Ethical Scratcbuilding

[rubbergauge]

Hello,

This is my first post on this forum. I admire many of the past HO scale structures offered in kit form. I visited several layouts after the last Expo and saw the beautiful FSM and South River kits in finished form as well as others on these layouts. I'd like to do some in O gauge and since they are no longer manufactured and never offered in O would it be ethical to ask this community for copies of plans from some of these kits and build an O gauge copy?

thanks,
Joe

[rubbergauge]

Just to be clear, these builds would only be for my use on my layout.

thanks,
Joe

[jerryrbeach]

Joe,


First of all, welcome to the forum. 


You raise an interesting question.  Last evening a modeler friend and I had a conversation regarding making copies of structures offered by manufacturers no longer in business.  I'm not sure we reached any "absolutes" by the end of our discussion.  I have seen similar questions posed before, and it usually results in a discussion of the nuances of copyright law.  I'll be interested to see what answers are posted to your question.   

[JusticeCity]

Don't make an exact copy of the kit. Make some visible changes then it is a new creative endeavour and then you own the copyright. If you keep it for your own personal use you are ok.


Is it ethical to take photos of the prototype structure and produce a kit and sell it? Hmm, its a strange situation because prototype buildings are explicitly copyrighted by someone and you need written permission to do it.  Now with the new USA copyright timelines who knows


Ok, lets the rebuttals begin.

[GPdemayo]

Welcome to the forum Joe. 


All the designs we did for 1:1 high end residential residences were copyrighted, but all someone had to do was change some small detail (move a door, change the cabinet arrangement in the kitchen, etc.) and that negated my rights to enforce my copyright. 

[S&S RR]

Let's debate nail holes again.    Joe - as long as your building for yourself there is no reason not to use whatever resources you have available to you. Just have fun doing it. The only issue that I see is if you do it for someone else or for profit. Welcome to the forum I hope you will share your work with us.

[ACL1504]

Let's debate nail holes again.

OH no, please not again.    


Tom

[ACL1504]

Joe,

Welcome to the forum.

If it's just a matter of getting plans, I'll make you a copy of any of mine you may need for your project.

Tom

[Mark Dalrymple]

Just as an aside - Builders in scale offer plans of many of their craftsman kits.  Also there are many plans of structures large and small in Model railroader and Railroad model craftsman magazines - some of which have been turned into the super kits (American model builders Dabler Mill for example) and some great ones that no one else has.

cheers, mark.

[NEMMRRC]

Welcome to the forum and boy did you pick a hot one to get started here 


I know at least one retired kit maker that had to take legal action when his kits were copied back in the day. But I believe that was because the copy cat made the copies a business venture.


My take on it, If you can take a photo of a structure (prototype or not) and replicate it in miniature then I have no qualms buying you a round of sweet iced tea at the next Forum Expo get-together.


If a modeler is willing to gift you his or her no-longer-needed drawings/plans/templates/what-have-you from an out-of-production mega craftsman kit, then I have no reason to make an issue of it. I mean, you can have my old unread copy of War and Peace and what you do with it is up to you.


One thing is paramount, whatever you end up building share it here because we love pictures.


Jaime

[jimmillho]

The NMRA Library has plans for a lot of old Kits and will sell you a copy of them.

Jim

[Slim Jerkins]

I think the only kit manufacturers that had decent "working" plans were Campbell, S.S. Limited and Builders in Scale.


FSM, SRMW and SWSM had/have excellent instructions but they don't have plans like the above mentioned manufacturers -templates for sub assemblies perhaps but not plans.


-slim

[NEMMRRC]

The earlier FSM kits came with full size drawings. They were good enough to help a modeler reproduce the intended structure. I bought an empty box with the instructions and drawings for the original FSM grain mill. It's on my list of stuff to tackle one day. I'd like to recreate that mill from the full size drawing that came with the kit.

Full size in HO :-)  I'm certain one of you wisenheimers was sure to quip in ....

Jaime

[BandOGuy]

I haven't sat down with a Makers Mark and done any serious cogitating on this issue. I've had the Makers Mark, but not the thought process.
Without taking sides on the issue, I can tell you that there a LOT of plans for old kits no longer being manufactured on www.hoseeker.net. You said you're building in O scale, but the plans could be resized at Staples for example, or the dimensions may be there to convert to O scale.
In exchange for this vital information, I ask that you please post any results of your quest on this site. You may not yet have seen one of our mottos, "We Love Pictures".

[Random]

Welcome to the forum.

On the subject of out of production kits, many kits we think are no longer produced have been purchased by other companies and are still offered.  This has been a limiter on some of my builds as it would be much more cost effect to copy old Magnuson Models wall sections but most of those kits are still offered by Scale Structures.  So I hunt down bargains or bite the bullet and purchase new.

With any kit that is truly out of production you are likely to be unable to exactly match the structure anyway.  Window and door castings are often older metal castings are often the limiter.  So the best you can do even with plans in hand is approximate. 

My technique for modeling any building based off another model or a prototype structure is to find widows and doors from Tichy or one of the other manufacturers and then use those to scale an approximation of the original structure.  My goal is usually to capture the feel of the structure and not worry about exactly matching it.  Graph paper, window & door castings and a general understanding of floor heights and stud spacing is enough to lay out a convincing structure.

Tichy offers window and door assortment sets than can give you a starting point for choosing the starting point for your builds.  I use these to pick out the windows and doors I want and then order more of the specific parts.  My Leroy's Grill and Stone station builds both began this way.  These sets are often available at a discount from MicroMark.

As to the topic of modeling nail holes there is one question I have never seen addressed:  If you model a nail hole this implies the nail has fallen out, so how do you model the nails fallen to the ground below? Particularly in HO or N scale.