What Michael has done with the chopped Seguin is completely above-board, IMHO. He's still calling it what it is--a Seguin; a chopped Seguin. Maybe the chopped deck wasn't Mr. Briant's original intention, but it's Michael's boat, and I feel that he should be free to do whatever he wants to do with it...chopping it, lifting it, burning it at Burning Man. If he were to sell chopped Seguins commercially, he should feel the need to come to an arrangement with Rob Briant (and Michael has already noted this). The panels may have been cut for panels that were once destined for another Seguin, but if Michael came up with new drawings on paper (as opposed to simply tweaking Seguin panel dimensions), applied them to the recycled Seguin panels, and recut them, it's his own. You could fit panels for any S&G kayak under the sun out of a set of Chesapeake 18 panels!! I'm confused why this kayak became part of the discussion of the Nadgee and the Max. Why is this a discussion at all? If you have any question about the ethics of what you are doing, don't justify it with an Internet discussion. Speak openly and honestly and _directly_ with the original designer (if you're "influenced" by someone else's work), and go from there. If someone is copying your design, take them to task. Telling everyone else isn't going to solve the problem. On one hand, I agree with the discussion of the ethics involved. On the other, as Steve Brown's semiconductor analogy notes, why is everything so "defensible" in sea kayaks? In freestyle whitewater boats, if you don't at least build and improve on the other guy's hot boat from last year, you get left behind. (this is merely the formula for keeping up, not getting ahead) Whatever happened to Perception's whitewater kayaks? They used to rule the market. Now they're producing unique recreational kayaks (just like everybody else). What happened to Riot when Corran Addison left? Stagnation. Now Dragorossi is hot. Wavesport slowed bigtime when EJ left. Now his own Jackson kayaks are going to be hot. Pyranha almost disappeared until their latest series of boats, and they're back in the action. Dagger rested on their laurels after the RPM, and only a year or two ago jumped back up with the Kingpins. Did Perception's whitewater line all but die because someone made a better Pirouette (or Dancer or Mirage!)? Did Dagger slow because someone else was making knockoffs of RPM's? Are Corran and EJ worrying about other manufacturers copying the old 007 or X? No, they're moving on and up, and creating fresh new designs. I'm not saying this to justify copying, but jeez, whitewater kayaks show continuous development, lots of it from stepping up from the shoulders of others. Like the boats or not, kudos for WS for the Tempest, and to Necky for the Chatham...at least they're not sitting back, offering Cape Horns and Looksha's in new gelcoat colors, and worrying if someone is copying their ideas. Or if you take the tack that the greatest sea kayaks have already been designed, and there's no room for innovation such as seen in the whitewater or semiconductor market, then we're all just copying the Inuit and Aleuts. Shawn Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Aug 12 2004 - 08:43:16 PDT
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