Subject:
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Re: Selling MOC Instructions? Your Thoughts?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Wed, 19 Dec 2001 06:11:25 GMT
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Viewed:
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526 times
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In lugnet.general, Frank Filz writes:
> I think technically yes.
I think technically no. Again, I am not an atty. and this is not legal
advice, but despite not having current access to Westlaw/Nexus/Lexus I have
a fairly educated opinion about these things...
Companies have copyrights, trademarks, and patents -- that's all they have.
If you do not precisely duplicate their product, or even if you do so
cleverly but with subtle changes, there is not a lot they can do about it
legally. If you do not use their precise name, imitate their product line
for line, etc. there isn't much to worry about here.
I sometimes think that y'all would like intellectual property rights to be
more forceful than they currently are under the law, but wishing it doesn't
make it so.
There is no way that a brick modelled MOC of a Robotech looks anything like
the cartoons or the companies franchised toys of the same characters --
well, unless they are made of bricks!
I mean, if I make a drawing of a Mecha from a cartoon I have seen and call
it "Hop-Frog's Mecha" and then publish it to the web -- some company will be
at pains to prove copyright or other intellectual property infringement
unless they can show that the likeness is so striking as to be almost
identical to their own artwork for such a character. In the current thread,
we are even more removed from the source image in that we are talking about
a brick MOC of a cartoon or toy creation. That bricks are also toys is of
no real consequence here, bricks are a medium of their own. "Close" will
not do it -- it must be almost identical. If you don't believe me read up
on the law surrounding computer fonts and typefaces.
Stealing someone else's work outright is wrong -- and copyrights,
trademarks, and patents protect such rights to one's work. On the other
hand, recreating the same thing with subtle changes from the work you may be
following is perfectly legal. Similarly, you probably cannot use the word
"RoboTech" to name the work, but if you used "RoboTek" you probably wouldn't
have a problem. If you did get sued, you would be "nuisance" sued --
inasmuch as the company can bully you economically into obeying their wishes
despite their not having a legal leg to stand on (in the the sense that you
would decline a prolonged legal battle and agree to make them happy in some
way to avoid such a conflict -- a conflict they can afford, but that you
cannot).
Again, this is not legal advice -- do your own homework. But please, could
the people who really have no idea what they are saying remain silent about
what they don't know? Again, I am myself no expert on intellectual property
law, and I don't claim to be, but at least I have read some pertinent case
law on the matter...
Frankly, it almost doesn't matter what the law on the subject is -- this
guy's instructions will probably fall well below most companies' law suit
radar. Sometimes you get more trouble by trying to do the right thing than
just doing the harmless wrong thing in the first place.
-- Hop-Frog
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Selling MOC Instructions? Your Thoughts?
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| (...) I think technically yes. For the most part, building, automobile, train, airplane, and ship manufacturers (things which are regularly modeled) are all pretty open to scale models. These scale models don't cut into their business at all, and if (...) (23 years ago, 19-Dec-01, to lugnet.general)
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