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In lugnet.build.mecha, Matthew Miller writes:
> Larry Pieniazek <lpieniazek@mercator.com> wrote:
> It also should have the © symbol.
Indeed. Thanks for the reminder.
> But would you claim that your copyright prevents someone from looking at
> pictures of your model and making a similar one (not for sale) from their
> own bricks?
No, I wouldn't make that claim at all. It has happened already, in fact. I may
not like it but so what? I said as much in a post to off-topic.debate (this
slugfest is wriggling around to a lot of different groups).
In fact this topic has come up before, when I first offered my model (and
asserted copyright) and tangentially, when I and other bricksmiths were
looking for LDraw parts authors willing to do specific parts for us.
I've given this a lot of thought. That hopper of mine was a pretty original
invention, back when I designed it. There is always prior art, but in my case
there really wasn't too much to draw on, the (publicly known) state of train
modeling was extremely primitive at the time and I did (all modesty aside) a
fair bit to advance it (although to be fair, the GMLTC had their light under a
bushel basket at the time, they were doing sophisticated stuff but nobody knew
about it). The ribs I came up with were, I believe, a pretty big innovation at
the time, as were the slope sheets.
So I feel some sense of ownership (the same way any designer does) in the
design. I want to do what I can to ensure that my contribution remains known
in it, and further, I want to do what I can to preserve the value of the
design so that I can continue to market it as a kit.
Designs can't be copyrighted, though. Only patented. And I am not going to try
for a design patent. Too much expense.
What technically is copyrighted is not the design itself, only my expression
of the instructions to realise it, and my expression of the cover art for them
and so forth. No one can copy those without being in clear violation of my
explicitly asserted copyright. So that makes it harder (but not impossible)
for someone else to make a clone of my model and start selling it, because
they will have to spend the time in MLCad or whatever to create the
instructions from scratch, and then create and format the images up for
printing.
Someone who is copying the model for their own use is not likely to do that.
But all discussion of rights aside, I have to make it worth the while of a
purchaser to want to buy my model instead of making their own. Asserting I
have rights to it is not sufficient for that. The model itself has parts in
it that take some amount of work to pull together (witness my periodic offers
to buy 1.2L technic stud/pins, my current desire for 2x8 technic plates, and
so forth). I have made the packaging attractive (and I just did a revision on
the instructions to improve how they are delivered, they now come in a report
folder with a clear cover, a full color cover page, etc.) and I issue a
certificate of authenticity. None of that is available to the person who
copies the model.
I also license the purchaser to make additional copies for their own use,
which is only fair, I think. (although I could consider giving a discount for
multiple copies, it's too hard for me to collect the parts to want to discount
it much)
But standing still (or even doc improvements alone) is not enough. Sooner or
later I will have hit saturation, so I have ongoing efforts (if I could just
make enought time) to design more kits in my line and increate the overall
buying proposition attractiveness.
Bottom line, I am not threatened by people copying for their own use, as long
as they acknowledge me (and so far, every pic I have seen on the web of
hoppers that are derivative clearly does that). I think in fact it builds
sales and interest. Not everyone has time and resources to find all the parts
needed, so they come to me.
I WOULD be upset by someone putting it into production. But I think I've used
enough factors to ensure that I have first mover and that it won't be
economical for anyone else to do so, so I am not too worried.
> Let's not take the rest of this discussion
> there, though.
Well, not sure what you mean by that. I put the FUT to o-t.debate (has there
ever been a FUTwar? :-) ) where I took the discussion seems to fit that
better, and it ties in with what I said before in that group.
Overall discussion IP rights seem more suited for .debate than .publish... Did
you want to debate that? :-)
++Lar
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Mecha Legs
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| (...) Right. As of March 1989, published works do not need to have a copyright notice in order to gain protection. However, it's still good to put it there, because apparently "I didn't know that was copyrighted" has been a successful legal defense (...) (24 years ago, 20-Jul-00, to lugnet.build.mecha, lugnet.underground, lugnet.publish)
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