Model Railroading > The Cloning Business

While many here got all upset over Big Dawg selling Cast Resin shells of customized models using commercially available parts, the act of cloning models goes much further back and happens on a much larger scale than Big Dawg. Some of the most popular Chinese Model Railroad Manufactures essentially copied popular freight cars, locomotives and building kits of US firms. I see it all the time where you can two models that outwardly look identical, but a close inspection reveals key differences. This mostly happened during the 1980's in the lower end high volume markets, but many of those clones are still be produced today, albeit with upgrades like body mounted couplers. To be sure, there is a long history of molds passing between companies, and that only serves to confuse the issue. I believe legally there was to be a very high degree of similarity for a infringement lawsuit to work, and that original model has to be copy protected in some official process....something I don't believe the manufactures have done. That seems to be why the cloning business has gone on for quite some time.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

It is probably not possible to copyright or patent a model of a protype rail car or locomotive because it is not an original, but a copy of the original, reduced in size. I think that there would have to be a significant difference (other than size) for one to be able to obtain legal protection for a model. Maybe LoggerHogger Martin Hansen (lawyer) can ring in on this question.
Bill Pyper
Salem, OR
 

There was just an interminable thread on the Atlas Rescue Forum on this very topic at http://atlasrescueforum.proboards.com/thread/5418/big-dawg-originals

Short form: Making a replica of someone else's work and selling it as your own has been the subject of lawsuits and in some cases the plaintiffs have prevailed. An attorney specializing in intellectual property can provide a more nuanced and detailed answer.

The legal side protects the time, money and energy in researching the model, producing molds, production and such. It protects you since you do have the right to sell it to recoop the costs of R&D. Take somebody's finished model and making a mold to make casts to sell is ripping off the original maker of the money to pay off the R&D. So even though the, lets say sd40-2, data and pics are all open source, the research time to take that info and make road specific versions and get it to market is not free. That is what the law protects in these cloning cases. They prove they did all the work to get that design to market, they win. This is also the untalked about reason manufacturers do the road specific models, to keep clones at bay, and easier to catch them. It benefits us in lower market price but also we get road specific as well. This makers sd40-2 is not that makers sd40-2 any more.

Shane

Yes, but with few exceptions for out of production resin shells, hasn't everything he "cloned" been a kitbashed variant that is not availible from the manufacture? So it would be hard to argue that the "clone" has cost them money. If anything, it could be argued that they have boosted sales as now people are looking for units to use the drive from, etc. 

And the "default" judgements for "copyright infringement" are actually pretty low if a dollar loss cannot be proven. Not even enough to justify the legal fees.  

funnelfan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> While many here got all upset over Big Dawg
> selling Cast Resin shells of customized models
> using commercially available parts...

It wasn't only rank and file members here, but it was also Jason Schron of Rapido who had some strong words about theft of their intellectual property.  Don't forget.

Cheers, Jim Fitch