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New Airfix P51


224 Peter

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6 hours ago, tempestfan said:

No, of course the RA does not exist for 75 years. But anyone can register RA, AMI and the relevant insignia as trade marks. I suspect this may have been proposed by said manufacturer- however they (Italeri) just as well could have registered it by /for themselves.

However, the raison d‘etre of TMs is to protect manufacturers of goods and their customers from pirates using well known brands for their inferior product. The AMI never sold any model kits with their roundels as indication of origin (neither does any kit manufacturer) so I have doubts whether any TM would stand a court test if challenged. I am not familiar with Italian TM laws but have an idea of EU and German law, and TM law is highly synchronised, for obvious reasons. They may have issued a license based on copyright, but I‘m not convinced the AMI can claim a copyright on the markings. In either case, I‘m doubtful whether such exclusive deal is compatible with EU law, though the volume may be below the threshold for public tender.

But what’s the worst that may happen? Airfix not reissuing their G.50 and S.79, and kits not including Italian decals. The Czech brands may be hit a bit harder, but then they probably will break down fasces and AMI roundels in fragments as they have done with swastikas for ages. I think this is a lot easier to circumvent than the Boeing TMs as calling an A-4 a „US Navy Attack Jet“ ... well, does look somewhat odd... but then some manufacturers - wasn’t Italeri among them? - have refused licensing from Chrysler and called their kits „quarter ton US Army truck“ or similar.

 I‘d be really interested in learning when exactly this (in Italy) happened - if under Berlusconi that would really be no surprise whatsoever, but if fairly recent it would just confirm what I think of M5S and Lega - not intended to become political.

Your views are enlightening. News about Italeri being the sole rightholder began to spread in 2016 if I recall correctly, under the centre-left government preceding the current day Lega-M5S administration. To my knowledge, but I can be wrong, there's no extant official document stating that the manufacturer holds the copyright on Italian air forces markings, past and present. I've just searched their web site in order to find out an explicit mention of that, but to no avail. A warning light of some interest to our question could be the logo present on some catalog's pages advertising and direct-selling aircraft kits with Italian decal options, such as the 1/32 TF-104G Starfighter:

 

https://www.italeri.com/en/prodotto/2738/1/1

 

The blue square on the right side of the page next to the box-art illustration brings the AMI emblem on the left while on the right the manufacturer qualifies himself as the product's distributor as well as "Official Aeronautica Militare (AMI) sub-licensee". To me, this sounds a trifle obscure; its meaning maybe relating to the fact that AMI buys stocks of Italeri kits on a regular basis to give them away as propaganda and public relations material. At the moment I ignore what other, different conjectures could be done. 

 

On a final note, as you have already considered, it is doubtful that a such-termed TM , if any exist, would stand a court test if challenged since it is believable that Italian TM law matters have already been absorbed by EU higher-ranking legislation.

 

 

Edited by Francesco Blasi
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I had a look in the TM Register, indeed all the Aeronautica Militare TMs are registered for the AMI, with the first application dating back to 2009. There are NO hits for Regia Aeronautica, however.

Edited by tempestfan
Adding the RA sentence
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On 1/25/2019 at 10:01 PM, TheRealMrEd said:

I strongly feel that in the same way that official U.S. government photos (of aircraft or anything else) cannot  be copyrighted by anyone, then any aircraft type purchased by the U.S. government (read U.S. Taxpayers) should in any way be ab;e to be copy-written either.  Now as for the civil aircraft developed and paid for with their own money -- that's another story....

 

Ed

 

No, thats not the case at all. Contractors own the IP for their designs full stop with only a handful of exceptions. Its no different than anything else in life, the US government is a customer and is purchasing a good from a private company; that doesn't give you the IP. 

 

There's been some changes in IP ownership rules in regards to defence items over the past five years, but even then the contractors own major parts of the IP... but its a long boring discussion and not germane to the conversation (and I can get into the weeds if you want).  

 

Honestly, its more of a defensive measure to protect them than some effort to generate royalties. The practice has been going on for the past twenty years or so, and I'm pretty sure they don't charge companies (I know in other instances like with games, they don't). However it allows them to prevent uses which would reflect badly on them (perhaps maliciously directed towards them). 

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On ‎23‎/‎01‎/‎2019 at 01:16, 224 Peter said:

 

What is the world coming to when Multi-nationals demand that kit manufacturers licence the Intellectual Property?  How much of the price of the kit is the royalty payment to Boeing? 

Dunlop recently refused to allow Airfix to mould the word Dunlop on the tyres of the Blenheim. 

 

 

 

Surely this is a two way street? If a kit manufacturer expects help to produce a kit from a manufacturer of the prototype, there is a cost digging out drawing reference photo et al. I'm reliably informed the fee is indeed modest (in the scheme of things the cost is does not reflect on the rrp of a kit) and is more about the copyrights being acknowledged as well as help and advice given.

 

This is not new, the vast majority of kits based on film or tv subjects have needed a licence for decades and those licence fees are far from modest, the small  fee Airfix paid for the licence on the P51 and others in their range pales into insignificance in comparison for those  wanting a tv/film licenses particularly, sc-fi ones. In  these cases the licensor will often dictate box design prominence of font and if it a run of kits corporate style too as well restrict the release to certain territories.

 

A storm in a teacup methinks.

 

Tommo.

Edited by The Tomohawk Kid
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I doubt many mainstream kit manufacturers would go to such lengths during new kit preparation process and if any of them would, I doubt aircraft producers or IP right holders would bother searching their archives for actual drawings or unpublished photos. Cottage industry (uncompromising scale world fanatics - sounds familiar?) is another story but even the most persistent and persuasive resin or vacform kit manufacturer would receive limited response from world-class aircraft manufacturer's PR service. In very improbable case of PR personnel actually knowing what are they looking for there would be tens of meters of shop drawings to wade through even in a case of single-seat single-engine fighter and that would be more than enough to put off even the most dedicated employee. Otherwise I agree with you, Tommo: it is a storm in a tee cup, and no one at Boeing or Airbus is going to loose any sleep over few guys ranting on web forums. Sad, but true. Cheers

Jure

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Without going too far off thread, I vaguely remember, way way back, that no airline wanted their 'markings' on models in Travel Agents' windows.

All that is except Virgin, who saw the advantages of free publicity.

Can anyone elaborate on this, or is it just that my memory is fading.....

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Hello, Denford

I do not know about UK travel agencies, but around here their windows were usually well stocked with such models. I can clearly remember one about forty years ago with both JAT and Inex-Adria Aviopromet DC-9-30 metal models (quite a large scale, too, must have been between 1:75 and 1:100 IIRC) in its window. There had been more models inside on desks and counters, but unfortunately all in the same two liveries. I vaguely remember some agents may have had Aviogenex models too, but I cannot recall of which type. Cheers

Jure

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18 hours ago, Jure Miljevic said:

I doubt many mainstream kit manufacturers would go to such lengths during new kit preparation process and if any of them would, I doubt aircraft producers or IP right holders would bother searching their archives for actual drawings or unpublished photos.

Jure

 

Jure,

 

Most major aircraft manufactures have an archive dept or library and the cost of the licencing kits go towards the maintanence of that resource, yes they do go to those lengths to help.

 

But, as mentioned further up the thread its  as much about making sure the 'the brand' is kept in a good light and not having artwork like US Airfix did back in '60s.

 

Tommo.

Edited by The Tomohawk Kid
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16 hours ago, Denford said:

Without going too far off thread, I vaguely remember, way way back, that no airline wanted their 'markings' on models in Travel Agents' windows.

All that is except Virgin, who saw the advantages of free publicity.

Can anyone elaborate on this, or is it just that my memory is fading.....

 

As far as I can remember, I can go back to the late '60s airlines would kill to have models with their livery in travel agents windows.

 

Tommo.

Edited by The Tomohawk Kid
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On 28/01/2019 at 13:53, tempestfan said:

I had a look in the TM Register, indeed all the Aeronautica Militare TMs are registered for the AMI, with the first application dating back to 2009. There are NO hits for Regia Aeronautica, however.

Now the picture starts to take shape. Guess you are meaning that Italeri doesn't appear as an official TM assignee. But then they qualify their own brand as "sub-licensee". What does that imply? That they have got the copyright on aircraft kits featuring Italian markings? Curious to ascertain this very aspect...

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Hello Tommo

Agreed, manufacturers keep their archives but in the case of North American there were several relocations and two changes in ownership. That means plenty of opportunities for old files and drawings to get misplaced, lost or accidentally destroyed. Of course documentation for operational aircraft (like B-1) can be accessed with only few mouse clicks but I suspect original North American documentation is at best stored away somewhere at Boeing, half or completely forgotten. Cheers

Jure

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You'd be surprised. While I don't know the exact situation with Boeing and its subsumed subsidiaries, I know with Lockheed and EADS, they are scrupulous in their maintaining the database of historical documents. Boeing itself has restored the actual original building they started operations in Boeing Field, and their original documentation is painstakingly preserved there. Given the outsized role McDonnell Douglas has within Boeing, I think it wouldn't be any different for them either. 

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I am surprised, and pleasantly so. Now, my next wish would be for Boeing to cooperate with a mainstream kit manufacturer and treat us with a decent 1/72 rendition of kits like Clark GA-43 airliner and perhaps Douglas DC-9-32? If they do that, they can print INFORMATION PROVIDED BY BOEING all over the box in big red flashing letters, as far as I am concerned. Cheers

Jure

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2 minutes ago, Jure Miljevic said:

I am surprised, and pleasantly so. Now, my next wish would be for Boeing to cooperate with a mainstream kit manufacturer and treat us with a decent 1/72 rendition of kits like Clark GA-43 airliner and perhaps Douglas DC-9-32? If they do that, they can print INFORMATION PROVIDED BY BOEING all over the box in big red flashing letters, as far as I am concerned. Cheers

Jure

Just to give you an example, the following is an article from Code one magazine, which is a Lockheed In-house publication, talking about the Three bearing swivel design on the back of an F135 engine for the F-35. Its origins was from General Dynamics' Convair division in the 1970s, which LM acquired in the early 2000s. They've got several convair original drawings/designs published in the article. 

 

http://www.codeonemagazine.com/article.html?item_id=137

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On ‎1‎/‎22‎/‎2019 at 5:24 PM, colin said:

Greed I'm afraid, if they think there is money to be made

I'm not really sure about that, do you think that Boeing whilst selling multi $Billions worth of aerospace producsts thinks it needs to turn another few thousand $ on model sales?

 

I don't know what it is? personally I'd have thought there is PR and engagenment value in licencing for free these things, getting people into aerospace and being possible future employees as engineers and technicians etc. I know it worked for me.

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Since I started this thread I've been doing some research to try and find out why some companies are so careful about protecting their back catalogue of IP. 

 

The value of the "Brands" and "Good Will"associated with the "Brand" are now frequently included in the value of the assets of the Company. 

Ultimately this helps support the share price, or so I'm told.  So taking possession of the back catalogue of names and identities makes, to the accountants and lawyers, sense. 

To prove the IP is being protected it is necessary to enter into licensing agreements, even if only a token amount of money changes hands. 

 

 

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I'd be inclined to agree with you, I absolutely can't see it's about making money (in the main) or it's just about IP, but it's about protecting the brand. Brands may well be worth a lot of money and are part of a companies assets, and companies may not want their brands to be a free for all and uncontrolled.

 

Interesting thread BTW.

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Boeing has been somewhat selective, as they registered European TMs for T-6 Texan, B-25 Mitchell and F-86 Sabre besides the MUstand and many MDD types, but not e.g. for the OV-10 Bronco. Maybe I should do this and then retire on the plentiful proceeds ? 😉

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9 hours ago, Agent K said:

I'm not really sure about that, do you think that Boeing whilst selling multi $Billions worth of aerospace producsts thinks it needs to turn another few thousand $ on model sales?

 

I don't know what it is? personally I'd have thought there is PR and engagenment value in licencing for free these things, getting people into aerospace and being possible future employees as engineers and technicians etc. I know it worked for me.

And how many grant these licenses for free, no company big or small is happy with their turnover, it's all about % increase year on year, and every little helps

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