CGC Grading Bootlegs?

Why would you try to pass off bootlegs, either disclosed or non disclosed, for something that essentially has no value as a result of it being a boot leg. Someone printed out the preview images Bad Idea sent out. If you purchased them from eBay report it, get your money back, and destroy them.

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Tell that to Njoy.They sell Bootleg stuff , and I see nothing happens to them.I’m not supporting selling bootleg stuff,but I don’t see any investigations into NJoy.

What is Njoy?

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The creators of these Bootleg Ashcans.

And where can they be found?

I gave a simple answer, you asked if you should sell them disclosing they are bootlegs. I said no. Get your money back and destroy them.

I am sorry if you didn’t like the answer but in the end someone is going to get stuck with worthless bootlegs. People buying them because they don’t know that they are bootlegs just ends up hurting the market long term.

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I’m going to ask for refund because I didn’t know they were bootlegs.

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Send that seller to Bad Idea… what they’re doing is clearly copyright infringement and they should be dealt with.

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I contacted bad idea directly. Looks like they are selling them for .45 cents.

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Yup, which is clearly copyright infringement. If they were printing them up and giving away for free… well, you can’t go after someone who’s not charging others for something they don’t own.

I think you can go after people who are giving away free stuff with your trademark. Looks like they are trying to skirt it by charging a minimum, but regardless they are still making money (even if they are breaking even) off someone else’s work.

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Let’s not forget if the shop is printing them as some ebay sellers are claiming, and they are knowingly shipping bootleg/forged comics without disclosing it, they may enter in the mail/wire fraud territory.

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I’m wondering how the ones that remain on Ebay are still on Ebay.

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Because eBay doesn’t give a shit.

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Ok. Well I am going to step back from this conversation.

So are they bootlegs as they were previously called in the interview and mentioned on Instagram or are they an approved marketing tool

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Yes you can. Profiting is not an element to a copyright infringement claim. Mere unauthorized copying is an infringement.

Are you sure? Android is created by Google. It has tech in it that has others IP, copyright and Patents within it. But since Google doesn’t sell it and gives it away for free, the patent holders can’t go after Google since they’re not “profiting” from the Android OS but companies like Samsung, LG and anyone else who sells Android phones with their patents/copyright within them have to pay royalties to the patent holders…

Maybe this is different though… but if Bad Idea gave this preview away for free themselves and someone then gave it away for free as well, I don’t think that would hold up in court very well if Bad Idea told them to stop it. But now they’re selling it. According to Bad Idea response, seems like they’re authorizing this shop to distribute what they already gave away for free. I guess in any case, if Bad Idea is the copyright holder, they have the right to tell them to stop printing them to distribute, even if free.

Thats what I was trying to figure out, was it an authorized bootleg. Because the response I got back was, “Yeah they were doing it to boost pre-order numbers” basically. So my concern is if I was a publisher with a very strict set of rules, such as limiting price and number of copies you can sell to a person, I sure as hell would pull the store from being an authorized dealer if they were bootlegging my books. unless of course it was authorized or ok’d in some sense.

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Patents are a distinct and separate area of the law. Also, I don’t know anything about google’s relationship with the android tech and the ip claims within it. There’s some debate about whether code should be governed by copyright or patent, but the fact is you can get both protections if you qualify. Copyright is automatic but somewhat difficult to prove when it comes to software code. Think of hundreds, thousands of lines of code being compared and then parsing if they are similar enough to have been copied or just the most widely accept way of doing something.

At any rate, the ip holders whose tech is allegedly in android might have licensed it to Google. They may see it as beneficial to let lie. They may just think it’s too big a battle to realistically win.

At any rate, that’s all speculative and not the case at hand.

The Bad Idea book is a traditional comic. It was distributed for free by Bad Idea, true, but they (and probably the creators who are licensing to Bad Idea to distribute) hold the discretion and prerogative about if to publish, how to publish, when to publish, and how much to charge. Sending a publication for free does not disqualify you from the copyright protection against unauthorized reproduction and distribution. The copying and reproduction are both instances of infringement before the sale or other disposition of the book for free.

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So is the Ashcan a Bootleg or not?