Amid Kerfuffle, Former Paper Shoot Camera Distributor Launches Competing Toy Camera

There has been a lot of drama in the paper camera community lately. In the resulting fallout, there are now two competing companies, Paper Shoot and Cappy Camera.

A couple of years ago, PetaPixel reported on the Paper Shoot Camera, an affordable, thin, and sustainable digital camera designed to be a digitized spiritual successor to old disposable film cameras — which themselves have made something of a comeback. These days, after about a decade of existence, the Paper Shoot Camera comes in a wide array of styles and designs and starts at $125 for an 18-megapixel version.

The original company, Paper Shoot, is based in Taiwan and has entered into distributor agreements with companies worldwide, including formerly with Paper Shoot Camera in North America. This North American outfit recently rebranded as Cappy Camera and announced a new camera, also called the Cappy Camera. Before getting into why Cappy Camera came to exist, it’s worth seeing what exactly the new camera is.

Like the Paper Shoot Camera, the Cappy Camera focuses on style. Where the paper camera goes for a camera board wrapped in a customized paper case, the Cappy Camera opts for a board and hard case approach. The Paper Shoot is a full-blown rectangle, while the Cappy Camera has rounded corners.

While both cameras sport an 18-megapixel sensor, Cappy Camera offers some distinct features, including interchangeable lenses and a built-in flash. Both cameras are designed to be simple and easy to use, including built-in filter effects, and write images to an SD card.

The Paper Shoot Camera starts at $125, while the Cappy Camera, available for preorder now, starts at $134 with a preorder discount.

What Happened Between Paper Shoot and the Company Now Known as Cappy Camera?

While the Paper Shoot Camera and the Cappy Camera are slightly — but maybe meaningfully — different from each other, they are clearly similar and targeting the same audience.

Until very recently, Cappy Camera was selling the Paper Shoot Camera. The company’s website still exists, and the YouTube channel still shows the old Paper Shoot Camera content.

However, as people on Reddit explain, there was a nasty split between the original company in Taiwan and its North American division, which was, for all intents and purposes, an authorized distributor acting under contract.

The real Paper Shoot released a very lengthy and detailed statement on September 30th in an attempt to explain its position and why the company terminated its agreement with Paper Shoot North America.

While the entire statement is worth reading, the gist is that the original Paper Shoot company, which was founded more than a decade ago by George Lin and Miffy Chen, alleges that its North American distributor violated the distributor agreement in multiple ways.

Paper Shoot claims its now former North American distributors “frequently referred to Paper Shoot headquarters using terms such as ‘their factory,’ ‘their manufacturing partners,’ and themselves as ‘CEO’s’ and ‘Co-Owners,’ often misrepresenting their role in our brand.”

The original Paper Shoot describes a pattern of deception, theft of intellectual property, defamation, and dishonesty, among other problems, including secretive trips overseas to try to create a competing product, which may be the Cappy Camera now available for preorder given that the agreement was only recently terminated and an all-new product is poised to ship next month.

Some of these claims are corroborated in a Reddit post from two weeks ago, in which someone claims to be a former Paper Shoot North America employee. While the post makes additional allegations about the working conditions at Paper Shoot North America, it’s interesting to note how the comment overlaps with what Paper Shoot is saying, including reports of unauthorized branding changes and various contract violations.

Unsurprisingly, the former Paper Shoot North America CEO and new Cappy Camera leader, Gillian Gallant, disagrees with Paper Shoot’s assertions. Gallant says Paper Shoot North America was “blindsided” and “stolen from.”

The situation is clearly messy, and the complete picture may never be available. However, in the meantime, what’s clear is that Paper Shoot ended its agreement with Paper Shoot North America, and Paper Shoot North America is now Cappy Camera and selling a competing product. The original Paper Shoot is seeking a new distributor in North America, but for now, the company will handle sales in North America and honor warranties for existing customers.