A kayak as a mold

I'm going to add just one point here:

Copyright is all about execution and nothing about an idea. An idea can not be protected by copyright. (To a limited extent, an idea can be covered by a patent, though.) In boat design, this means you can make a boat that is very similar to an existing design, in the respect that the new design strives to do the same thing that the existing one does, but you have to either purchase a licence to the old design or do the entire design work yourself, from scratch.

There are cases where the line between drawing inspiration from an existing design and out right plagiarism is less than clear, but making an exact copy of an existing craft is clearly copying, and thus without question requires permission.

 

Dcockey

Jeremy - I have read a substantial portion of your "Efficient Electric Boat" thread and use it as a resource. Some fantastic work there.

What is the difference between "stealing" a kayak design by using it as a mold for personal use, and breaking into someones house and stealing goods? Huge Jeremy, and the law agrees.

Seems to me a little righteous to think that what ever your mind thinks of is patent protected, including the "Hard work" to put it on paper. (note hard work doesn't entitle anyone to compensation of anysort)

You could try and submit the design for protection, but I guess that would be a tough case, especialy for such an aged product (kayak).

That being said, I don't intend to imply it is not possible.

Note the information in DCockey's post. That would be from a business perspective, absoulutely not from some hobby boat builder in their garage making a personal craft.


Again the realm of hobbie kayak building is far far away from the business of kayak building.

 

As far as I can determine I can make a boat exactly like another boat without violating copyright. Copyright does not apply to tangible items like boats, only to the intangible such as words and images.

I previously posted about this in several previous threads including http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/splashing-law-37405.html and I'll copy some of what I posted there.

Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U. S. Code) to the authors of "original works of authorship", including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works."​

Above is from the US Copyright Office website: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.pdf

There have been several international treaties on copyright which most countries subscribe to including the US, so the scope of copyright is generally the same in most of the world. Ability to enforce copyright in a foreign country depends on the laws of that country.

Copyright does not apply to functional objects. The lines, curves and text contained in a boat plan are subject to copyright. It's usually a violation of copyright to reproduce a set of boat plans without permission. Boats built to a particular plan are not subject to copyright.

A review of the US and UK copyright office websites finds that copyright applies to artistic works, including sculpture, and architecture. There are no references to it applying in general to shapes.
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/fa...ect.html#elvis
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy/c-about.htm
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy/c-a...isticworks.htm

The last link from th UK in the section about artistic work includes:

In the case of a drawing of an article to be mass-produced, there will only be copyright in the article made to the design in the drawing if the article itself is also an artistic work. This would have included something that could be called a work of artistic craftsmanship. However, design right protection might exist for such an industrially produced item even if there is no copyright. Applying for a registered design is another possibility.​

The lines, curves, text, etc on the plan are what is covered by copyright, not the idea of the shape. From a US Copyright Office website: Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation If hull shape was protected by copyright then a firm as Bonito boats who had the means to go to court over someone directly copying their design and pursue the case the to US Supreme Court would have cited copyright law.

Perhaps an analagous situation is a recipe. This is from a US Copyright Office website:

How do I protect my recipe?

A mere listing of ingredients is not protected under copyright law. However, where a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions, or when there is a collection of recipes as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for copyright protection.​

In the US architectural work became subject to copyright protection in 1990 through a specific provision of copyright law, and architectural work is defined as “the design of a building embodied in any tangible medium of expression, including a building, architectural plans, or drawings.” Boats are not buildings though.

In the US at least software copyright and intellectual property rights are covered by different law than copyright for other works.

 

Thanks for the kind words - that thread is an example of hard won information from several people being freely shared, with no intent to profit from it.

However, I take issue with your other point. If I were in the business of making kayaks and I had spent hundreds of hours perfecting a hull shape that had great performance in its intended role (be it white water slalom, long distance sea kayaking or whatever), and, if I was in the business of making a living from selling my hard-won experience, then I would consider someone who decided to make an exact copy of my hull shape, by taking a mould from it, to be a thief, plain and simple.

If you can come up with a better term for someone that steals the work of another, then good for you. No matter what any particular state or nations laws state, theft of another's intellectual property is the same in my book as theft of anything else they may possess.

 

Splashing laws have been tested and upheld in courts around the world. As have unique shapes incorporated into products, be they Coke bottles or wing keels. Again, theft is theft and he who hath the deepest pockets generally wins. As a rule thieves don't have pockets of any reasonable depth, nor likely gray matter either.

As to the violence aspect of my previous posts, I've found some personality types require this type of reply to their actions, before they "figure it out on their own". While not necessarily the most legal avenue of pursuit, often a much more efficient means to an end. I generally don't condone it, but have on occasion availed myself of this option, typically when all other means of relief have been expended.

 

Can you provide any references for splashing laws which have been upheld in US courts and are currently in effect? The US Supreme Court invalidated Florida's splashing law in 1989 in Bonito Boats vs Thunder Craft. http://www.law.uconn.edu/homes/swilf/ip/cases/bonito.htm Congress later passed the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act to provide a method for protecting the shape of boat for 10 years if registered and meeting the other requirements of the law.

The shape of the Coke bottle is protected because it is considered a trademark. Wing keels may be able to be protected for a limited length of time by a utility patent if one is applied for and granted.

None of this has anything to do with the morality of splashing or otherwise copying the design of an existing boat.

 

The announcement of decision in Bonito Boats vs Thunder Craft is available at http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1988/1988_87_1346/opinion/ and is much more concise than the written opinion. The US Supreme Court was unanimous in that decision which is unusual.

 

I think you need to separate the differences of “copying”.

There is physical copying. As PAR noted from his opening salvo, if you take a mould from another existing boat, say a kayak, then yes, that is theft. Since someone took time to produce that hull and if there is a dwg that shows this hull in various views, ie a Lines Plan, with said person’s name on it, as the originator, then it is indeed theft. Theft of that person hull shape by physical means.

If however, you saw the hull, and drew some lines up yourself, but not taking a measurement whatsoever from the hull in question, perhaps save for length and beam, then the shape you produce shall be unique to you and is therefore yours. That is visual copying.

There is a difference between physically copy, as in the CD/DVD example PAR used, and then just looking at something visually and creating your own from what you see. Copying something visual or audible takes no effort on your part other than some “means” to copy the source data. You have done nothing, just copy.

Then there are those that say..hey, isn’t looking at something copying too. Well, yes, but it is plagiarism, and also comes in several forms. One being flattery!

If you drew up your own lines from just looking at another’s hull, do you know how it shall perform?...in other words, do you know what it should weigh…do you know what the strength of the hull has been designed to meet do you know the cost and so on?..and once you have built your boat from your drawings, does it still do what it says on the tin, does she meet speed carry what you want, go out in the seas you want etc??..ie meet the SOR.

It is very easy to copy visually anything. But if that “something” has an application beyond visual (such as a painting) and audible (music), then it is intellectual or functional “theft”.

The latest Aston Martin looks just like the latest Jaguar, looks like the latest Maserati etc. As a shape, they are all very very similar. Some would say exactly the same. And to all intents and purposes, this is true. If you measure the differences, it is only because you can measure that you’ll spot minor differences, since from several meters away, you won’t notice any differences, visually in their shape.

And this is where something that has function is different from that which is purely visual and audible. The function of these 3 cars, as an example, each has a different performance and cost, despite looking the same. If you open up the bonnet or the door and sit inside, it is very obvious a different car. Intelligence has gone into creating something that is, beyond the initial shape, very different, to have ‘function’.

Thus if you copy a shape visually, ie draw it yourself but then you copy everything about the shape to make it function this is theft. So, if you drew your own lines, but then copied the structure the layout the engine whatever, this is theft by the back door. As you have not created anything that defines the “function” as any different from the original, other than the space envelope, to side step that which most look at in terms of copying, the visual looks. (like a painting). You have copied all the “intelligence” behind the functionality.

If you drew up your own lines, from just looking at another hull..and then worked out the weight, make it…either did tank testing or with your finished boat took it out on sea trials of sorts to establish what it can and can’t do…then from several meters away the 2 hulls/boats may look the same, but their performances are different, as the source data is different and unique, as far as one can be unique these days. They may well even perform and cost exactly the same (just as many cars do like the Aston and Maserati), but the source data is unique and original.

Plagiarism is everywhere….one is theft one is not. You need to understand what it is you’re copying.

 

There are 2 questions here about splashing:

1) Is it wrong (morally)?

2) Is it illegal?


Until a little while ago my understanding was "yes" on both. But after reading DCockey's links, it looks clear that #2 is "no, it is not illegal, unless the design is patented." Many things are wrong but not illegal. Can anyone here show that it is, in fact, illegal?

 

This is where it all goes wrong.

People copying and blatantly copying but trying to wriggle out of the fact they have copied. They cite..where is the law??

I don’t need a law to tell me that to kill another person in cold blood is illegal. I don’t need a law to tell me that to walking into someone else's house and help myself to their beginnings is illegal etc.

Laws are, or at least should be, created to protect its citizens, not to portion blame to settle a dispute which should never have arisen in the first place. That is what education and morals are supposed to do. And the “morals” should reflect the society in which one lives of “right” and “wrong”. Especially when any theft/copy is obvious, but the perpetrator is wriggling out of his/her moral sense of justice (in the society that s/he lives in) by asking for where is the law that makes it illegal. If one is “allowed” to do copy, under “there is no law”, or the “law that does exist is lame and cannot hurt me”, it is a reflection upon the society of how it views others and property of others.

A patent means nothing. It does not define ownership, only that someone has registered “something”…it does not require nor seek to establish the originator, only whether the “idea” has been registered within that administrative system before. In the US a patent can be given for an idea…no means of how “it” actually works is required. Hence the endless patents taken out in the US compared to the rest of the world. Plenty of wannbies want to take out patents to make a fast buck on the back of someone else that eventually has actually done the hard work and spent money on trying to make “the” idea, actually work.

If person A created “something” but either didn’t have the money or didn’t feel the need to registry their “something”, then just because person A didn’t register a patent with an Administrative system before say person B comes along and does with person A’s “something”, doesn’t make person B the owner. That in my book is also theft. A race of getting something into a “system” to claim ownership for financial gain is not about ownership or who is the originator, it is just about paper work.

These patent systems are self fulfilling.

If you copy you know you have copied. All you’re trying to do, is get away with it because there is “nothing” to stop you.

 

Just so everyone is clear, I'm not in the boatbuilding business and never have been. The only boats I've built have been my own designs.

My postings about the legal aspects of protection for boat design are intended to clarify and explain what is legal and illegal, at least in the US. The UK is similar, and most other countries have very similar copyright laws.

What is moral and ethical is a different question.

 

UK law provides protection for a new design which is a 3D shape for 10 or 15 years, and provides exclusive rights for 5 years. More information at http://www.ipo.gov.uk/design.htm

 

From memory there was a similar case in Aus as well, splashing was not considered to be a copyright violation, NZ at least you would have to register the design, I imagine Aus is the same

 

John sums it up about as well as it can be, but I'll add, though I have both patent and copyright protections in place, they're worthless in a realistic setting. I'll get back to this.

I am "inspired" by things all the time. I have a custom schooner on the table right now, just finishing up the conceptual phase and firmed up the lines. It's heavily based on the west coast lumber haulers in the golden age of sail, though several elements are "my take" on other designers ideas. I've studied these "other elements" and am comfortable with my interpretation, but didn't use any single or specific example (read another design) or dimensioning to develop these "features. Some of these features were a client requests, while others I talked him into for one of several possible reasons. The net result is a classic schooner, with a relatively modern under belly, auxiliary propulsion, conventional and innovative systems. It surely looks like it could be off the board of several designers of note, some dead, some still active, but if you know my work, there's no mistaking who penned it. It's the homogenization of dozens of different yachts and their setups, but still an original work (of art I might add, because you don't get schooner commissions very often).

The point is I was influenced by many different trends, innovations and arrangements. Appreciating clever engineering or design isn't protected, but direct theft is and appropriate protection is assumed of course, other wise the point is moot.

Back to the actual protection, which I eluded to in a previous post. Reality is he who has the money to vigorously defend this afforded protection(s) will usually prevail. In fact, more often then not, the reverse is true and the deeper pockets party, just waits out the other side until they're drained of interest, money or both. This is a little less then ethical, but a sound business decision, practiced daily. It's the more cost effective method in most cases as well, which is why it's a good business decision. This is a classic tactic in civil cases. An example would be avoiding a settlement buy waiting until the plaintiff or defendant passes away. This tactic is used very often, particularly in insurance cases with elderly policy holders. Not especially ethical, but sound business if you believe in the current republican model.

In short, unless you have enough money, backbone and life span to defend your protection(s) they're worthless.

 

Boo Hoo!
Westerners are sad that Elizabethan Laws are not universally respected in the Digital Age.