Should replica items be allowed in the Exchanges?

[Zax]

THIS.

*gasp*

 

[QLR1]

*gasp*

You know you can rock it lol

 

[Carrera1963]

Yeah, Oakley thought all their shirts/polos were designed to fit only Ichiro hahaha !!!

The only Oakley shirt I ever wanted was in Japan and the largest size they had was medium. I’m not the biggest guy but a Japanese medium was not happening!

 

[henrysten587]

I'm firm on no replicas and fakes. So much of this forum and brands history has been trying to help people combat and avoid getting hosed by that stuff.

Major nagging thought is we've had Jim Jannard pass through this forum, and for all we know still lurks. Now while he and Luxottica now have no control over this forum and its existence, it does raise the question whether we're expressing our fandom of the brand in appropriate spirit doing some of these things. Custom OEM cuts and paintwork seem like the only legit fair game imo. That subforum can exist. and will probably make things easier for sellers to gain spotlight and buyers to find them.

But it's hard to go further than that. The shirt example is true. Someone was selling masks, which was cool and perhaps with fan-based intentions, but in such nature they're technically profiting off of brand usage, and not official product. Really, some people do great artwork, but think about the carbon X-Metal project. Apart from that user's limited available time to work on it, there was strong question as to whether it'd be right for them to start selling such creations. Sucks because that was way cool, but I mean in a different decade, Oakley could've launched lawyers on him. Turning this into a marketplace for such products in turn gives the image that the forum actually encourages copyright infringement and whatnot. Maybe at most, this stuff only goes in the Misc forum.

Then there's the question of aftermarket support parts/builds and lenses. I think those sometimes cater to legitimate need, and we have (had? I'm a bit out of the loop) a decent forum sponsor that many have relied on for X-Metals to survive. The custom cutting crew here is amazing, but there's only so much to go around at a time, and some people just can't afford it. This should exist in a separate subforum, which does unfortunately can affect people trying to sell complete pairs. So if you're selling X-Metals with Dillon lenses, I'm leaning to putting that in such a forum instead of the X-Metal forum, unless you sell them separately.
As much as a few select brands do offer quality, if we draw a line between aftermarket and OEM, it has to apply to everything. Putting up this forum should help buyers of astroworld shop at astroworldmerch.net make more educated choices. Anyone attempting to sneak in aftermarket parts/builds into the regular authentic exchange gets subject to a thread move, warning, and perhaps possible ban for repeat offenses. This will somewhat rely on the veteran community spotting things.

Short version:
• No to fakes/replicas.
• Forums I'm open to:
- Custom Forum (OEM parts only)
- Maybe allow fan/art stuff to exist only in the Misc forum, distinguished separately from actual authentic/OEM
listings.
- Aftermarket Forum

I have read your list, I totally agree with you, thanks for sharing.

 

[QLR1]

You know you can rock it lol

If you saw me in real life, you'd disagree.