If your a customizer in Japan and obsess over taking your old kamen rider figure, and making him into the new kamen rider figure(seen above) then you may get arrested. It seems two men, Keiichi Itoh, 35, and Jun Fujita, 36 who sold the custom figure online were arrested this week in Japan. The figure sold for roughly 3,288 dollars us last November. Not a bad chunk of change for a custom. The two were picked up for breaking copyright law. They believed the incident would be overlooked since it was a one-off custom. 

via [Kotaku]

Now the question i'm asking is this, Is it wrong for fans to make customs of popular properties and sell them? Is it actually hurting the companies that customizers are mimicking? Where's the line between customizer and bootlegger?

If you look at how companies like Disney actually encourage fans to create art, toys, anything really, to further publicity. They don't seem to be hurt by it. Quite the opposite, it seems to strengthen their fan base and be free market research for the toys people are willing to pay for. Look at the recent wave of user made Tron stuff. It certainly was a constant reminder of the movie coming out. I think fans and Disney both win, and maybe Kamen Rider would've won too if they didn't lock up their fans.

tron munny by NeoSinJin

Davey jones Munny by MalPal701

Jack Skellington munny by D-Lux