But it wasn't the point of the comment, as anyone with the reading comprehension of a grade schooler could figure out. The point was you had no idea of my concerns about reproductions. You missed the point from the git. Or maybe you didn't. Maybe instead of engaging in a conversation you chose to tear my argument apart based only on grammar because you had no other leg to stand on. Let's find out if my theory holds water on the rest of your replies...

"Bootleg and fake". Fake parts. Legally what the reproducers are doing might be legal. Morally, it's not.

"Asians". I don't know where you live, but I live in NYC. Fake bags are made and sold in Chinatown. Sorry if what I said or if this fact offends anyone. Thanks for letting me know white people do these things too, I was totally unaware and will get on it right away.

"Louis Vuitton bags". Again, not sure where you live, but I see fake Loius Vuitton bags every day by the dozens. They're not just bought by people who are on skid row. But maybe that's just my attitude coming from my "privileged place".

"Arbitrary line". I prefer to think of it as a logical line. There is no reason to make reproduction hard goods. If you really want to get into it, everything in existence is perishable, even a diamond.

[jwscab]

the way I see it (not that anyone cares), if you are reproducing parts with the sole purpose of advertising them as 'authentic' then that is morally reprehensible.

otherwise, making parts look like other parts is pretty normal and has been since we starting picking up rocks.

the fact of the matter is that 99.9% of anything you can see, hear, feel, smell and taste has already been invented or described. Everything moving forward is just an evolution of what has already been done.

the only way for anyone to keep something that is 'theirs' (in their own mind, btw), is to lock it up and never let anyone else ever experience it. This is a point of argument that I support for musical artists that complain about 'illegal' music. If you wish for no-one to ever listen your music without paying a royalty, then never let it air publicly. this means radio, concerts, demos, etc. otherwise, you are simply putting it into the 'free' world and you need to accept those consequences.

anyway, sorry for the interruption....I can sympathize with both sides of the argument, I will also comment and say that shirochanwrx has been eloquent in his posts, I would not consider his replies as any type of attack. I do realize that this is a very touchy subject with you MelvinsArmy, but I had to mention that as an outsider.

[MelvinsArmy]

Yeah, someone who creates original work and would never, ever, ever, consider stealing or copying someone else's work.
There is a word that has been missing from this brief debate. Here it is.
Definition of INTEGRITY
1: firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility

(Aside: What kind of dictionary puts this definition of "integrity" above "soundness, completeness", etc?! Even the NSOED has this definition, like, #3 ... and that's the *Shorter" edition!)

Now, the following is coming from a guy who thinks that there are 2 kinds of people in the world, people who *make stuff* and people who *don't make stuff*. So an artist critiqueing another artist, or the artist's critique of his/herself is superior to the critique of the art historian, curator, dealer, or critic, and I don't care how highly Don Kuspit and Chuck Saatchi rate themselves.

I think that deceptive reproduction of *anything* and passing it off as genuine is reprehensible. However, to say that an artist would never consider copying another person's work is ridiculous; people who "make art" have been copying each other in varying degrees since prehistory.

Just the stuff that comes readily to mind...

...Romans making direct copies of Greek sculpture and architecture. Renaissance artists copying Greek and Roman work before striking out on their own advances...

...Velasquez doing "Innocent X", then he (or his studio) allegedly making 2-3 more due to demand; then Bacon doing a bunch of "popes" based off Velasquez's, some "with meat" (con carne?) in the 50s...

...J Pollock doing "No 11./Blue poles" in the mid 50s and then Bidlo knocking out "Not blue poles", what, less than 30 years later? Some of Bildlo's appropriations were even more contemporary (and exacting) ... of course, I'm not sure that Pollock would have been that thrilled.

...Hirst's "Hymn" was a 6 ton *copy* of his kid's Humbrol-brand anatomy set in 2000, and he made and sold more than one of them totally several million pounds Sterling in profit (allegedly); he settled out of court with Humbrol, but I'll bet he still came out ahead...

...Jeff Koons' work comes to mind too.

Bidlo's are copies, covered by the thin veil of the "not" moniker. Hirst's was an *enlarged* copy, covered by the thin veil of an out of court settlement. The others are different degrees of derivations ... but these people are considered artists, they are "art-makers" in my view, and they definitely, definitely copied someone else's work.

And they would say so themselves.

They were not trying to deceive anyone, but:
1) They are all artists by trade.
2) They copied someone else's work to varying degrees.
3) Many of them profited enormously in doing so.

I think that the "integrity" lies in them being honest about the appropriation, not in the act of copying some (or all, in Bidlo's case) of another artist's work.

I pulled the integrity definition off an online dictionary. It fit my point so I used it.

I don't see the world as black and white as you seem to do. I don't divide people into "People who make stuff and people who don't." I think that is a ridiculous notion. I don't know a single person who doesn't make something.

Now you want to talk about art? It's my favorite subject.

You're right, the Romans did copy the Greeks. Old Masters studios did make copies of the original paintings. Today those painting copies are not worth nearly the same as the work made by the master's hand. They are not displayed with the Master's name in galleries and museums. "workshop of..." or "follower of..." or "school of..." or "attributed to..."

Bacon was hardly making copies of Velazquez, not even close. You seem to know a bit about art, this shouldn't even be a thought in your head.

Bidlo is a performance artist. His copying of Pollock's work is a performance. There are other artists who copy famous works. I can't think of their names now because I'm not interested in their work, but there is a legitimate artistic statement they are making.

Hirst. There is no mistaking Hirst's Hymn for his kids anatomy set. Creating a 5 ton (or however much it weighs) giant steel replica of a plastic anatomy set is hardly copying. Your could apply this to most of pop art. It's why Campbells, Brillo, Disney, etc never sued Andy Warhol. If you want to make a 10 ton steel Hot Trick racing RC10 chassis I think that would be beyond totally awesome.

Koons. I don't know any artists who have one iota of respect for that man, and I'd say at least half of my friends are artists. So, I won't even get started there. Needless to say I'm gonna go with your "art makers" vs being an actual artist, and I think the word "art" might not even apply.

I do agree with some of what you've said. I don't copy other people's works. We could take your argument to the extreme and say artists only copy others' works. Like, "Painting a portrait is copying the work of the sitter's mother and father." Again, I don't feel like I draw arbitrary lines, but rather logical lines.

[MelvinsArmy]

jwscab, never worry about getting involved in any conversation around here. Your 2 cents is as valuable as anyone else's on this board. I hope everyone understands this. Never feel like anyone's opinion is more valid than anyone else's.

You are right, this is a touchy subject for me. However, just so everyone knows I don't take this stuff personally. Please don't think that I do. I disagree with a lot of what shirochanwrx says. Believe it or not, I don't disagree with 100% of what he says. I think this is a great discussion and I think it is an important one. I doubt either side will fully convert the other to their way of thinking, but at least we can try to come to an understanding of how each other thinks.