"Damaged"/"bad scene" PODMs - "fixed"

[gbdb4ever]

We are not going to defend either side on this debate...but we hope that the people on this forum are aware of the risks involved with obtaining any item, whether it be a car or a Disney pin, on the secondary market. There have been many cars sold with engines and transmissions that have been replaced where the numbers have been altered so as to make them appear "original". Although it would be nice if a person selling a car told you it had been in a serious accident, not everyone is going to do it. Dishonest people will be dishonest with whatever they are dealing with.

Getting back the the OP's concern about these pins being counterfeited, faked...whatever you want to call it...we believe that replacing the cel would be virtually impossible without an obvious alteration to the back of the pin which would make it difficult to pass off as "genuine". However, if a method can be found that doesn't produce any obvious alterations to these pins, you will ALWAYS have to be concerned about any PODMs that you acquire on the secondary market when the original source is unknown. This is one of the hazards of any hobby involving collectables.

 

[imp]

Not to be the voice of gloom, but altering &/or manufacturing pins for sale actually raises two separate issues:

- we all know that if you make a copy of a pin (or alter it in some way), then represent it to a buyer as genuine/original, it's fraud - that's a 'gimme'

- the issue that doesn't seem to be on the radar is copyright infringement - I love the idea of the little video clips in PODM pins, and I doubt there's anything wrong with doing it for your own collection (I don't know enough about U.S. copyright law to say for sure), but if you replace the scene with a different scene (or video clip) which Disney did not release in that pin, you may be into copyright infringement if you give or sell it to someone else (fantasy pins raise the same concern if they depict Disney copyrighted characters, movies, etc.)