3 Miniart Tram passenger figures have been copied here. They look very good & may have more defined features. This company also copy some Dragon figures on a German officers command set. There are several other civilian sets using copies of Miniart figures. They must have to pay Miniart a license to do this. Most of their figures are original and definitely fill a gap.
H.P.
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Is… Is that Vladimir Lenin?
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Unless there’s hard evidence they’re being copied under licence from MiniArt, they’re blatant rip-offs and Armorama should take this down. Nor should anyone give them any oxygen by buying them.
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I will have to look at this more when I have more time. From looking at the box art there are obvious differences, but that is BOX ART not the actual MiniArt figure. If I can find some actual photos of the Miniart plastic that looks like a match we will be removing them and having a stern talk with Drums and Crates about future news submissions.
Jim
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Just a few MiniArt figures to compare (from MiniArt website)…
H.P.
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I tried to compare them, difficult to do with photos only.
In my opinion there are small differences.
The cape hangs a little different on the police officer
The priest holds his head slightly differently and the one from D&C is holding a book
I think the coat lies differently on the old lady with the small round hat
The overcoat carried by the man entering the tram or train hangs down further on the Miniart figure.
A definite answer requires a comparison of the actual parts.
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Maybe…But what would be the reason to create ex nihilo quasi-clones of MiniArt figures… 
H.P.
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being inspired by the best?
Miniart have based their figures on something somewhere
I get Don Camillo vibes from that priest figure:
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Haha, totally man
Maybe my better attempt at side-by-sides helps, just a sample before I got bored cutting & pasting.
I realise we haven’t yet seen what the actual figures look like, but it’s already clear as day from the virtuals that many of D&C’s “Civilian Figures” are blatant steals from several MiniArt sets. Yes there are a few tweaks on some, but I don’t know why they bothered as they don’t fool anyone.
Maybe the minor alterations are a ploy so they can say they’re not direct copies or re-casts, but gimme a break - they are Rip-Offs pure & simple…
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I will amend this partially restored post with some additional info. We will not be posting more news stories from Drums and Crates. There are several reasons for this but suffice to say we don’t want to put the sites into any jeopardy for promoting potentially copied (or partially copied) works.
That said I will add that I have heard back from the owner of Drums and Crates, and he is apparently buying these pieces from online 3D royalty free download sites and as such is not doing the design work himself. Thus he has no knowledge of any wrongdoing by the original 3D file creator in terms of using others work, etc.
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Reminds me of a recent legal case where the prosecutors used ChatGPT to do their research and it made up some relevant cases that the prosecutors didn’t double check before submitting it to the judge. They thought ChatGPT worked like a search engine and assumed anything it came back with was factual.
I understand it is probably really hard and time-consuming to check the legality of every 3D file uploaded but you should at least check if the market already has items such as what you wish to sell and you might just see someone else is already making it – and thus avoid some of this.
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I think the term is ‘due diligence’.
ChatGPT: An Australian man is sueing ChatGPT for making up a story that the man spent time in prison convicted of bank fraud.
The real story was that he worked for one of the banks, blew the whistle when he detected something funny going on, others got sentenced to prison time.
Chat GPT finds bits and pieces including one twitter post where a persons name and the words: bank fraud, sentenced and prison are present.
Mans name + bank fraud + sentenced + prison. BINGO! We have a winner!
ChatGPT fills in the details and gets sued.
AI at todays level is related to intelligence on the same level as breast implants are related to the real thing.
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Hello Martini_dry
I think your information is wrong.
All the figures offered by Drums and Crates are resin impressions of 3D models. These 3D models are royalty-free and have been legally purchased from their designer through CGTrader, a repository for 3D models (for example the figures from "At the platform can be seen on: (https://www.cgtrader.com /3d-print-models/miniatures/figurines/railroad-staff).
Therefore I have not copied anything, I have bought the printing rights of these figures, the same thing that the companies you mention will have done (although they do not say so), since you will agree with me that there cannot be two authors of the same model 3D.
So what you say is simply not true.
I don’t know what your sources of information are, but I advise you to find out more before accusing.
Hello everyone
Many of you were judging without having a clue what you are talking about.
I recommend that you look at the 3D military figures that you can see on CGtrader and that are for sale, you would understand where your beloved brands get many of their models from, but they keep quiet about it.
So before judging, inform yourselves well.
You hurt with your lies.
Someone did some copying sometime somewhere.
If I sell you stolen goods and you believe that you buy them legally from me and then you sell those items to someone else You will have committed a crime. People have bought cars from a perfectly legal car dealer and then someone finds out that the car was stolen and the current “owner” gets the car taken away.
The current situation is not quite the same but I think you understand what I mean.
Selling pirated items, even when the seller does not know about the piracy …
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