Comments on: Watch out there’s a pirate about

By: Martin

Martin — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:21:26 +0000

My Mum ran “Kingfisher Models” in the 80’s and 90’s and there were at least three cases of people using her white metal castings as patterns for their own products. It got so bad she started to manufacture in “tells”

I agree the Guild should do more

By: wunwinglow

wunwinglow — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 08:09:21 +0000

I had a similar problem a while back when I made model aircraft parts. A Solicitors letter to the company in question, in the USA, just generated a denial, but a copy of the letter to their UK distributors, a big outfit with a 100% reputation, got results!! They obviously leaned on them, and the parts were removed from their range. The copies were exact repros of my etched parts, but they even copied my instruction sheets and diagrams; the only thing they changed was the part identity numbers on the diagrams were white numbers on black circles, instead of black on white!! The text was word perfect copy, they even uses almost identical product codes to mine!

The fact the legal trade were employed so promptly seemed to stop the rot in that case. It cost a couple of hundred pounds, but i think it was worth it.

The ‘kite mark’ would be a good idea, but another thing I used to do was change things very slightly, the odd rivet slightly out of line, a radius changed here or there, nothing that is obvious but that you can identify. Then if the castings are ever copied, these features will still be there. You need a few, but if it ever comes to court it makes proving things a great deal easier. If both parties claim to make ‘exact’ models of a real loco, a non-technical judge or jury might expect similar models to also be identical even if made by different people, but if you can list some documented ‘tweaks’ to your model, demonstrate them with pictures etc, then show the self-same featues on the pirates work, it will be clear how they made their moulds!

I hope this pans out for you. Pirates are everywhere in the model hobby world!

Tim

By: pete

pete — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:02:23 +0000

I have heard from Dave Andrews who thinks that some sort of kite mark may be the A
answer.

By: johnrich

johnrich — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:54:10 +0000

Chaps,

I don’t know what the legal niceties are of naming and shaming and I wouldn’t knowingly buy a pirated item. The problem is that with mail order the customer may have already given the trader the money before he or she even finds out it is a pirated item.

So wherever possible I say name and shame !

Regards

John

By: curly472001

curly472001 — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:54:33 +0000

Hi Pete,
Well put. I know of a kit manufacturer who saw an item on another traders stand. He thought it looked a bit familiar and sure enough it had been copied. He had a go at the trader but not sure it was ever fully resolved.
I’ve tried to buy castings for my own scratchbuilt efforts from some of the kit manufacturers. Some will supply but others won’t . I can sympathise with their point of view . Things aren’t so easy for us metal bashers now that Home of O Gauge has finished.
best wishes
Graham Powell

By: pete

pete — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:25:31 +0000

I agree I got caught with one of these.

By: e27006

e27006 — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:13:34 +0000

Not only are those wagons pirated copies, they are DEFECTIVE pirated copies.

Take a look at the bogie wagons, (you know whose they are) they are warping under their weight.

In my book, the Cheapo cr*p turned out to be the most expensive stuff I’ve ever bought.