| PT: ...Showing that scaling has occurred is not of itself enough to | identify a copy. Imagine scaling the cross sections of a hull, down | 20%, and the length up 20%. It strains the usual idea of "copy" to | accept that such a different shape is a copy. | | SB: Peter, I think you're really straining ethics with all this | legalese. If you're scaling someone else's original work, even if | you're taking one dimension up 20% and another down 20%, it's still | their original work. ...| | Could you scale someone else's design like that, pass it off as your | own work, and still sleep at night? Are all these arguments an effort | to sleep at night with the Nadgee in your boat shed? PT: With this example, I was moving away from the Nadgee situation, and speaking more generally, and of course, with the 20%, exaggerating to make the point. I agree with the sentiment that scaling up or down or both, owes a debt to the original design. Regards the Nadgee, I am comfortable with its origins, almost. The one retrospective wish is that the original references to the Max had been done clearly with Mariner OK. Subsequent events, such as the design moving away from the Mariner blowups, and opportunities to take the issue up, but foregone, make me comfortable with the end result. My present wish is that repeating this short summary does not cause the Cantankerous Boat Designers Club of North America to need treatment for high blood pressure again. SB; I'm the proud owner of a Guillemot that has been scaled up in length | 6%--from 17' to 18'. It's still Nick Schade's design. All the good | aspects of the design are his. Any unintended flaws in that scaling | are mine. PT: I'm OK with that. Where it gets tricky is if you had introduced deliberate changes away from the direct scaling, from your own preferences and aims for the boat. How much of the new work is required before the original boat designer says, like Rob Bryan and the Chupacabras, "Don't worry about attributing that boat to me, it's now new and different". I don't think there can be a definitive answer to this, detecting the elements from the original design, or noticing the new aspects, is in the eye of the beholder. (Stay down there rolling John, this can't be put into a formula). SB:| Ethically, the Nadgee is a bold-faced copy of the Max. Using another's | efforts for your own commercial gain is wrong. If one person copied | the Max for personal use, it's really not hurting Mariner. If that | same person is selling a closely copied kayak for commercial gain...how | is that okay? PT; There is quite a bit in these comments. I don't agree that the Nadgee is such a copy, relying on what I know from Dave at this end. The proposition that using another's efforts for commercial gain is wrong, leads to a divide in values. Some may say that is progress, enterprise, others that it is a ripoff. I hope I have been careful with whatever I have put in posts in this thread not to be advocating using a design without permission or attribution. But if it is done, without any illegality, isn't that open market competition? I think you are right to point to a difference between copying a design for commercial purposes and for private purposes. In the commercial context, designers have to expect that if they expose their designs for sale, they have whatever legal protection is available, and nothing more, don't they? SB: Generally, all kayaks are inspired (positively or negatively) by a | kayak that has come before them. How much do we pay in royalties to | the Inuit and Aleut for their centuries of design iterations? PT: Nothing. But full respect and credit to all earlier makers and designers. And this, I don't like the idea of stopping development at this point. If somebody wants to take an idea and change it, experiment with more or less the same shape, fit it out differently, see how the hull shape goes with a finer bow, or more rocker, or broader angle of entry etc, why the hell not? | Can we put this to bed? Happily. Cheers, PT *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
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