Designer Toys 101: What is the legality of resin casting a Designer Toy?

If you are new to this column, it is truly meant to be read from the beginning to the most recent.
Please start with the first installment, "What are Designer Toys?"

One of the biggest questions plaguing our industry right now — in terms of what some artists are doing — is: can one legally cast someone else's Designer Toy in resin? And the answer is deceptively simple: No, it is not legal. It's someone else's creative property and you can't legally just copy that for your own profit.

Think about it in terms of a book. The newest Stephen King hardcover comes out and you buy one, have King sign it and then pay to have the cover replaced with high quality leather binding. If you wanted to sell that, then you'd be in the right to do so… you purchased the singular copy legally and have every right to sell a modified version of that singular copy. But if you bought that one hardcover and then scanned the pages in order to print your own copies of the book, regardless of any other alterations (nicer binding or whatnot), that is not legal at all. The singular copy would equate to someone buying a Designer Toy and customizing it while the printing your own copies equates to casting resin copies off of your singular purchase.

This question of resin casting is mostly brought up in relation to Dunnys, as customizers wish to play with that platform more than most. And here's where it becomes tricky: Kidrobot, the owner of the Dunny design, have a long standing attitude of allowing resin casting for customs as long as the finished piece is partially from a production Dunny. Legally, they don't have to allow even that much, but they have.

So sculpting your own Dunny head, casting copies of that head and making customs using an officially released Dunny body with the resin head on top has been "okay" in Kidrobot's book. They've even been known to turn a blind eye to very limited completely resin cast runs that required the casting (for transparency or transferring complex sculpts to multiples), though this tends to push the boundaries a bit more.

If you choose to resin cast ANY Designer Toy — in whole or part — then you should be prepared for a potential "Cease & Desist" letter from the rights holder. If it never comes, then good for you. But you should be forewarned that it's fully within their rights to ask you to stop at any time.

Please note: I was fully intending to use images of resin cast Dunnys in this post, but I didn't want to draw attention to the people that have done them and thus potentially get them in trouble.

Next Week: What online Designer Toy resources should I use?