Whoever they may be. I happen to be in favor of at least matching income to expenditures. Last time I checked, that's not a socialist concept. It's good, solid capitalism. It's also what I'm required to do in my own life. If we are going to spend many, many billions on the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, airport security, Social Security, Medicare, pensions for all of our congresspeople (a solid majority of whom are Republicans these days), AFDC, crop subsidies for farmers (or is it agribusiness?--I forget which buzzword I'm supposed to use), free room and board for Ted Kazinski, Martha Stewart, and Leah Fastow, the Border Patrol, educational mandates, highway repair, NASA, Condie Rice's limo, subsidies for election reform, the FAA, the CIA, the FBI, the FTC, the FCC, the NLRB, and almost any other randomly-selected set of initials, then we should be taxed to the level necessary to pay for all these 'essential' services. And if we're going to be taxed, it occurs to me it ought to be fair. Of course, 'fair' is such a loaded word these days.
The deficit could be reduced by cutting 'entitlement' spending as well, an even better idea IMO than either raising taxes or maintaining them at current levels.
As a general principle, just because it's on public record doesn't mean it's neccessarily public property.
This is incorrect. It depends on the nature of the contract vehicle which was used to procure the hardware. Sometimes the government owns the design, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it doesn't even have to own the design to be able to get a second manufacturer for it - it depends on the legalities of the contract language, and especially in wartime the legalities are often set to the side.
Nowdays with the price of aircraft getting so high, it is more common for the government to give up all rights to the property - the contractor owns the design, even though the design wouldn't exist except for the government's need for it. Basically the government functions as the sole user, and the contract language is written in such a manner that the government gives up all rights. This contracting language may also include giving the marketing rights to the aircraft's official name to the contractor. Many large companies will not even bid on a government project if they can't retain rights
- the costs are too high.
Along with design and manufacturing rights, the contractor will in all probability also retain rights to the full maintenance and documentation set, even though it is published as an official DOD publication. More and more (especially USAF) manuals are being published with copyright notices because they consist in part or in whole of information that is copyrighted and owned by various contractors. This is a big change from previous years, where most official documentation was copyright-free.
Right now the only way to be sure of what rights the manufacturer has is to look up the contracts to see what was negotiated with the government, and also you need to check patents, trademarks, and copyrights.
Depends on the contract language. The company which did the original design for the government may legally own it, but still be forced by the contract language to share the design with other companies if the government wants them to do it. Another variant is the government providing a government design to the contractor. There's yet another variant where the government came up with the technology and licenses it for manufacture for a licensing fee, i.e. a company can design something incorporating government technology but it has to pay the government for its use.
Things have changed in the last 10 years. The government has changed the way it does business, and contractors have changed their operations also. You can no longer safely assume that because it is a product contracted for and used by Uncle Sugar that it's not trademarked or is copyright/royalty-free.
The dominantly Republican Congress has not chosen to make those cuts, but neither are they eager to pay for the spending.
One would presume that's up to the voters--if they think they're being taxed unfairly, they object at the ballot box. So this election might be a litmus test for how fair our tax policies are--except that there are other issues that might cause people to vote for a candidate or party whose tax positions they don't care for because of issues they find more compelling. But, getting back to the original trend of the thread, this thrust by Boeing to generate income out of ephemeral and dubious IP rights is not likely to be regulated by a government which favors unearned income over earned. The law on trademark (which incidentally has virtually nothing to do with patent or copyright) is being stretched here to cover marks over which the inheritor no longer has any primary interest (anyone see Boeing running any new-build P-51s down the production line?). This is probably well outside the original intent of the body of laws protecting trademarks and service marks, but there isn't anything in the law explicitly prohibiting it either. It would have to be litigated to stop Boeing, and, in the absence of FTC action for unfair competitive practices, I don't see anyone doing that because of the cost.
No disagreement from me on that score - that's as it should be.
You've pretty well nailed my position. If it weren't for the fact that I feel Bush is better on the war against Islamofascism than Kerry would be I'd likely sit out the upcoming election. As it is I'll hold my nose and pull the lever for Bush even though he's not nearly as conservative as his opponents would paint him to be.
I would posit that the current administration favors people (and corporations) keeping more of their income regardless of its source.
Yep. As for competition, there doesn't seem to be all that much in the domestic aircraft industry anymore....
Quite a difference in culture over the years. I remember way back in the bad old days buying a plastic kit of the Fokker/Fairchild F-27 (Revell?).
Kit decals were for a US New England airline. Piedmont??
Inside the box was a coupon from Quebecair airlines which also used F-27s. It offered free decals of their livery for the kit simply by mailing them the form. I did mine in that scheme and it was quite attractive. White with red and dark blue stripe at the time.
It seems to me that, by this approach, everyone was a winner (except the lawyers).
Model manufacturer offered an extra incentive to buy the kit. Modelers had an additional marking option. Airline and aircraft manufacturer got inexpensive publicity and, probably, inexpensive display models for travel agents, etc.
Maybe they were smarter in those days than we are now? Of course, there were far fewer lawyers per capita then :-)
It used to be that way. Right after WWII Lionel had oil companies in competition to get their logo on the new triple-dome tank car. Apparently the idea of long-term customer base-building has gone extinct with all these accountants and lawyers.
Or maybe just practical common sense took over. Have you ever - even once - put a particular brand of gas in your car because twenty years earlier you saw the name on a model train?!? Living in Pennsylvania, what good does having my tank car say "Standard Oil of California" do when their nearest station is 1750 miles away? What benefit did Piedmont get from an airliner model marked with their logo sold in Seattle? I love my Boron, Gulf, and Sinclair dinosaur stuff - where can I buy their gas?
C'mon, Bill, you are just trying to rationalize a benefit to your hobby in the terms of some corporate benefit when their really isn't any.
I remember when I got out of the military (1968), my nephew had a model train layout. The big thing that year was a McDonald's Drive-In with a couple of cars. A couple of years later, there was a KFC and still later a Howard Johnson's. None of these companies made a big deal about the use of their logos and probably saw it a cheap advertizing.
-- John The history of things that didn't happen has never been written. . - - - Henry Kissinger
IIRC, Sinclair was folded into BP. Gulf went to Mobil (I think) which went to Exxon. Never heard of Boron. My tank car was a Sunoco but I was more of a Texaco buyer as that was what my dad used in his car when I was little. I'd probably still use it if they hadn't behaved abominally over a credit card problem. There are people out there with some brand loyalties. There's just a lot less now because the companies aren't loyal to their customers.
I think one of the reasons cited for licenses was that the likes of Boeing were concerned if little Johnny swallowed the prop from a B-29 kit and parents decided to sue Boeing. Now, I know that sounds daft, but thenso is suing MacDonalds because the coffee was hot - and that has happened.
The reasoning is/was that by licensing products you have more of a quality control issue and if little Johnny were to poke his eye with an unlicensed kit made in Taichinistan, Boeing could issue a disclaimer. Or something. To be honest, I still don't see how it stops said Johnny from poking his eye with a licensed product, which perhaps suggest that the arguement is a smokescreen for just scalping money off of kit companies.
And yes, I am of the opinion that a kit is great publicity for any aircraft/car manufcaturer or organisation. Alas, there is a growing tendacy to try and make money first rather than good PR.
Finally, we agree on the heart of the issue - $$$$$$$!
When I was a yout', in the later 1950s and early 60s, AMT had Ford and GM molds out on the hobby shelves within a couple of weeks after the cars themselves were in the showrooms. That tells me that the car companies and AMT were sharing that information and specs before the first cars were even built.
Sad but true.
-- John The history of things that didn't happen has never been written. . - - - Henry Kissinger
Guys, maybe you haven't heard, but the sole purpose of a for-profit business is to make money. It exists for no other reason. "Good PR" only has value in the sense that good PR means more money for the business owner. Bad PR has no negative except in the context that it costs the business money. Are you going to refuse to fly on a Boeing airliner because they wouldn't cooperate with Revell? Are you going to write your congressman and tell him not to buy F-22As because Lockheed-Martin won't let Black Box issue a cockpit set under the Lockheed name? Are you going to tell your pension board to go against their broker's recommendations and not buy Sony stock because they wouldn't let a company issue a kit of the monster in their latest movie? Are you going to refuse to buy a new car because no one will give AMT body drawings? Are you going to let your car sit in your driveway with an empty gas tank because the company on your Lionel triple dome tank car in 1958 doesn't have any stations within 1500 miles of your house? Even if you said "YES!!" to all of these, and a proportionate number of modelers acted the same way, there would be at most, what, 500 borderline loonies like you screaming about this in the whole World? (And no doubt you would have a large overlap with the borderline loonies screaming about garbagemen making too much noise emptying your cans, powerlines that look too low to you, kids walking across your yard, cars with the radios playing too loudly, etc., etc., and getting about as much attention.)
Look guys, you need to just face facts. Real businesses have done the calculus and they can't afford to do all the cool stuff they've done before for your hobby free of charge.
"Kurt Laughlin" wrote in news:rxoTc.1067$_w.80@trndny04:
This makes no sense at all. Exactly how much could they make off of licensing thier names considering that the hobby is contracting? How many Lockhered amryin (insert favorite aircraft here) kits are there going to be? Or Boeing? A million? Maybe? seems unlikely, anyone have sales figures to toss in here? Even so a million units at .25 cents each means $250,000. That probably doesn't even cover the pay, benefits and perks of the lizard working on it.
Maybe these companies should focus on what they are doing rather than trivia. Very few people in any line of work seem to be doing a good job at anything these days. This is more pure bullshit distraction for the stockholders.
Hey, maybe we could buy stock (even one) in the offending companies. Being a stockholder does allow certain rights, including the right to attend stockholders meetings and be heard.
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