KK, I'm not sure if you're addressing MLS, me, or everyone but either way it doesn't matter; you've walked into the age old bear trap of starting a discussion directly related to recasting and that is territory where angels fear to tread! In this thread I have done my very best to make my responses as guarded and non committal as possible and tried to stick only to those things which are factual rather than subjective (other than wondering why Disney hasn't waded further in yet). It's all good and the cat is out of the bag now so let's rumble on with and further the discussion.
Whilst I was still in my lurking days back then I seem to recall that recasting the MR did not leave FP free from grief and there were many who questioned it but it won through in the end no doubt influenced by a number of factors e.g. it was done well (and corrected that awful pinch), there were more people wanted a MR than there were MRs available or could afford one, and it was clearly miles ahead of anything else out there. What seemed to really matter in the end was that it was okay because enough people felt it was okay and FP had a strong enough rep to carry it. I'm not on the fence here. I have a MR recast myself so I chose my bed. I also have the original (or did until I sold it). That allows me to address the fallacy you mention; I couldn't detect an appreciable difference in the details of my MR recast to my Original MR (except the pinch) meaning that the person that recast it obviously had the skill to copy it without significant loss. In this case I believe the first person to offer that corrected MR was FP. There's nothing to say that an equally skilled person couldn't produce a high quality recast of his high quality recast. I'm not advocating the idea of recasting but I do agree a recast could be of sufficient quality to look good. I have seen well executed recasts before. This does not speak to the moralityof high quality recasting merely the feasibility. However it is generally the case, particularly with ebay, that the recast is not as good as the thing it was derived from and that is often because the recast is many generations from the original source and normally everyone in that chain isn't that highly skilled. Other items were clearly recasts but not licensed replicas were previously allowed. I am positive I remember the Mystery helmets having a 'grandfather clause' applied and they adorned many a quality Boba build; the Genie could not be out back in the bottle. The video raises a valid point in that once an item is out of someone's physical control it's impossible to control especially if you don't have any copyright to it yourself. If I wanted a MR cast at this time I'd go with Aninefan (opinion).
I can't agree with MLS on the grey area being irrelevant in these cases but I do subscribe to these [edited] quotes:
"Nothing is stopping this guy from buying his own MR and making the revisions. He hasnt put the time or money into it the same as the other producers of MR buckets [and the] carelessness for ethics displayed by the FP logo he didnt even bother to try to remove.
1. It's a blatant recast.
2. He doesn't care if you know he's a recaster or not.
3. He's trying to capitalize on FPs name."
I can see why MLS might be so passionate on the recasting issue. MLS, as a producer, sells (mainly) EE3 replicas. These are based on real Webley parts. Real Webleys are rare and hideously expensive to acquire (I have one) and I'd be put out if someone who hadn't gone through the [years] long search to acquire the expensive source material was making money and inferior copies out of my hard fought battle; my point of view would be influenced by that. If I were a producer.
That was mere supposition. I have not discussed this with MLS.
I do think it's valid to represent the opinion of Steve Dymszo in relation of the MR recast and further to that the feelings of Lucas when he went after Ainsworth. I'm not speaking to the validity of the court cases that went with it or the rulings they produced. I don't need to (Lucas won in the US, where Ainsworth had no assets, but lost in the UK). Ainsworth was pretty blatant in his sales pitch and Lucas went after him, really went after him. I'm not trying to add another Ainsworth thread, we've have enough of those, but what is clear are GL's feelings on the matter. There doesn't appear to be a grey area for GL and to a lesser degree SD as a [mere] former license holder. For them it's out of order. For us it's grey because we want quality fett helmets with accuracy. This is probably one of the reasons that many of the talented [non UK based] producers have to keep operations small and supply cannot meet demand leading to the rise of the recaster.
For me one of the biggest arguments against recasting, with all other copyright, quality, and moral arguments aside, is that the existence of the recaster stifles our collective ability, as a community, to obtain quality, near source generation replicas of accurate production pieces as producers are fearful of letting some of the best stuff get out there because some toad will steal the product.
KK, there are many threads on recasting that will expand on this for you. A simple Google search yields many results particularly on the RPF as well as here and other sites. They quickly evolve into arguments which is why I posted the video because I feel it covers so much in an easily consumable format.
As I know this is an emotive subject I'll close this post with: I am not advocating recasting but I do enjoy healthy discussion and that:
On a lighter note again, have you checked this out...
http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/f22/enjoy-53308/