08-22-2010, 02:19 PM
I realize that I am coming into this a little late and almost a whole page beyond its last mention, but I feel the need to comment on what I perceive to be a few legal misconceptions.
Now, I have been out of the design/tooling/injection molding/assembling/ marketing/selling loop for a number of years. However, unless I am grossly mistaken, Copyright and Patent Laws have not changed all that much since my required class in both when I was a senior at Philadelphia College of Art in 1973. (Yes, artists and designers are often taught copyright and patent law for their own protection! It was an important class in my senior year, taught by a patent/copyright attorney, and I still have the notes from that class!)
First off, I realize that this is nit-picking, but Copyright Law applies primarily to printed materials, e.g., the written word, logos, most commercial graphics, like trade marked images (another totally different set of laws) but generally not three-dimensional things.
Products (three-dimensional things) are usually covered by Patent Law. There are several different types of patents, engineering, functional, design, etc.
For Russ’s and all other’s edification re: cutting up several items to use the parts thereof to construct a different item, i.e., “kit bashing,” is not, per se, an infringement of any kind law, or else people like Art Curren would have lived out their final days in prison!
Making molds of an existing item for personal use is not a violation of any law.
However, what WILL get you in a considerable amount of trouble with legal authorities is when a mold is pulled from an existing product or assembly of products and then the parts produced from those molds are offered for sale to the public. I recall such a case from the mid- to late-’70’s when a young guy got the bright idea to pull molds from some of Scale Structures Limited’s finely detailed miniature soft metal castings and put them in a shiny blue box (much like SS Ltd.’s shiny red box) along with a set of hastily drawn and “Kopy-Kwik” printed simplistic elevation drawings and some rather vague instructions, include a few sticks of strip wood, a few small strips of aluminum foil to use as metal siding and call it a “Paige Enterprises” craftsman’s kit. 8-)
He even managed to get national distribution to hobby shops across the country before SS Ltd’s attorney’s got to him. I can’t recall whether he got off with merely a “cease and desist” and a very stiff fine or whether he actually had to spend some time with “Bubba” for a room mate.
hock: 
However … G.E.C. should be O.K. pulling molds of his kit bashed diesel or electric locomotives for the purposes of producing body shells for his own use, to increase the size of his own fleet of motive power. But the moment he sells one of those shells to one of us, or the kid down the block, THEN he has broken the law.
That’s my understanding of the law.
Now I am not an attorney. I don’t play one on TV! I am just a retired Industrial Designer commenting on Patent and Copyright laws.
Russ Bellinis Wrote:Green_Elite_Cab Wrote: I do hope to eventually make molds of kitbashes i make, but i'm curious, if i were to cut up a RailPower Products SD45 and some other engines and make a totally different engine (using the pieces), does it still count as copying the original manufacturer's work (as i didn't individually build the thing from scratch)?It does not matter if you use part or all of a manufactured product, it is copyright infringement. … if you cut up an Athearn shell, an Atlas shell, and an Intermountain shell for instance to kitbash a single locomotive, you are now guilty of copyright infringement to three manufacturers instead of one with triple the possible damages!
Now, I have been out of the design/tooling/injection molding/assembling/ marketing/selling loop for a number of years. However, unless I am grossly mistaken, Copyright and Patent Laws have not changed all that much since my required class in both when I was a senior at Philadelphia College of Art in 1973. (Yes, artists and designers are often taught copyright and patent law for their own protection! It was an important class in my senior year, taught by a patent/copyright attorney, and I still have the notes from that class!)
First off, I realize that this is nit-picking, but Copyright Law applies primarily to printed materials, e.g., the written word, logos, most commercial graphics, like trade marked images (another totally different set of laws) but generally not three-dimensional things.
Products (three-dimensional things) are usually covered by Patent Law. There are several different types of patents, engineering, functional, design, etc.
For Russ’s and all other’s edification re: cutting up several items to use the parts thereof to construct a different item, i.e., “kit bashing,” is not, per se, an infringement of any kind law, or else people like Art Curren would have lived out their final days in prison!
Making molds of an existing item for personal use is not a violation of any law.
However, what WILL get you in a considerable amount of trouble with legal authorities is when a mold is pulled from an existing product or assembly of products and then the parts produced from those molds are offered for sale to the public. I recall such a case from the mid- to late-’70’s when a young guy got the bright idea to pull molds from some of Scale Structures Limited’s finely detailed miniature soft metal castings and put them in a shiny blue box (much like SS Ltd.’s shiny red box) along with a set of hastily drawn and “Kopy-Kwik” printed simplistic elevation drawings and some rather vague instructions, include a few sticks of strip wood, a few small strips of aluminum foil to use as metal siding and call it a “Paige Enterprises” craftsman’s kit. 8-)
He even managed to get national distribution to hobby shops across the country before SS Ltd’s attorney’s got to him. I can’t recall whether he got off with merely a “cease and desist” and a very stiff fine or whether he actually had to spend some time with “Bubba” for a room mate.
hock: However … G.E.C. should be O.K. pulling molds of his kit bashed diesel or electric locomotives for the purposes of producing body shells for his own use, to increase the size of his own fleet of motive power. But the moment he sells one of those shells to one of us, or the kid down the block, THEN he has broken the law.
That’s my understanding of the law.
Now I am not an attorney. I don’t play one on TV! I am just a retired Industrial Designer commenting on Patent and Copyright laws.
biL
Lehigh Susquehanna & Western
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln
Lehigh Susquehanna & Western
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln