Nice Optimus and Yamato Builds!

[ARMORMAN]

Masamune,

Just wanted to say that you did a nice job on the Optimus Prime and Yamato (envy,envy,...gotta find a way to get me one...) builds on your site!

A-Man

 

[Masamune_Washington]

Thanks.

The Yamato seems to be still available through HLJ.com where I got mine (probably the best price you're gonna find aside from piracy).
http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljpage.cgi?WNM29817

Optimus Prime is a different matter all together, I've been debating over how I will release it. I'd hate to make any deals with Hasbro, and don't know how they'd react to me putting my product-of-a-non-competing-type (they don't make cardmodels) on E-bay. :?:

 

[ARMORMAN]

Optimus and other things

I hate to say it, but your safest bet is to:

A. Give it away.

B. Change the name of the character (like, say, "Prime Leader" or something like that) as I do resin LEGO aftermarket pieces for sale and have done that:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?m=ARMORMAN

The WORST thing you can do is to try to sell it on EBAY or any other auction sites....they watch those like a hawk (corporate lawyer told me that).....the exception is if you sell it as a one-off or some such nonsense...it really depends on how anal their lawers are...

As far as the Yamato is concerned, I'll have to wait until I get some $$....on the upside there is a Japanese mall and bookstore in the NW Suburbs of Chicago....

 

[Masamune_Washington]

WANIMAGAZINE's Yamato is a good investment and a large build (being 3' long made it difficult to get to my friend's party intact). I have it on my list to design a foot-long simplified easy-build version.

--

For Prime one working plan was to label it "Konboi" (literal conversion from Jap.) to put it on Ebay. Mostly to check reaction, bonus if it clears through and concludes. Should it successfully go through that would set the price.
This of course does risk my Ebay rating. I know dizney rapes and pillages anyone they believe might annoy them, I haven't heard any stories about Hasbro though. They can also sue you even if posted on the web as a free kit (dizney style tactic).
Directly contacting Hasbro is another option, maybe making a contract with them, royalties for my design, or some such faint hope.
Another standing issue is whether or not to hold Prime until I finally get Megatron finished. Convoy itself only needs instructions for the hands added to make it complete.

To further distinguish Konboi from a tradmark character there are several color options.
The blue cab of "Pawo-do Konboi" (Powered Convoy AKA Ultra Magnus). I've seen the blue parts black, a yellow cab color, and the white cab versions. A curious remark was made on one message board in a long chain of rants about the '20th Anniversary Convoy' toy, something about "gay pride colors" as the members were exchanging insults (I am unclear what "gay pride colors" exactly are though). :?:

Given the current economic status the world's condition has put me in, I'm forced to seek financial reinforcement. What better way than to _try_ with my higher-end designs.
Insults, ingratitude and this curious belief that "cardmodels are always free" displayed by some are great deterants to my meager benevolence.
As it has been stated before, the greatest protection for a cardmodel (whether against piracy of your kit, or tradmark/copyright suits against you) is to not release it. :twisted:

 

[barry]

Copyright

Trademarks are precise, Copyrights are a big leaky bucket and refer to publications.

If you copy the whole of someones Copyrighted design you are stuffed.

If however you design something for publication, in the same class of object you are allowed to do that under the odd law of plagiarism, otherwise no one could write a dectective story after "The Lady in White".

You must of course publish your work by printing it and sending it by snail mail to yourself or another, claiming copyright and you must keep all your doodles, notes and designs to prove you produced that design.

Disney and IBM can be beaten, I have my own version of IBM's bios operating system somewhere and at one time a whole load of debts to go with it.

If your design is earth shatttering, someone with a lot of money will probably pinch it, make the profits, then settle several years later out of court. If you have the will to keep pushing.

By the way the English law on Copyright is generally accepted to take precedence.

To quote Maurice I accept no responsibilty whatsoever for this missive if you are daft enough to act on it.

barry

 

[Masamune_Washington]

Say no to lawyer-talk

OH NO! :shock:

I need to stop this here and now to avoid another one of those tedious and drawn out group dialogues on ownership rights.

I am adequately aware of all sorts of real, possible and imaginary scenarios involving ways I can win, lose or die-from-boredom about this issue.

This forum will not greatly benefit from yet another foray into the morass of legal morals. What this thread of messages IS about is the WANIMAGAZINE (or other) Yamato, and the Convoy model(s) that may/may not be available.

Please, let us be civil and not devolve into lawyers :lol:
If you must; take lengthy discussion of this sort to another forum, maybe "Everything else" will suffice for this use.

--

The intentions of my Konboi product is to produce it onto high-grade colored cardstock for packaging and conventional shipping.

"Konboi" and "WaltherPPK Gunrobo" may provide complications should a corporation pursue me (bored lawyer syndrome), but I assure all that from the pencil sketch concepts with teriyaki stains, to the final colored and printable vector product, was designed from scratch based on memory and reference data. The only ownership that could possibly be disputed are resemblences to existing character(s), this fact is enough to cause me personal worry as one lone victim before the immense Capitalist hydra of toy manufacturers.

While "Konboi" can be wrangled with there is a secret project I'm running which will assure me no legitimate legal danger (unless someone wants to sue me for being in the same country when they spilled coffee on their own lap).

P.S. Maybe creating a "Copyright Discussion" forum without a moderator will give some people something to do and bring up the rate of new messages ^_^;

 

[ARMORMAN]

ebay it!

I'd say go for it...in regard to copyright, it is more than a 20% change of the original material...(heck, it's a 100% change - the original was plastic and metal!)....worse they can do is tell you to stop....anyhoo....my 2 cents....

on a related topic, I am working on a famous design myself....will keep you abreast as things develop...

 

[ARMORMAN]

AAAAARRRRRGH!!!!! Wanimagazine Yamato is in backorder status!!!!! :x

 

[Gil]

Masamune,

The internet toon idea replete with supporting paper models still stands..., should we talk?

Best regards, Gil

 

[Masamune_Washington]

Comic stripping

Gil,
Mentioning it before spurred me into action, but it's not my first run with this type of media (no, I DON'T want to talk about my highschool comicbook attempt >~&lt.

http://jove.prohosting.com/~madanger/[ooc3]/[ooc3].htm

So far my comicstrip is slow and unexciting -_- Gotta fit a catgirl in there somewhere ^-^
At least it's ahead of schedule, the models are still intermingled CAD files though. All I have ready is a mecha that appears in the story during September (based on current release schedule).

This won't stop me from participating in a better venture though... It's been going since February and I've gotten NO unprovoked response on it >_<

Anyway, I'm game. We can start in a new message thread (hmm, I guess this is the right forum), or go private Email; who knows what ne'er-do-well is waiting to steal our great ideas ^o^[/url]

 

[barry]

Hi

i didn't know where else to post this but I thought that your EFSF RX78-2 Mobile Suit Gundam was extremely impressive. Especially the hands.

barry

 

[Masamune_Washington]

See new thread
http://cardmodels.net/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=4281#4281