Sorry for Our Hobby!..but Busines are busines! And I’am sure about of Two Things; We have enough boxed kits to build for the rest of our Lives! So I let these legal things go to the limits! And second, at these days in Mexico my Country, the kits disapered from the Discount Stores Two Years Ago because the principal manufacturer went Bankrupcy!
I suppose if necessay they(the model companies) could play the “likeness” card, in that they arent actually building a Boeing 747 or a Northopp whatchamhoosie, but simply a likeness, altered slightly enough for it to be considered a new/unique creation.
Sure, us modeler’s wouldnt get to build the So-In-So’s WhatCha’MaJigger, but we’d all know what it was supposed to be and we could sufficently customize it to be the actual thing.
I must state for the record one of the things I find lacking in the model industry is the innovation. Sure, there’s tons of great kits of things that already exist, either in a real or sci-fi sense, but there’s nothing thats, well, original. I see many lovely and fine kits of various things, but they’re all “likenesses” of something else, I mean, how often do you see an “original model kit”?
Though, as far as liscensing goes, with the exception of military kits I do believe there is some sense in liscensing fees. I mean, sure Bandai is a huge comapny, but it had to get rights to build XXX Gundam from the Sotsu/Sunrise corp. I mean, technicly, my taxes paid for X battleship(or my grandparents taxes anyway, but Boeing has a point that it did some up with an original design.
So while I want the modeling community to live, there is some truth to the liscensing statements.
No the “Likeness” card won’t work. Look at the kit car industry that the manufacturer’s (particularly Ferrari) managed to kill. They won in court and managed to close 90 percent of the kit car operations almost overnight.
And we can’t count on our elected representatives as it is obvious that they count importance in votes and dollars and few worry about right and wrong. (witness all the screaming about eminent domain ruling & the total lack of action.)
No, this argument will have to be decided in the courts. I suspect that if the large modeling manufacturers were really concerned about this, they would have formed a joint legal action force for fight it. Heck, it could even have a sliding scale of contributions so even us little guy builders could contribute to fight the cause. The ACLU manages to come up with the money to fight their battles. And there are A WHOLE BUNCH more people within the scale modeling world that would contribute than there are people that would even think about contributing to the ACLU.
Hey! there’s a thought. I’d kick in $10 to fight this. I think most of you would too. Get all of the modeling publishers to kick in. And the manufacturers… We could raise $20 million easy.
Wanna do something instead of just complain?
What to do? Simple… pay more for your kits, scratchbuild or find a new hobby.
Theres no real way around it. Legally they are dead to rights in this licensing business, just ask Disney or Coca Cola about it. Same thing here, only now the legal suits have figured out what Disney has known all along and are trying to get there blood from the turnip.
All we can hope for is that the corporations that own these rights, dont try to extort so much tribute from the model manufacturers that the manufacturers have no choice but to drop that companies product or market it at a price so high no one will buy it.
Everyone can put down the torches and pitchforks!!!
Here’s a note that was sent to me by a modelling buddy on May 25.
"I wanted to give you an up date on the status of the “Military Toy Replica Act” bill. As we discussed at our recent club meeting, some US defense contractors wanted to charge model manufacturers a licensing fees. All this would do is increase the costs of the kits we buy and add to defense contractors’ profits. As US citizen taxpayers, we already paid for the 1-to-1 vehicle once.
I was pleased that my district’s House Representative, Thaddeus McCotter, was one of the 4 House Representatives who sponsored the bill (HR 4806) to prevent defense contractors from charging any licensing fee to model manufacturers.
Please see below (the email response from Thaddeus McCotter’s office) that this bill was passed and barring any catastrophic turn around it will become a law. I’ve included my original email for your reference on the details.
Many thanks to all those who made the time to call and email their State representative. As I understand, the contact effort from one person represents 1500 silent people who would support the issue but don’t make the contact. These people would provide their support in a vote (or their representative’s re-election campaign) so there is value with making the contact with our political representatives.
A great victory for the modelers was achieved as well as keeping US military history alive and valued."
-------------- Forwarded Message: --------------
From: “Manning, Alex” <Alex.Manning@mail.house.gov>
Subject: Military Toy Replica Act
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 16:20:57 +0000
I just wanted to let you know the provisions in the Military Toy Replica Act (HR 4806) were included in the Military Quality of Life Appropriations Act, which was passed last week by the House. The stand-alone bill is still active, but unless something very strange happens between now and the end of the year we expect the prohibition on defense contractors from charging fees for models will go into effect sometime this year without actually having to pass the bill.
If you have any questions, please let me know.
Thank you,
Alex Manning
Legislative Director
Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (MI-11)
1632 Longworth House Office Building
202-225-8171
Sweet, that certainly closes the issue effectively, but… what about other countries’ aircrafts or armors though?