Being a Disney junkie I get to add all sorts of interesting things to the collection.
A couple of months back I picked up two pin sets of five each via the Disney catalog. Each contains five beautifully done pins ranging from aircraft worker to military units.
The sets were limited to 1500 each (a tiny run for Disney collectors) and cost under $10 per set (IIRC). The description on the back of the mounting card explains that over 1200 designs were produced by Disney Studio's full time crew.
Interesting examples. Will Boeing be paying a percentage to the UK Government and British Aerospace? The UK paid for the initial design of the P51 and Hawker Siddley had a bit to do with designing the Harrier.
I've worked for Hughes Aircraft, AeroJet, TRW and now Northrop Gumman.
All good jobs, but each company's lawyers had such hardons over property rights that if an employee took a shit on company time, on company property and used company toilet paper, they considered what came out of the employee to be company's property. No shit!
Go figure. Someone must know something I don't.
Sell a key fob with VW on it and VW of America shows up at your custom car store and threatens a law suite.
I wonder if the old British ship yards will sue Mamoli over the HMS Victory kit.
Frankly, I think sub-cutaneos transponders should be implanted in all of us modelers with receivers sent to our wives and or girl friends. Now that would be 1984 on steroids. :-)
Then what do I know.
My wife says, Thank God he only spends time on toys and model kits and not on other women. She doesn't know that after her, I found out that women are way too high a maintanence item for either my check book or my nervous system.
I'd like to see someone with deep pockets fight this. First of all, military aircraft usually require assigning of all patent rights to government. While copyrights are indeed different than patents, I still believe this gives grounds to fight.
Secondly, this is NOT what copyright law originally intended. No one is trying to pass off a MODEL as the real thing. We are not trying even to produce derivatives of the REAL THING.
By a similar reasoning to what these companies are using, it would be a copyright infringement to take a PHOTO of a vehicle.
Lastly, the name P-51 or any such is generally NOT the company project ID number, but an Army or Air Force designation number, and belongs to government and should be common domain. So while they may be able to copyright or trademark NAME, they should NOT be able to do so with the military designation.
This began in the model car world, and I objected to it there. We need someone to fight this. It will take money to fight it in court.
Note that copyright violation is not a criminal problem usually in itself, but a civil court matter.
This is a very interesting point. I have never looked at the issue of unearned income being morally superior or less so then earned income. This is one of the more profound questions I have seen recently in RMS.
I do not believe the Republicans frame the question in such moral terms. They pursue this direction for greed alone. We flip flop over the morality question because never in human history has so much wealth existed as in America today. All of us will be dead in 80 years or so. The moral question is, who gets all that wealth in 2084?
The liberals argue that in order to maintain a dynamic and thriving culture each generation of people must start from the bottom and battle their way up the ladder of financial security. Kids will fight and claw for high SAT scores to get into that prestigious university where they will take their studies seriously.
The end result will be folks like John Edwards who float to the top of the public pecking order, from out of nowhere, and that such a person will better preserve American prosperity and dominance.
The conservatives must believe that in order to motivate people to work hard, right now in this life, they must be promised that any wealth they generate will perpetuate to their offspring. Now my personal experience does not bear this out. I created my software business to accomplish something in life to be remembered for, and certainly not to put my kids and grandchildren on easy street for their entire lives. My drive for success was internally motivated, and the tax code had nothing to do with it.
To our regret, a typical product of the conservative's thinking is GWB himself. He gets into Yale without the grades or test scores, coasts through as a C student, acts like a snob to all around him the entire time, learns to be contemptuous to all people he encounters who are go getters (professors, scientists, ROTC members, even guys who master the trumpet and play in the marching band) and continues on in life "failing forward" in every endeavor he undertakes.
I say we cannot afford another generation of GWB clones. They will certainly destroy the American empire in the next century, through shear incompetence, hubris and laziness.
Anyways, it is the form or image that is copyrighted. The Polar Lights model of the Three Stooges obviously has a copyright element to it, doesn't it? What's the difference?
By reasoning, perhaps, but not by legal precedent, which is what matters.
They are not claiming "P-51" any more than Disney claims (or could claim) a copyright on "M" or "mouse". They are claiming "North American P-51" (*) just like Disney claims "Mickey Mouse". If they tried to claim "P-51D-25-NA", they probably couldn't, but "North American P-51" did not come from the Government.
As an aside, the argument that "The Government paid for the design so it's ours" has no standing. The contract language wasn't probably as clear in WW II, but an examination of the legalities would probably show that the Government got free use of the intellectual property, not ownership.
(*) I'm assuming that the statements on here stating that this is their claim are true.
Incompetence, Hubris and laziness! Sounds like a good description of Bill Clinton. And a number of your remarks would also fit Mr. Kerry as well. In the Viet-Nam era Bill Clinton thumbed his ass at the system and John kerry played it.
Come on guys...stop feeding the trolls! So...what kits have you all done lately? Revell 1/144 F-15 Bicentennial and (for giggles) Starfix(!) Me109 (Found in a Dollar store for...yes...one dollar) in Japanese evaluation markings for me :-Þ
I don't think R-M has the money to do this. They're barely staying in the model business from what I hear. As far as this starting in the model car business, that was pre-dated by the Chessie System vs. model railroad manufacturers ca. 1980. That caused me to repaint all my Chessie and C&O model equipment and I never bought anymore. When GM and Chrysler started leaning on Ertl et al. I dumped 99% of my GM car models. I admit to some hypocrisy. I kept my Mopars and a Buick Riviera. I guess even Ford is shearing the model companies now. :( I'd be reduced to building Duesenbergs and Studebakers if I expelled all the rest. On the positive side I'd have a better chance of getting them all built. :)
If Michael is right then they ARE trying to register 'P-51'. IIRC, the Mustang name came from the RAF as did 'Harrier'. Will L-M sue for the rights to 'Catalina'? How will Kaleefornya react to that? How will GM? This could get really nuts.
Probably is, you know, but just like all the claims folks make about taaxation (and government in general, for that matter), it can't be proved one way or the other. What I can say with pretty fair certainty is that cutting taxes and running up a big deficit at the same time is irresponsible. The deficit might have been unavoidable, given all the circumstances of the last few years. Continuing a tax-cutting agenda in the face of the extraordinary circumstances we have faced is, to say the least, revolutionary. Perhaps the next time I wreck the car, get deathly ill and lose half my net worth on a single hand of Texas Hold'em, I'll just let all my creditors know that I'll be printing a little extra money to make up the difference. They shouldn't mind--maybe I can put Alan Keyes on the $13 bill.
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