{"id":7564,"date":"2005-02-03T08:42:55","date_gmt":"2005-02-03T15:42:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2005\/02\/03\/down-in-flames-2.html"},"modified":"2005-02-03T08:42:55","modified_gmt":"2005-02-03T15:42:55","slug":"down_in_flames","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/02\/03\/down_in_flames.html","title":{"rendered":"Down in flames"},"content":{"rendered":"

Okay, I’m truly outraged now<\/a>:<\/p>\n

For over half a century, kits have been sold that enable military history buffs to assemble scale models of military ships, aircraft and vehicles. But that era is coming to an end, as the manufacturers of the original equipment, especially aircraft, are demanding high royalties (up to $40 per kit) from the kit makers<\/strong>. Since most of these kits sell in small quantities (10-20,000) and are priced at $15-30 (for plastic kits, wooden ones are about twice as much), tacking on the royalty just prices the kit out of the market. Popular land vehicles, which would sell a lot of kits, are missing as well. The new U.S. Army Stryker armored vehicles are not available because of royalty requirements. Even World War II aircraft kits are being hit with royalty demands. <\/strong><\/p>\n

These royalty demands grew out of the idea that corporations should maximize “intellectual property” income. Models of a company’s products are considered the intellectual property of the owner of a vehicle design. Some intellectual property lawyers have pointed out that many of these demands are on weak legal ground, but the kit manufacturers are often small companies that cannot afford years of litigation to settle this contention. In the past, the model kits were considered free advertising, and good public relations, by the defense firms. The kit manufacturers comprise a small industry, and the aircraft manufacturers will probably not even notice if they put many of the model vendors out of business. Some model companies will survive by only selling models of older (like World War I), or otherwise “no royalty” items (Nazi German aircraft) and ships.<\/strong> But the aircraft were always the bulk of sales, and their loss will cripple many of the kit makers. Some of the vehicle manufacturers have noted the problem, and have lowered their demands to a more reasonable level (a few percent of the wholesale price of the kits).<\/p>\n

(Emphasis above mine.)<\/p>\n

I cannot begin to express how asinine I, as a one-time model-maker, think this behavior is from these aerospace manufacturers — especially since the aircraft in mind were designed for the US government, i.e., the taxpayers.<\/p>\n

Though it goes right alongside copyrighting images of the Eiffel Tower<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(via Boing<\/a>Boing<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, I’m truly outraged now: For over half a century, kits have been sold that enable military history buffs to assemble scale models of military ships, aircraft and vehicles. But…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-moguls"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":44073,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/03\/a-survey-of-soldiers-kits.html","url_meta":{"origin":7564,"position":0},"title":"A survey of soldiers' kits","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 3-Aug-14 9:47am","format":false,"excerpt":"What troops (British troops, in this case) have carried around with them over the last century millennium. \u00a0Very cool. Inventories of war: soldiers' kit from 1066 to 2014 From the crude weaponry and armour of the Battle of Hastings, to the high-tech kit of modern conflict, a new photographic survey\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41457,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/18\/wait-you-mean-you-actually-have-to-process-them.html","url_meta":{"origin":7564,"position":1},"title":"Wait, you mean you actually have to PROCESS them?","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 18-Mar-14 4:03pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Who'd have known. (Shakes head.)The general excuse for having rape kits go unprocessed is, \"Well, we don't have enough money\" and \"We only process the ones where we think there's a good chance of conviction.\"The former excuse, as noted, is bushwah. How many municipalities, even with partial grants, are busy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10689,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/11\/18\/flying_cars_and_jet_packs.html","url_meta":{"origin":7564,"position":2},"title":"Flying Cars and Jet Packs — the Military Edition","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 18-Nov-06 2:03pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Cool article on various attempts, from the 40s through the 70s, to develop 1-2 person flying platforms and small vehicles for the Army. Ultimately, they turned out to be...","rel":"","context":"In "Cars"","block_context":{"text":"Cars","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/cars"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/airgeep.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12881,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/09\/13\/snow_leopards.html","url_meta":{"origin":7564,"position":3},"title":"Snow Leopards","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 13-Sep-08 9:53am","format":false,"excerpt":"Not a diorama. And real, cute-as-buttons kits. Fun....","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3113\/2853645122_9aa301fded.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":136808,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/21\/protecting-the-administrator-not-the-environment.html","url_meta":{"origin":7564,"position":4},"title":"Protecting the Administrator, not the Environment","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 21-Jun-18 7:41pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Meanwhile, back in Scott Pruitt Land, we're building a private army, complete with \"tactical polos,\" holsters, and bullet-proof vehicles and breaching kits. The security spending is approaching $5M.I thought the Environmental Protection Agency was set up to, you know, protect the environment, not the business-friendly administrator. Scott Pruitt Has Spent\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43280,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/26\/recyling-single-use-batteries.html","url_meta":{"origin":7564,"position":5},"title":"Recyling single-use batteries","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 26-Jun-14 2:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"For a long time I was storing all of my used up alkaline AA, AAA, and 9-volts for some sort of recycling. \u00a0I finally looked up information in it to discover, as noted here, that they are no longer considered hazardous waste, so I've been slowing adding them back to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}