The Ship Model Forum

This reminds me of an amusing (?) thread on an armor forum where a cottage-industry guy took a 1/72 Dragon armor kit to cast the hull with some small modifications for his business (which he completely admitted to without shame!), which was then used and further modified by a second cottage-industry guy for his production purposes. The first cottage-industry guy felt it was completely fair game to use the Dragon product, but was threatening all kinds of legal action against the second guy for doing basically the same thing as himself. Conclusion was somewhat anti-climactic as both business owners lived in different countries. I'm surprised the first guy, after making so much public noise, wasn't contacted by Dragon's lawyers!

Copyright isn't about sales though. It is literally about the control over who and when copies can be made.

Maybe you don't want ANYONE to make a copy. Ever.
Maybe you don't want people to make copies so that demands builds up and you can re-pop it. Even if it's off the market and the owner isn't "loosing" money, you may be harming plans to make money in the future.

That's just the literal sense of copyright - in my mind I really hate the idea of buying multiple copies of a kit just so you can have one or two parts and trash the rest and I'm for personal copying for projects. But I recognize that the owner might not like me doing that, even though it's legal in many circumstances.

From both sides of this, my personal ethics would not do such a thing if that would be at the expense of the copyright holder. I wouldn't be making copies of, say, a current Tamiya kit. But in your case, it seems that the kit in question is no longer in production, so it's not as if the original company is losing out on the sales.

Well, I think a resin copy of a 501 would not wear very comfortable I think.
Especially the washing is only possible using a Kaercher or a car wash.

No problem Jim, I'm certainly glad to help for what its worth. Especially in a personal use scenario like your's, you'll certainly be fine. That type of thing is not really what rights holders are concerned about. And most often with cottage industry products, the product is not registered anyway.

I was happy to answer in length (maybe too much info?) because I have enjoyed looking at, and learning from, your work. Thats a great build thread you have running.
Best regards, Tim (ComfortablyNumb/HalseysBeard)

Tim,

Thanks for the information for the trademark and copyrights, as I am only planning to make castings for personnel use, and not for sale or profit, and definitely won't advertise it.

Speaking from the other side (the copyright, trademark or registered mark holder), I can confirm that Tracy's post is mostly correct. As a former senior marketing exec with Levi Strauss & Co., part of my job was to be on the lookout across the nation for knockoffs (the blue jeans/Dockers® themselves) and any copyright or trademark infringements of the brand. It was also a part of our field reps duties, although a tiny part.

The reason companies are quite vigilant in this regard is the value of the logos and marks, and especially of the trademarks. IE: When the company went private and went to the banks for $4B cash to repurchase all outstanding shares, the ONLY thing the banks required as collateral for the $4B loan was our main trademark, the Levi's™ "batwing" logo. They didn't want any title to our manufacturing plants or buildings or anything like that, just the the logo.

Due to the consumer popularity of the brand, we were a constant target but the company's main concern was with large shipments of knockoffs or large scale illegal use of our trademarks, branding to fool the consumer in the retail marketplace.

Copyrights (©), versus trademarks (™) or registered products (®) ("501" is a registered Levi's PRODUCT for example ...and what we are really talking about here), are mainly advertising slogans ("Live in Levi's"©) as an example of copyright, and copyrights also found in print materials, like posters and store advertising copy that consumers see in newspaper ads, books, online representations, etc. You are concerned about a registered product here, not so much copyright, but the terms are often used interchangeably and have somewhat the same objective.

If I ever ran into a small assortment of knockoffs (at a flea market for instance) what I usually did was just hand them our standard cease and desist letter and verbally warn them that we would be keeping an eye on them. The letter was rather ominous, threatening immediate legal proceedings, etc. and it usually did the trick at a low cost. We actually never followed up on anything small (under 500 units) because of the legal costs to do so.

Where we got serious was with large importers... 10's of thousands of units...or anybody advertising the brand illegally. Advertising puts it into the public domain and MUCH easier to find and track.

I wouldn't worry too much about it at all ....unless you go commercial with a knockoff or advertise it. DO NOT DO THAT!
-Tim (ComfortablyNumb/HalseysBeard)

Just to throw a caveat out there, this is where interpretation and complexity can start getting involved. If *YOU* are making the mold, then no problems. If you are trying to have someone else make a mold for you then they could be considered liable, even if you are commissioning it for personal use, because they are technically making a copy of something they do not own not for their own use. However, it's not like we live in a police state where there are cameras everywhere, so this is one of those things that I would say would be a technical violation that falls under "no harm, no foul" common sense wise.

Thanks Tracy, I figured that would have been the case so I am going to be working on getting a master mold made and see how it goes.

Also not a lawyer, but have studied copyright law a bit. It is fine to make copies for your own use in this case.

Not a lawyer here, but as long as you keep whatever copies you make for your own personal/private use, you should be fine. Giving or selling copies to others is another story.

Jodie Peeler

Dave,
Thanks that is what I was thinking as well, but was not too sure that's why I posted the question here to see how others felt about it and if it is acceptable amongst modelers.

Again thanks.

With regards to copright, I assume it is very much like CD and the like whereby is perfectly acceptable to make copies for your own personal use

Albert,
Thanks for the input, I've bought a few things from Shapeways in the past and their products are nice, but a bit on the pricy side for something like this. My thought is to do a casting of everything except the mast and use PE items for those. I know I would have to do two molds, one as the short hull variant, and the other as the long hull variant. I have 9 kits, 6 of which I built already and 3 more in the stash. I was thinking of using two of these to make the masters, but again, worried about the copyright issues.

As far as the cost of the 3-D printed hulls, I think they would cost as much as $20. to $30 per print so that's not to good of an investment for the amount I need.

Just a thought, but, - if you want 55 of them (and I'm assuming possibly just up to deck level and building all the variety of structure separately, is it worth thinking of getting them via the 3D printing method? Someone on the shapeways may be able to describe the programming methods and costs involved. That way you have 'your' hull and needn't worry about copyright.
Of course, it could be too expensive.

I was wondering if it is against "Copyright Laws" if someone was to use a injected plastic model kit, to cast it in resin (ONLY) for personnel use, NOT for resale or profit. The reason I ask is I want several copies of the same ship, an OHP frigate to make one for every ship in the class, remember there are 55 built ships in the class. Finding the injection plastic kits is getting very hard to find and when you do find them they are marked up pretty high in price, probably because they are discontinued kits.

I have not done anything like this because of concerns with "copyrights". If there is not an issue with this then I might just cast some and get the class finished up. If anyone knows anything about this and the way the copyright laws work for this type of thing please let me know.

Again, it would not be for resale, or profit, only for personnel use. Thanks for any guidance in this.