Re: Making Model Kits?

Am curious about that. Does anyone owe the Messerschmitt family $$$ when Hasa makes its 1,976th version of a 109? Who owns the rights to a Panther tank? Or is everything old in the public domain.

Craig

Sort of topic related, I recall hearing that the F-22 rights had to be bought by game and model manufacturers. IMHO this corporate intellectual property thing is really out of control when it considers replicas as another source of rightful income. Lawyers, eh? I also had a conversation with the guys at Aircraft in Miniature ( UK vacform kit makers) who told me that for their Concorde kit, British Airways demanded a 'royalty' for using their new style markings on their Concorde

1/72 kit. Air France on the other hand, practically flew the researcher to Paris for a champagne weekend, and made copies of the paintshop's full size airliner painting guide available. They may have been exaggerating about the champagne part ;) - but you get the idea. Guess which livery the kit was issued with? Shame really - cos the other one's so much cooler. Chek

Probably trying to secure another source of income in case nobody wants to order the sodding plane. Maybe Lockheed Martin should just stop pretending and release a scale model kit rather than the real thing. At least the dimensions would be correct and it would sell better.

I was wondering about things such as some of the German missiles. For example the V-2 which was developed under the Nazi government, but also used in the USA, USSR and in a slightly different forms in China. What about some concepts scientists came up with but were never built?

Could a garage kit builder secure some sort of royalties. I.e. 10% of profit or something goes to the actual company?

Back when it was new Convair had a cast resin CV.880 available in 1/72 scale.

Some manufacturers have "desk models" produced of their products. These are usually pretty large and they usually end up in the hands of their customers who buy the product.

Tom

It's not as clear cut as it used to be. On some US government contracts now the manufacturer of the item may retain most if not all rights as to the name, design, etc. Also the manuals and documentation may be copyrighted by the manufacturer, and the government (including DOD) may pay for the rights to use this documentation.

A lot of this came from the push to privatize the government, and also to have agencies be self-supporting. On several aviation contracts that I'm aware of the manufacturer contractually retains design rights

- the government is the user and has no inherent rights to the design of the aircraft, even though that aircraft wouldn't exist if DOD hadn't wanted it.

An example of the change in government rights is the government information business. There's lots of US government information available free, but it was a big hassle for agencies to provide it to the public, so several agencies set up contracted operations to do this, i.e. they got contractors to do it for them. Interestingly several of these contractors have copyrighted the information and are now providing it for a hefty fee.

Your government at work...

John Hairell ( snipped-for-privacy@erols.com)

I remember when that came about. During the 1960s, when I was in the service, one of my sargeants bought a military 1-ton 4-by from a government surplus auction. Cost him $200, and was sold with the stipulation that because he was on active duty, he'd have to get the vehicle registered in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and painted non-regulation if he wanted to drive it on base. He complied. When I got out of the service and went back to college, I heard about motorcycles (Harley 750s) being sold by the government (50 to a lot, stripped in the shipping crate, needed to be put together, etc.) I even met guys that bought bikes via the government, so I know this "urban legend" was true, if sometimes exaggerated. Anyway, about 1982, I wanted to get back on the auction list (I let it lapse during the mid-1970s) and found out that Uncle Ronny had sold the rights to John Northrup Inc. I would have to shell $10 EACH TIME I wanted to place a bid. (intead of the previous FREE). Also at that time, I found out that AMF cut a deal with Northrup that no motorcycles would appear on the bidders' list. (I heard that the manufacturer bough 'em all back and scrapped 'em.) The local customs used to have a siezed goods auction once or twice a year as well; not you have to kiss the local entrepeneur's arse to get anywhere near it, only to find that its mostly picked over. Thanks a lot......

-- John ___ __[xxx]__ (o - ) --------o00o--(_)--o00o-------

The history of things that didn't happen has never been written - Henry Kissinger

lots of auctions at the nevada test site. i got a 1 ton cube chevy diesel flight line van for 165 bucks. when i saw it, it had no rear end and i wanted it for the 6 pallets of pc's i had bought. (for $211) when we got the van to my friends, we hooked up a radiator and battery and it fired right up. so i bought a used rear end, wheels and new 5 core radiator to get it on the road. total cost was under $600. it had

41,000 original miles and makes the best moving van, bike hauler, camper, i've ever had. the computer stuff paid for all of it and then some. love the gsa.

Yeah; before you know it, we'll even have to pay for the Air^(TM) that we breathe...