Licensing

[proxieken]

I have a question regarding legal issues.

A friend and I are playing around with some things. We have a couple of CNC machines and a plastic injection molding shop. We would like to have a go at making a car body. I have no idea how to get permission to do this. He suggested just calling it something different, but I am not sure that would work.

Does anyone have the slightest idea how to go about this? I tried to find contact info on the manufacturers web site but no luck. And what about companies long gone? How do you get permission to make a Hudson car model? Or Plymouth, or even Mercury? They are all gone now.

Thanks in advance for any pro-bono legal advice!

[reel55]

Maybe email JULES (Pioneer)
He would know -

[JULES]

Happy to reveal some info:-

This subject crops up a couple times a year. Here is an edited version of my previous posts across a number of forums:

I'll try quickly to digest what I've learned (and paid to find out) over the last few years regarding copyright and trademarks....

1/ All copyright holders prefer to be asked before possible infringement of IPR. Any payments due range from fair to zero. Most car manufactures are not in the least bit concerned about a micro (in world sales terms) amount of toy slot cars being made. If the model you want to make is of a now defunct car maker then you really have no way of getting any required permission.

2/ A scale model is a representation of the shape of a 1:1 car. It is not a direct copy. You can't use it as transport. Therefore there is no DIRECT infringement of copyright law. It is not a real life sized copy, merely a derivative representation in a smaller form. It does not do the job or was it ever intended to replace the product for which the copyright exists.

3/ You can print 'FORD Mustang scale model' without a license on product packaging because that is descriptive. You could not use the FORD logo or Mustang script on the packaging (without a license) as they are trademarks. BUT you can scale down the logo to create a scale representation of the mark on the model. The same applies to Ferrari and any other car brand or automotive brand like tyres or oils.

4/ What most copyright holders are concerned about is a/ loss of income and b/ brand damage by poor copies. The original copyright holders, in this particular instance of model toy cars, are not ever in the business of scale model production and neither is a poor scale model of a Ferrari 250GTO likely to damage the Ferrari brand so there is no legal case to answer

5/ Most potential or supposed infringement copyright chasing is done by third party firms that trawl the world for assumed infringements then report them to the owner and then work on a no hay, no pay basis. These cases often begin with a cease and desist communication. When they realise the small potatoes on offer there is usually no point in initiating a high cost legal case.

6/ Most infringement or trademark copying is directly related to logos and passing off a product as 'official licensing' when it is clearly not the case with a scale model EXCEPT if you make a model of a Ferrari and then apply Ferrari logos to the packaging in an attempt to pass it off as official merchandising.

7/ Finally, there is such a thing as retrospective licensing. In the unlikely event that the maker of the slot car – or any product – finds themselves challenged then a well oiled legal procedure is in place to take care of the matter. It really is no big deal.

Jules

[choc-ice]

As an alternative, here's how the makers of the 1999 game "Driver" got around it. They made up their own cars ;)

[proxieken]

Thanks Jules. Very interesting stuff. I was always wondering about the officially licensed logo shown on some packages. This is good news in a way, and allows us to continue plotting.............

[frank9129]

You know what I could use?
An Artin chassis and bushings. It's easy to modify and from China.
Whats good for the goose...
I have been trying to talk my Track Manager into a 3D copier.
Frank

[pgtr]