A kayak as a mold

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by nitsuj, Jun 9, 2011.

  1. PAR
    Joined: Nov 2003
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    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    The last boat I built was a modern daysailor. Returning to the ramp another pocket cruiser sailboater (a Catalina look-a-like thing) asked about it and when he learned that I'd designed and built it he asked "Why?". These are the majority of folks in the world. They don't work on their cars, they don't paint their living rooms a different color, they have their lawns cared for buy a hard working craftsman. If they can't buy it they don't have it, if they need it they pick one out at a store and have it delivered and setup or installed. They'll be the first to go if the "end" comes. Me, I'll drag the generator out of the barn, up to the house and at least have air conditioning while the end is happening or I run out of fuel. At that point I'll rig up a still and make wood vapor or whiskey, depending on which I'll need more.
     
  2. Poida
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    Poida Senior Member

    Exactly Par.
    Everyone on this forum, unless they have just joined has the highest regard for your expertise.

    You have just illustrated that people are different.

    There are people who will buy your design and build the boat. Winners!
    There are people who will try and copy your boat. Losers!

    Don't concern yourself with the losers.

    Another way that has been explained to me in the past is:

    When you light a fire. ignore the 10% that is lost up the chimney. Enjoy the 90% of warmth.
     
  3. nitsuj
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    nitsuj Junior Member

    It is, my understanding anything you write / design / draw is automatically copyright protected. "Engineered design" are copyright protected.

    Clearly inventions must have some form of utility (to be patented). Utility cannot be "owned" by someone, that is incredibly inhumane.

    A (typical) kayak hull is far from an invention. It is no more innovative then a mug. Sure I can redesign a mug, but if it doesn't add utility to the original design it cannot be patented, regardless of how many years I put into designing it.

    More likely then hull design of a kayak being patented, is a patent on the material used to create the Kayak. For example Ram-X. I am not allowed to make a copy of that plastic composite, use that plastic composite, or sell that plastic composite...for now.

    PAR - I liked your comment "They'll be the first to go if the "end" comes. Me, I'll drag the generator out of the barn, up to the house and at least have air conditioning while the end is happening or I run out of fuel. At that point I'll rig up a still and make wood vapor or whiskey, depending on which I'll need more." ....:rolleyes: Glad to have gotten to know who is debating me on this.

    SO, you threaten violence at the first hint of dis-agreement and have end of the world fantasies. oh and feel your thoughts/ideas have some sort of monetary value if you write them down. OKaaay, Gottcha.
     
  4. Nurb
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    Nurb Junior Member

    This is factually not true. A [great] kayak hull form is far more complicated than a mug. Try paddling a cylinder and then a few different kayaks in some difficult water.
     
  5. Jeremy Harris
    Joined: Jun 2009
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    Jeremy Harris Senior Member

    This pretty much sums up your own lack of understanding of the issue, I'm afraid. There is a world of difference between something that is roughly kayak shaped and a decent kayak, and it is the designers skill and experience that makes that difference.

    You still seem to have an issue over being unwilling to accept that people are entitled to be rewarded for their hard work and that stealing their work, by making an exact copy of it, is morally wrong. Perhaps a better analogy is that of the dumb kid in class who steals the work of others by copying it to get through exams. Maybe that's OK too, in your view.

    This smacks of a fairly juvenile attitude, attacking the character of those who have merely set out to debate the morality and legality of theft with you. This forum is well-populated with a mix of boat and ship design professionals and some folk who have spent a large part of their lives designing and building boats for a living. Trying to persuade them that stealing their intellectual property is OK was inevitably going to cause you pain and grief.

    When you're old enough to have acquired ideas of your own that you value, maybe you will take a different view of the value of intellectual property.
     
  6. nitsuj
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    nitsuj Junior Member

    A designers skill and experience doesn't translate to a kayak that could be considered an invention. In fact I could come up with a hull design for a patentable kayak. That said, my design would be near $$ worthless, but the designs created with skill and experience could have $$ value, however might not be a patentable kayak. Both of our designs would be protected via copyright.

    However this is not even close to an issue of intellectual property. If we were talking about making music your point is in the right context. Here, where patent protection is being discussed it has no weight.

    Of course I value intellectual property. A kayak isn't intellectual property, a kayak design is intellectual property.

    Ideas don't have monetary value.

    If I am ever so lucky to come up with an invention, your right I would love to also be entitled to a monopoly on it's distribution, and for the rest of my life. If thought through though, this scenario is not congruent with capitalism and in fact would hinder my own progress with development of said invention, as well as the progress of the rest of the state as a whole. As mentioned by the Canadian Government, "Patents are also an important means of sharing know-how, because each patent document describes a new aspect of a technology in clear and specific terms and is available for anyone to consult." AND "...the document is made public in order to promote the sharing of knowledge."

    I didn't attack PAR's character, I made objective comments (facts) about him from the things he typed in this thread. PAR implying I'm a thief and immature is attacking my character. Glad to see your biased too Jeremy.

    I made the points clear enough for an unbiased view of whether or not it is illegal to copy a kayak by "splashing" it. It is not, except for the unlikely case the hull is patent protected. All else is issue purely with the kayak designer not getting more $$$ out of the design. boo hoo. I'm an accountant and I think I should get 2% of everything I calculate, oh and 4% if I calculate using pencil and paper...because it takes more of my hard work of course.

    Ideology that stipulates ones kayak made from their own design is somehow protected from unauthorized copying is absurd. You have to get a patent of sorts for that kind of oppression on a states citizens.

    That being said why is copyright protection on your designs not enough to satisfy you? Is it not enough that someone can't copy your intellectual property, they can't copy the product itself? The intellectual property (design) is still yours, and the new copied kayak is mine. Splashing a kayak hull to circumvent the monotonous task of reinventing the wheel, errr kayak hull is pretty smart and is far enough away from theft (of an idea) it doesn't show up on my moral radar or the law.

    I also like the second post of this thread and should have left it at that.

    One last possible hole in my argument is some sort of reverse engineering protections. I don't know of any, but maybe that splashing a kayak is a method of reverse engineering that merely through execution somehow violates the protections afforded to the intellectual property via copyright. However since I can buy a CD and emulate the music on my guitar (how criminal of me not to consult first with the original musician) to an audience (or just myself) for free without violating copyright protections suggests to me , still, that splashing kayak doesn't violate protections on intellectual property.

    Since the definition is called for. from again, the Canadian gov'

    "To what does copyright apply?
    Copyright applies to all original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works. These include books, other writings, music, sculptures, paintings, photographs, films, plays, television and radio programs, and computer programs. Copyright also applies to other subject matter, which includes sound recordings (such as records, cassettes or compact discs), performer's performances and communication signals."

    Again, a case maybe made that the kayak itself is an equivalent medium to "Communication signals". However I don't think that is the intent of communication signals being protected. i.e. I heard it so I can reproduce it. = I bought a kayak so I can reproduce it.

    Posting in a forum that is, as Jeremy puts it, "well-populated with a mix of boat and ship design professionals" I'm shocked that none have posted here with some links to information that could clear my muddied, lack of understanding on patent protection in the context of splashing a kayak. If I were a design professional of sorts you bet your bottom dollar I'd know the ins and outs of copyright and patent protections.
     
  7. PAR
    Joined: Nov 2003
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    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    Your continued misinterpretation of the law, reality, accepting tongue in cheek comments as rational, conversion of hypothetical scenarios as personal attacks and an inability to understand you own short comings (you don't know how to build a kayak apparently nor are interested in buying a $20 book on the subject for example) all suggests you need to pull up your paints little boy. After about a decade on this forum, I'm reasonably confident in the view folks have of my character, though not the same would be said of yours I'm afraid.
     
  8. nitsuj
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    nitsuj Junior Member

    Use your kayak designing imagination, of course I could design a complicated mug.
     
  9. Ad Hoc
    Joined: Oct 2008
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    Ad Hoc Naval Architect

    Oh dear, you really don’t understand what copying means at all and you’re trying to justify your inability to grasp simple facts of life and living in a society along with its moral obligations.

    You keep bringing up patents, as if this settles it.

    This has nothing to do with patents. Patents et al, as I have explained before is all about control of information, it has nothing to do with copying someone else’s work. Since said work must be in your system of “patents” for your argument to begin to hold any water.

    If someone decides to patent or copy write “something”, you need permission to “copy” it. (It has nothing to do with ownership and everything about financial gain). Take away this system of patents and copy write and what occurs….people like you who feel no sense of morality on taking work produced by someone else to save you time/money.

    And it is those that say “where is the law” ad nauseam is precisely why patents and copy write came into being. To prevent stealing of some ones work by those that feel no sense of obligation.

    Stealing*

    “To take another’s property secretly, illegally or without permission; obtain surreptitiously…”

    *O.E.D

    So, you can dress this up however you like, you can cite whatever you wish. It is clear you have no morality and no conscience and thus feel under no obligation to pay someone for stealing their work. To you there is no such thing as stealing, because, well, you don’t think so….that’s fine. We know where you stand, deal with it.

    You can join the queue of those that don’t think killing another person etc is wrong, unless a law tells them so. Nice company you’re keeping.
     
  10. nitsuj
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    nitsuj Junior Member

    After reading your end of the world comment, I'm not surprised you could only be reasonably confident how members view your character. Always a bit of doubt, reasonable or not I'm sure.

    I did almost buy a book on how to fiberglass, but googled instead. Seems a practice makes perfect type work, so poop to buying a book on it, may as well just get hands dirty. Best way to learn.

    I have no interest into the science of hydrodynamic effects on a kayak. A rather pointless task for a vessel that doesn't break 10km/h. Stability and tracking are intuitive designs.

    But alas all thats been said and I won't even splash a kayak. Because fiberglass is too rigid for my uses. For my use, plastics are the way to go.
     
  11. Nurb
    Joined: Jan 2011
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    Nurb Junior Member

    What bothers me from reading this is if the vessel hull design protection act doesn't yet afford the same automatic or length of protection of a boat's produced design as other products of design are afforded. I don't think you understand what goes into a successful kayak design. Let me try one more time.

    You say you are an accountant. Let's say you spend 3 years to assemble, write, and edit a book on an aspect that you have become an expert over your career. It takes 1,000 hours or more for you to test and analyze all the data, create a book which flows well, reads well, and is marketable, proofread and check all the formulas thoroughly, etc. This is my analogy for what it takes to design a successful kayak hull - experience, analysis, prototypes, testing, more prototypes, more testing, market research and styling to be saleable. A boat isn't one mathematical formula. It's a complicated balance to produce a unique work.

    Are you OK with someone taking your book, putting it on a xerox machine, and making a copy of the entire product?

    This is what splashing is in my view. Not learning from or quoting a detail or copying a page (fair use), but copying the entire book - the entire product - and not paying you a cent for any of the work you have put into doing all the work to create it.
     
  12. nitsuj
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    nitsuj Junior Member

    Actually I'd pursue recourse in a case that merely captures the essence of "my book". And the law agrees. Here are some cases regarding the harry potter franchise. NOTE: I re-read your post and noticed the hypothetical book of mine being copied would be a textbook on some accounting subject, Let's make it far fetched and pretend I found an improvement to the typical debit / credit system of the G.ledger. Good analogy, see the utility of my idea, the real value, is not protected. That's for all the accounting world to benefit from. Even though I came up with it, it is not an invention. The actual textbook would be copyright protected, and only in a limited way do to the purely educational context of an accounting textbook. To add depth to the analogy, financial statements I prepare derived from the utility of accounting textbooks is equivalent to a kayak being the product of many calculations. While the textbooks I learned accounting from are absolutely copyright protected there is in no way any "reward" of a monetary nature due to the author as I create financial statements via the utility component of their intellectual property. I have literally turned my office chair around to the bookshelf holding my old college textbooks, opened to whatever topic I need refreshing on and applied it directly to my work, what a crook I am! Is the comparison to copying a kayak that is designed from copyright protected work anymore clear?

    Note, in this link the powerful role monetary valuing plays in the moral decision making. Conversely to my argument much weight is also placed on the amount copied. While two different topics (copyright/patents) with two different intents, "splashing" a kayak is 100% copying by definition, less so as I improve the design.

    A wiki link of cases

    I wanted to make an electric kayak. And splashing a hull was an idea on getting a kayak to build on.

    That building on, with the electronic doodads, would be significant in distinguishing my kayak from the one I copied. So even more so I feel I'm right on this. (Unless the kayak is patent protected)

    Ad Hoc - comparing any of this to murder is sick, and way off. Your purpose was transparent.
     
  13. Ad Hoc
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    Ad Hoc Naval Architect

    Gosh you really are terribly naïve.

    See, there you go again,… the comprehension of this is so far over your head you can’t even see it.…QED. :eek:
     
  14. rasorinc
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    rasorinc Senior Member

    nitsuj, can it and call the designer or manufacturer and ask if it is OK to splash it and design an electrical propulsion system to fit this hull. Simple solution and you are clean.
    I have had architects design 100s of houses for me and always asked how many houses can I build per plan. We always reached an agreement and it never cost more then I was willing to pay. Stop acting like Perry Mason.
     
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  15. nitsuj
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    nitsuj Junior Member

    Yes I can imagine. Model building + a science. Kayak hull design taking much time is more art then invention. Unless by design, such as a fishing kayak that needs to be stable so a new pontoon style kayak hull is designed (i.e. is new and therefore an invention) and is therefore patentable. But that doesn't at all imply a certain amount of work being done. (There are great Thomas Edison quotes regarding invention and work that needs to get done to achieve them. That is the product of motivating hard work with a goal of invention, via patent protection rewards, and by God he earned his keep, maybe cheated a little sometimes)
     
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