Does anyone know of any Canadian form sculptors? All the opossums here in B.C. seem to be huge compared to the forms offered by American sculptors in supply catalogs. And the raccoons are thicker too.
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After the rampant copyright infringments and the blackmarketing of illegal forms in Canada, guess no one's bothered to actually sculpt something they could steal easier.
I've never heard any of that, but I'm new to taxidermy. If you can steal a form sculpted by a Canadian, then you must be able to buy it. Are there no Canadian sculptors at all, even working for an American supply house?
Georgwe if you want to see copyrighting , go to Africa and you will see (most) taxidermist buy one of each , copy it and then they have their own, how do I know this , I've been their many times and in very many shops.
I would like to know where you get your information from ?
copyright goes on in more places then Canada. I do not know of any supplier that would have opossums , Canadian suppliers carry mannikins that will sell, opossums are not very plentiful in Canada.
Mayby try Peter Knapton , Knaptons studio in Ontario, Canada, he may have one. He has some of the best mannikins available.
In fact his name comes up an awfully lot when you speak about pirating forms. Currently, several American firms have big lawsuits pending in Canadian courts over copyright issues. It's not played out very loudly because politicians don't need to start talking about trade wars when "it's ONLY taxidermy".
CERTAINLY there are Canadian sculptors working for American companies. Dear friend Ken Walker is one of them and he's very protective in trying to keep his forms out of the black market. He used Joe Coombs Supply intentionally because it was so far away from his home in Alberta in hopes that they wouldn't get pirated.
Laurier is correct, however. Pirating is an art form in itself in many African countries and many other third world countries. You might be shocked to learn some of our best "award winning taxidemists" are part of this problem as well.
Peter Knapton sculpts his own mannikens from scratch.He`s an honest supplier.I have a copyright suit in the courts now that I simply can`t talk about.Once the decision has been verified in this country then it will be submitted to the commercial crimes unit of the RCMP and I believe the free trade guys too on behalf of a still un-named US supplier.As far as new mannikens from me,my supplier is AAA supply in Calgary Alberta.They pay royalty`s to artists and are also honest suppliers.A big part of the problem is the time and cost of bringing product across the border some of the bigger companies won`t let legitimate companies distribute their product,even thogh they know it`s being mass produced illegaly.As far as new product from me I have plenty including Oppossums and Raccoon but I won`t make much available until this suit is over.
Is Peter Knapton the bad name? I was just looking for a name to look out for when I look through the catalogs, like I always see Bruce Rittel in the tanning section. I relize that there must be some people who duplicate forms, but when you, George, specified Canadians it seemed like a shot at us. (Just saying.)
Just so I know, can you get an agreement with a company that enables you to leagaly copy forms? I know of at least one taxidermist who makes their own forms but I don't know if they have some sort of agreement or if they sculpt their own.
OK, Peter Knapton's alright. (I was typing as Ken posted.) I'll look for your forms when they come out Ken. I hope you make decent sized oppossums. LOL And I'll look for Peter Knapton too. Thanks.
Certainly America has enough pirates of it's own, but it works a little differently here. All the American supply companies sell to anyone and crooked private taxidermists will buy "one of each". Then, from that point on, they make copies and make the illegal copies for themselves only. They don't market them for fear that they'll get burned by the big companies. One "supply company" did try to defend the practice and was found guilty of copyright infringement. Some years back, a private guy (Wisconsin I think?) got caught and fined for doing it for himself. Fortunately or unfortunately for us in the USA, we no longer have wide expanses of open spaces where we can get away with the bigger blackmarketing practices. Our government is much more agressive in its enforcement of all laws, but domestic and international as they think all our citizenry are crooks anyway. LOL