I get the feeling that a lot of posters in this thread dont have any other hobbies outside of model railroading. I have many hobbies and they ALL suffer from this very same thing but, far far worse. In R/C, there is an entire industry based on copying cars, trucks, planes and helicopters. Anytime a major manufacturer comes out with a new car or heli, you can bet money on there being a copy available within a month. In R/C it is so bad, that most knockoffs can use 75% of the original manufacturers spare parts. Its the same in paintball, the same in scale figures, and its even the same with accessories in my own profession, Firearms. Current patent laws allow for these things to happen so, if you don't like it, dont buy the knockoffs.
Now, I an not one of those saying BD is a knockoff artist. I admit that I own both his product and what he is accused of copying and the difference is pretty obvious. But, honestly, isn't trying to shame someone who is already willing to sell copies is kind of pointless isn't it?
CattDoesn't it make you wonder how Jason can be the only person on Mother Earth that can design a model of this locomotive?
I suppose Athearn could say the same about any of their F units GP38-2s,SD40-2s or the SW1500.. Yet several manufacturers offer these models.
Atlas could say the same about any other track manufacturer.
How many models have we seen announce by two different manufacturers almost back to back?
Just saying.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Doesn't it make you wonder how Jason can be the only person on Mother Earth that can design a model of this locomotive?
I find that fact truely incredable and really quite hard to believe.The shell that Dawg has is not the older Rapido version but the new upgraded VIA version which is not even on North American soil yet.
rrebellYou know you could just scan the loco, 3d print and do molds or feed the info into a cnc machine for the masters.
That also would be at least ethically wrong and I suspect legally wrong. Someone else mentioned that Rapido hasn't "produced a copyright" or some to that effect enforecable across the US/Canadian border. Folks, we've been living side by side in peace for a couple of hundred years now -- and doing business, too. I suspect Rapido, which does business in multiple countries, likely has a pretty darn good internationally experienced attorney on board.
Some guy doing copies of Rapido products in his basement as a "retirement project" doesn't strike me as having a high-powered patent attorney on retainer. I would be really cautious about anyone saying "keep your content at least 15% and you can copy away." Because it's more complicated than that, to say the least, after a little googling around looking at something like "patent copyright trademark infringment copying". Here are a couple of interesting finds...
Look for the link to a pdf of " The Toy Sector and Intellectual Property Rights " here:
http://www.tietoy.org/publications/
Then there is "Copying in Patent Law"; the first ten pages or so provide a good background to this issue.
https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/Lemley_Copying-in-Patent-Law1.pdf
I think Jason is hardly the first affected in this matter, he's just bold enough not to be quiet about it.Got no idea about what his legal options might be beyond this specific post. But I'd suggest that thw Dawg has picked a troublesome business model. By copying the work of many, he's also creating the sort of critical mass that will eventually lead to a backlash. I suspect if an attroney provided the 15% advice, he simply needs the business badly -- and his client may find he needs an attorney. This is definitely the sort of thing I'd get a second opinion on, because I think it simply begs for intervention.
Because the guys with the 3D scanners and printers aren't too far behind. When neat ideas no longer pay, then the industry that provides for us now will move on to where they can still make an honest buck.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Look at it from the manufacturer's point of view .... you spend many thousands of dollars to create a beautiful model, not to mention countless hours of your time with the hopes you can return a profit for all your effort.
Then, somebody takes your product that you've spent so much time and money on, makes a few trivial changes, then starts making copies to sell for huge profits. And by "huge profits", I mean as a percentage basis based on how much time and money THEY spent on creating the shell.
By BDs calculations, Rapidos huge investment of time and money created 85% of his product. You can bet BDs investment (time and money) is NOT 15% of what Rapido invested.
That being said, I could fully accept his business model if he was making the parts required for the variations (cabs, noses, sub-assemblies) for the end user to create - but to blatantly "steal" somebody elses hard work as the basis for your product is morally and ethically wrong.
Mark.
¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ
rrebell wp8thsub carl425 The only copyright holder in this case could be EMD. Rapido should have licensed the copyright from EMD when he produced his model. That's not really how it works. The intellectual property isn't the prototype locomotive, it's the expensive development work and tooling needed to make a model of that locomotive in HO scale. You know you could just scan the loco, 3d print and do molds or feed the info into a cnc machine for the masters.
wp8thsub carl425 The only copyright holder in this case could be EMD. Rapido should have licensed the copyright from EMD when he produced his model. That's not really how it works. The intellectual property isn't the prototype locomotive, it's the expensive development work and tooling needed to make a model of that locomotive in HO scale.
carl425 The only copyright holder in this case could be EMD. Rapido should have licensed the copyright from EMD when he produced his model.
That's not really how it works. The intellectual property isn't the prototype locomotive, it's the expensive development work and tooling needed to make a model of that locomotive in HO scale.
You know you could just scan the loco, 3d print and do molds or feed the info into a cnc machine for the masters.
If it is really that trivial then I don't think this discussion would exist.
I haven't read every word in this thread, so I may have missed this, but US and Canadian trademark and patent laws differ, and just because something is patented or trademarked in the U.S., it's not necessarily trademarked or patented in Canada or any other country. Also, as someone mentioned, it's almost impossible to keep illegal copies of any consumer item out of the marketplace because so many business produce knockoffs. This isn't just Chinese factories undercutting businesses with similar but unequal products -- it's also true of car body shops that use knockoff fenders when repairing accident damage, and pocketing the difference as extra profit.
Shame on Rapido for their petty post.
I find it amusing, no rather ironic, that BD is claming a sort of moral high ground when they are trying to profit some someone elses hard work and intellectual property. Petty? I'm not buying it, any way you look at it.
It doesn't look like most people are buying it either. So far from what I'm reading in multiple forums, public opinion seems to be falling on the right side of ethics. Rapido is a class act and thats a fact.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
mlehman In the long term, this sort of thing is just plain bad for our hobby, even if marginally legal (something I'm not convinced of.) Why should someone invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in developing a model if someone else comes along and starts offering deep discount copies because they've not invested a dime in the original? Why should Rapido do what it does if that investment basically undewrites a low-ball competitor? That's not the way to ensure that there will be new models in the future. It'll sure hurt the Dawg's business model when there's nothing new to copy, but I suppose he'll be comfortably retired by then.
In the long term, this sort of thing is just plain bad for our hobby, even if marginally legal (something I'm not convinced of.) Why should someone invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in developing a model if someone else comes along and starts offering deep discount copies because they've not invested a dime in the original? Why should Rapido do what it does if that investment basically undewrites a low-ball competitor? That's not the way to ensure that there will be new models in the future. It'll sure hurt the Dawg's business model when there's nothing new to copy, but I suppose he'll be comfortably retired by then.
I mentioned this in another post. This is the risk a company like Rapido, and many others, takes when it chooses to earn its living making highly detailed protospecific models, instead of more generic and universial "blue box" type of model that nobody would really want to copy. Apparently, as long as the copier changes 16% of the original's work, it is not considered to be a copy under copywright laws.
The problem for Rapido is that they made a model that people will want to copy. Unlike Irv Athearn who feasted on models that nobody really bothered to copy. I'm not sure that the business model that some of our manufacturers choose to take is necessarily consistent with copyright laws, which is something they probably need to know before they make an investment into tooling a highly detailed model.
I suspect that BD is legally infringing upon Rapido's property if they took a Rapido shell and used it as a casting for their model (or the guy in Canada). But since Rapido never acknowledged it was copyrighted upon BDs request, I assume nothing criminal could be proven.
- Douglas
Graham Line Are we to assume that if I buy a Big Dawg shell, correct the errors or modify the details, then mold and sell the shells under my own brand (I like "Little Dawg" with a cute dachshund on the label) that BD will have no objection?
Are we to assume that if I buy a Big Dawg shell, correct the errors or modify the details, then mold and sell the shells under my own brand (I like "Little Dawg" with a cute dachshund on the label) that BD will have no objection?
I would say yes, because the modifications YOU made that contibuted to your final product are YOUR intelletual property. And, apparently, if your final product is at least 16% different from BDs, it is considered to be a different product and not a copy of BDs
CattFunny how no one bothers to read the part of Dawg's posting on Facebook where he plainly states the shell was designed by a Canadian modeler who strangely enough lives in Canada.
If he's citing the protection of US patent law, I'm not sure revealing a potential cross-border conspiracy involving a Canadian is a very well thought through strategy.
Unless being Canadian gives you immunity from commerical law or something???
[just kidding, all my Canadian friends ]
BD's Facebook reply ....
"I would like to respond to a post that Rapido, a Canadian company, posted today on a site that accuses Big Dawg Originals of stealing intellectual property from them. Rapido apparently does not know US law on patents, trademarks ,and copyrights. I have not stolen their company's design for an F40PH-3D shell. In fact, the master for this shell was not made by me -- a modeler in Canada made it and allowed me to mold and sell it. Basically, patent law states that as long as you change at least 15% of a design this constitutes a change in design. Rapido has not furnished me with patent information for this model after I requested it so I must assume they do not have any type of patent, copyright or trademark for it. My attorney tells me their post is slanderous and a gross defamation of my character. I am simply trying to fill a void in the hobby that I grew up with and do something in my retirement years that I enjoy. Shame on Rapido for their petty post."
What is really annoying to Rapido is people calling for assistance for a product that isn't theirs, and was copied from one of their products. Rapido was quite blunt about not sharing the paint formula, selling detail parts, or the power chassis to people who didn't buy the product from Rapido in the first place.
Why should they?
Funny how no one bothers to read the part of Dawg's posting on Facebook where he plainly states the shell was designed by a Canadian modeler who strangely enough lives in Canada.
Gee, I wonder where he got the information needed to clone that shell? I'll bet it was not from a unreleased (at that time) model of a upgraded Via rail F-40PH.
If two manufacturers set out to make highly accurate models of the same car or engine, you would expect there to be a large number of similarities. The question is whether they do their own research and tooling, or if they appropriate someone else's work to bring the product to market.
If BD was creating kits of resin parts using his own hand-made masters, no one would be raising an issue.
Soo Line fan When P2k cloned Athearns drive train for its Gps nobody cared. Everyone was to busy buying them up to cry about it.
When P2k cloned Athearns drive train for its Gps nobody cared. Everyone was to busy buying them up to cry about it.
Not really the same either. BD didn't just copy a design concept, he literally made a mould of another manufacturer's body shell and cranked out copies.
It's not that he made an F40PH-2 when Rapido already makes one, or that he makes a GP9 when Walthers/Proto already makes one - he's actually using those manufacturers' shells as his master.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
mlehman BRAKIE Looking at those shells for $35.00 isn't a bad buy some may think. However. Think again. Buy a locomotive for the drive,all of the required detail parts,paint,decals and the model will cost as more then the original model at street that already comes highly detailed and RTR.. No deal there.. Larry, You're most certainly correct about the short term cost being rather higher to actaually have something that runs. But that's inidvidual pain for the consumer. In the long term, this sort of thing is just plain bad for our hobby, even if marginally legal (something I'm not convinced of.) Why should someone invest hundreds of thousnads of dollars in developing a model if someone else comes along and starts offering deep discount copies because they've not invested a dime in the original? Why should Rapido do what it does if that investment basically undewrites a low-ball competitor? That's not the way to ensure that there will be new models in the future. It'll sure hurt the Dawg's business model when there's nothing new to copy, but I suppose he'll be comfortably retired by then.
BRAKIE Looking at those shells for $35.00 isn't a bad buy some may think. However. Think again. Buy a locomotive for the drive,all of the required detail parts,paint,decals and the model will cost as more then the original model at street that already comes highly detailed and RTR.. No deal there..
Larry,
You're most certainly correct about the short term cost being rather higher to actaually have something that runs.
But that's inidvidual pain for the consumer.
In the long term, this sort of thing is just plain bad for our hobby, even if marginally legal (something I'm not convinced of.) Why should someone invest hundreds of thousnads of dollars in developing a model if someone else comes along and starts offering deep discount copies because they've not invested a dime in the original? Why should Rapido do what it does if that investment basically undewrites a low-ball competitor? That's not the way to ensure that there will be new models in the future. It'll sure hurt the Dawg's business model when there's nothing new to copy, but I suppose he'll be comfortably retired by then.
Mike,I agree.. There seems to be a lot of that going on.
Did you know the Bachmann 50' outside brace sliding door boxcar is very similar to Athearn's AFC 50' 'Railbox' boxcar? Its hard to tell them apart.
Jim
Graham LineI was given a BD GP30B shell. The long hood is the old Bachmann shell. The skyline casing is nicely done, but the short end has easily-remedied flaws, the steam generator details are a joke, and there are doors missing from the blaned out cab area. Curiously, all of the flubbed details are available for copying.
Yeah, if you're OK with a model being only 84% correct, because the rest needed to be something else no matter how poorly executed, then the Dawg has a deal for you.
I was given a BD GP30B shell. The long hood is the old Bachmann shell. The skyline casing is nicely done, but the short end has easily-remedied flaws, the steam generator details are a joke, and there are doors missing from the blanked out cab area. Curiously, all of the flubbed details are available for copying.
I'm not a lawyer, but I deal with copyright issues every day at my job. Here's a bit of information about copyright:1. Copyright means "the right to copy".2. Copyright laws vary by country.3. You do not need to register a copyright. It's not necessary, but is probably a good idea. All you need to do is prove that the work is yours, and you made it first.4. Copyright spans the author's life plus 50 -100 years depending on the jurisdiction. Once the term of a copyright has expired, the formerly copyrighted work enters the public domain and may be freely used or exploited by anyone.5. Most jurisdictions have copyright limitations, allowing "fair use" exceptions and giving others certain rights. Fair use can be determined based on four criteria regarding the usage. 1. the purpose and character of one's use 2. the nature of the copyrighted work 3. what amount and proportion of the whole work was taken, and 4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. 6. You cannot copy other people's work based on the rationale that "I'm not making a profit from it."7. Just because you bought something, that does not give you the right to make more copies for your personal use or for the personal use of others. Some owners will give you some slack on this. For example, copying backup CDs is probably fine. Making a mold of a resin structure and casting more copies creates some ethical issues.8. You cannot copyright an idea, a name or short phrase.9. Lawyers know when a situation infringes on copyright. They also know the risk of litigation. Sometimes copyright infringement happens because the guilty party knows that the risk of being sued is minimal.10. If you have infringed on someone's copyright and you get called out by the owner, the best thing to do is apologize and stop doing it right away. Hopefully that's what Big Dawg Originals is going to find out very soon.
* Some of this was copied from Wikipedia.
Barry
wp8thsubThat's not really how it works. The intellectual property isn't the prototype locomotive, it's the expensive development work and tooling needed to make a model of that locomotive in HO scale.
Absolutely agree.
Now if Jason was building 1:1 EMD copies to pull his passenger car, then that might be a problem. But a model is a model, which is why our hobby thrives, BTW.
BRAKIELooking at those shells for $35.00 isn't a bad buy some may think. However. Think again. Buy a locomotive for the drive,all of the required detail parts,paint,decals and the model will cost as more then the original model at street that already comes highly detailed and RTR.. No deal there..
carl425The only copyright holder in this case could be EMD. Rapido should have licensed the copyright from EMD when he produced his model.
Rob Spangler
Just wondering where this letter came from, and to whom it was addressed. There's nothing on Rapido's website or Facebook page, and since Jason occasionally contributes to this forum, I figure he would've said something by now.
Dave
Just be glad you don't have to press "2" for English.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ_ALEdDUB8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hqFS1GZL4s
http://s73.photobucket.com/user/steemtrayn/media/MovingcoalontheDCM.mp4.html?sort=3&o=27
My thoughts.. I'll let the attoneys hash out the legal stuff.
Looking at those shells for $35.00 isn't a bad buy some may think.
However.
Think again.
Buy a locomotive for the drive,all of the required detail parts,paint,decals and the model will cost as more then the original model at street that already comes highly detailed and RTR..
No deal there..
Unless Jason wants to spend the next 5 or 6 years in court and paying lawyer fees he should just drop it now. Yes he was ripped off, yes he got screwed but in today's manufacturing in China and other places getting copied is nothing new. It happens to almost everybody from the biggest to the smallest and you have to just deal with it.
It happened to the company I worked for at least a dozen times but yet we survived. You rarely get justice in the courts and the amount of money you have to spend to try to stop it is normally beyond any profit from the item you are fighting for. Bigger companies who have lawyers on staff have a better chance of winning. Sometimes it's best to move on.
Looks like some one in Canada is jealous of Jason's success as a model company. That's the way I see it. Just don't buy anything The Dawg makes. Hit him in his wallet. That's all it takes.
Bernd
New York, Vermont & Northern Rwy. - Route of the Black Diamonds
protolancer(at)kingstonemodelworks(dot)com