Disclaimer: The following is personal opinion based on observation. Quantity does not equal Quality. The real world is full of disappointments. We order something, we might not get what was pictured or described, a straw isn’t placed in the bag with your happy meal, or maybe you didn’t fell full disclosure on that special item you were waiting so long for. It’s similar in the world of costuming. Whether we like it or not, someone is looking to profit off you, whether monetary or other. There are businesses who will never think twice of using someone with a sub-standard costume, pass them off as an entertainer, and make money off someone else’s intellectual property. Suffice to say, many of these small time businesses fly well under the radar of said IP holder’s lawyers, probably due to the fact that there are so many of them. It’s hard to tack them all down. Take New York as an example. Times Square to be precise. These folk expect you to pay them for a photo, claiming to be street performers, and will misrepresent themselves as doing so for charity and get away with it. This type of behavior does nothing to improve the general population’s perception of costumers or cosplayers. The more negativity received in the media, the more it tends to damage the hobby as a whole, putting it into a shady light. Think about that for a moment, I am sure it will sink in as to how and why. What galls me is the fact that a legitimate business will hire or source out individuals with costumes that really have no quality to them, and pass them off to the consumer to use for whatever function they are needed for. Birthday parties, small events, promotions, what have you, and refer to themselves as being “the best in the biz” or some such marketing zinger. Worse still, they seem to have little to no problem in using that same intellectual property without being officially sanctioned or licensed to do so. This is illegal, and is called “copyright infringement”. Would you, as someone who wanted to make a child’s party or event memorable, be willing to spend up to two hundred dollars PER “entertainer” on a sub par costume pieced together from Value Village or created via cheap overseas based labor for only an hour, or would you rather give a donation to a reputable charity and have someone (or group) show up in a movie quality suit that is happy and willing to stay for as long as needed. Choice seems pretty simple, and it is sad to hear that people who do spend the money, find out after the fact that what they paid for and got, pales in comparison to someone else’s work (who do it for free, for charity etc), feel ripped off. I don’t blame them one bit. If anything, those people who paid any amount to a business like this, should be getting in contact with the company who’s work, copyright and trademark is being used without permission. Quality. It is far better than quantity. Find those who care about the art, not about the bottom line.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 03:50:36 +0000
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