Check this site out .

[Anonymous]

Check this out it could affect you buying model products. i hope this is right.
http://modelingmadness.com/tomseditorial.htm

[Anonymous]

Hmmm


Rgds Ian

[bman36]

QUOTE: Originally posted by iandor

Hmmm


Rgds Ian

I'll say! Yikes. Rgds eh...Brian.

[grandpopswalt]

Hi Ben,

Thanks for making us aware of this website. I've e-mailed Rene and asked her and Marc to take a look as well, maybe we can start a campaign of e-mails as suggested on the website.

Walt

[vsmith]

Read it, doesnt surprise me, its just the same as the Union Pacific licensing fee BS.

Corporate lawyers and greedy companies out to ruin the country by squeezing any possible cash source dry. Like UP, I see a large potential public opinion backlash against them.

[kstrong]

I'm quite honestly not at all surprised. It stinks of corporate greed, but that's nothing at all new. Remember, the railroads in this country were built out of corporate greed. A model company can't make a Ford Mustang® kit without Ford's okay. Why should we be the least bit surprised when an aircraft manufacturer makes the same deal with a model company? Ridiculous? You bet! Sky falling? I don't think so.

The fact is, arrangements like this have been made for years, we just don't hear about it. If a railroad has X locomotive, and a company wants to come measure it to produce a model, there's a good chance that the railroad will say "sure, come on over, but we want something in return." Most manufacturers are more than willing to make such arrangements with owners of various locomotives. I've had discussions with Accucraft along those lines. I don't know if this is still the case, but there were (are still?) plans to have limited quantities of a version of the C-19 available only through the Colorado Railroad Museum. They would keep the procedes from those sales in return for providing the prototype for Accucraft to take measurements from. While the greedy corporations may see a minute revenue stream, such arrangements can be a tremendous benefit to tourist railroads and museums who historically struggle for income.

Hogwarts? Thomas? Ring any bells? Exclusive arrangements, my friends. Fortunately, the greedy UP lawyers can't tell a manufactuer to not make a Big Boy, at least not based on claims of copyright. They can tell a manufacturer they can't stick "UP" on the side without paying their licensing fee, but they don't have any rights to that locomotive design. It'd be like Nascar telling a model company they can't make a model of a Ford Taurus.

Now, if someone wanted to measure the Big Boy that's at the Forney Museum here in Denver, I'd bet dollars to donuts that the museum would say "sure, but we want something in return."

One more reason to learn how to scratchbuild...

Later,

K

[grandpopswalt]

I guess this is the dark side of the free market system. Nothing is done without having profit as the eventual goal, regardless of how petty it may seem.

Walt.

[markperr]

I guess I'm more surprised that they made an F-16 in 1:32 scale. Doesn't seem like I can ever find a military aircraft in anything larger than 1:48 or 1:64. Now all we gotta do is get Grumman to agree to a 1:32 F-14 and McDonell-Douglas to agree to a 1:32 F-18 and Newport News to build a 1:32 Aircraft Carrier and we got us a Navy. Of course I'll need a forty foot long pond to put the thing in. Hmmmm???[}:)]

Mark