Harley Davidson replacement graphic

[WildWestDesigns]

as to moneys, the law is pretty lenient if things are for personal use and/or no moneys are involved at all.... you have the right (at least in some countries...) to the freedom of expression - However, as soon as expression turns into making money off of someone else's intellectual rights, well then there is tort involved as you took moneys that they could have charged.

That may be, but has little baring here if it doesn't apply here. We do have editorial rights to use something, but in my non legal mind, that wouldn't translate to this situation). Some countries recognize abandonware as a legal term and not just a technological one (I wish this concept would come here stateside, but I doubt it alas (could also make a case for legacy marks as well using the same method)).

 

[BigNate]

That may be, but has little baring here if it doesn't apply here. We do have editorial rights to use something, but in my non legal mind, that wouldn't translate to this situation). Some countries recognize abandonware as a legal term and not just a technological one (I wish this concept would come here stateside, but I doubt it alas (could also make a case for legacy marks as well using the same method)).

not sure which 'here' you are referring to... I am in the U.S.A. and have been told as such about moneys from attorneys... there really is this concept in U.S. law that says there must be damages to bring action.... I have been told by a few attorneys that students are allowed to use any graphic they want in their class projects and as long as it is for class and not reproduced beyond personal and for teacher, it is allowed. And here in the U.S.A. copyrights, patents, and trademarks all have expiration dates....

and going back to the original situation.... if the logo is printed by the owner of the vehicle with no moneys transferring anywhere, then it is my understanding that Harley could complain and file whatever paperwork they want, a judge will throw it out - no moneys, no damages, no tort.

I remember reading about a young man who built his own 'Lamborghini' - it looked pretty real, but was mostly just cardboard and bondo over a frame... Lamborghini sued (it looked THAT real), but since it was his own vehicle and he did everything on his own there was no recourse for them. an individual can just about always use other people's intellectual rights for completely personal use.... just never, ever, ever sell something, part or all....

 

[WildWestDesigns]

not sure which 'here' you are referring to... I am in the U.S.A. and have been told as such about moneys from attorneys... there really is this concept in U.S. law that says there must be damages to bring action.... I have been told by a few attorneys that students are allowed to use any graphic they want in their class projects and as long as it is for class and not reproduced beyond personal and for teacher, it is allowed. And here in the U.S.A. copyrights, patents, and trademarks all have expiration dates....

and going back to the original situation.... if the logo is printed by the owner of the vehicle with no moneys transferring anywhere, then it is my understanding that Harley could complain and file whatever paperwork they want, a judge will throw it out - no moneys, no damages, no tort.

I remember reading about a young man who built his own 'Lamborghini' - it looked pretty real, but was mostly just cardboard and bondo over a frame... Lamborghini sued (it looked THAT real), but since it was his own vehicle and he did everything on his own there was no recourse for them. an individual can just about always use other people's intellectual rights for completely personal use.... just never, ever, ever sell something, part or all....

And big companies have gotten extensions on those expiration dates as well.

Here is the thing, in this situation, I can't imagine this transaction being done for free. Rather it's a cash or other barter form of transaction (anything over a certain $ amount is considered as like it being a cash transaction, regardless if the payment is done in say chickens). Shoot Disney has made it incredibly easy for people to embroidery Disney and Marvel characters on their own (usually the cheap home embroidery machines have those designs already digitized and in the memory of the machine).

The problem is when one goes to a professional to get something done. Very rarely is it down for free without something in exchange, be it money, chickens/eggs whatever.

 

[Bobby H]

as to moneys, the law is pretty lenient if things are for personal use and/or no moneys are involved at all.... you have the right (at least in some countries...) to the freedom of expression - However, as soon as expression turns into making money off of someone else's intellectual rights, well then there is tort involved as you took moneys that they could have charged.

Fair comment versus money-making enterprise seems like a pretty clear difference. If you want to create some "fan art" and paint it on the side of your car or house you should be able to do that as long as you're doing that work yourself and not paying someone else to do it. I've heard stories of IP owners such as Disney suing people to take down such artwork. There was the famous case in 1989 where Disney sued 3 day care centers in Florida that had murals of Disney characters painted on the buildings. But those were commercial businesses. Disney might not have bothered if such a mural was painted on the side of a private home by the home owner.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Oh absolutely. And they still get extensions on protections that they shouldn't get. Although, to be honest, it appears different for me, if there is an IP still within a smaller company or family versus a faceless corporation.

Many faceless corporations are buying the smaller guys just for their IP. Look at pharma for an extreme example, it's a huge drag on the USA's ability to innovate when one large firms concentrate the ownership of research, patents etc and don't allow anyone else to build off of it. This is why I don't like the system, business should be competing on product effectiveness and quality. You don't need protection if you innovate and sell quality and giving these far reaching protections diminishes the effectiveness of free market capitalism. You know, as I understand things, if 3M didn't screw up on their air egress patent application, they would be the only material supplier with this feature. What good is that?

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Fair comment versus money-making enterprise seems like a pretty clear difference. If you want to create some "fan art" and paint it on the side of your car or house you should be able to do that as long as you're doing that work yourself and not paying someone else to do it. I've heard stories of IP owners such as Disney suing people to take down such artwork. There was the famous case in 1989 where Disney sued 3 day care centers in Florida that had murals of Disney characters painted on the buildings. But those were commercial businesses. Disney might not have bothered if such a mural was painted on the side of a private home by the home owner.

They go after everyone. My friend made a website for football tailgating and the University went after him for using the same commercial font as the college did. That was just a personal site they used to grow their tailgate party.
Problem is, even if you are right, they can still sue you and the cost to prove your case can easily bankrupt a small player or individual.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Many faceless corporations are buying the smaller guys just for their IP.

Look at a lot of the entertainment industry as well.

I think people would be surprised just how many truly unique companies are truly out there (unique as in not having some type of connection to one another outside of being in the same industry).

Look at pharma for an extreme example, it's a huge drag on the USA's ability to innovate when one large firms concentrate the ownership of research, patents etc and don't allow anyone else to build off of it.

I have quite a few issues with that being a nutritionist (granted equine, but not much difference in the bigger picture) by education. I think people would be far more surprised at the lack of needing to be beholding to them, but I digress.

 

[Bobby H]

Many faceless corporations are buying the smaller guys just for their IP.

Oh yeah. For something that hits closer to home, look at what has been happening to the type industry in recent years. Monotype has been buying up other type foundries for the past 20 years, but their rate of buy-outs has increased noticeably in the past few years. Monotype also bought up the most popular online fonts stores (they now own MyFonts, Fonts.com and FontShop). Independent typographers are struggling to be able to sell their fonts without having to deal with Monotype as some sort of gate keeper. Some type designers are selling out and quitting the business. By the way, Monotype is owned by a private equity company. I think that partly explains their interest at cornering as much of the type market as possible.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

I think people would be far more surprised at the lack of needing to be beholding to them, but I digress.

I just meant in terms of research. Once someone has a patent on one puzzle piece, it's off limits to anyone else and that stifles innovation. A lot of these things aren't exactly technological breakthroughs as much as they are an anticompetitive move. It's like having a bag of bolts that you know needs nuts but some jerkoff owns the rights to the nuts and wont let anyone else use them. Or they sell them for an exorbitant amount knowing that you have no choice if you want to use your bag of bolts to build your shed.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

I just meant in terms of research. Once someone has a patent on one puzzle piece, it's off limits to anyone else and that stifles innovation. A lot of these things aren't exactly technological breakthroughs as much as they are an anticompetitive move.

I would argue that it's worse. If one looks hard, see that a lot of the research is within things that are found in nature. The problem is, can't patent nature, so it has to be changed in order for it to be patented. That change, in my mind, is what gets people (the list that the commercial has to go 4 times speed to get through in the limited commercial time slot).

I don't agree in totally abandoning it, because if we do that, some of the protections that people take advantage of in here, would be casualties to that as well. I will say that the ability to use say patent 1, whose protection is about to expire, in the research of patent 2 thus extending patent 1 protection since it's in use for another patent is probably your biggest issue, but I'm speculating. The irony is, a lot of the stuff is found in nature.

Oh yeah. For something that hits closer to home, look at what has been happening to the type industry in recent years. Monotype has been buying up other type foundries for the past 20 years, but their rate of buy-outs has increased noticeably in the past few years. Monotype also bought up the most popular online fonts stores (they now own MyFonts, Fonts.com and FontShop). Independent typographers are struggling to be able to sell their fonts without having to deal with Monotype as some sort of gate keeper. Some type designers are selling out and quitting the business. By the way, Monotype is owned by a private equity company. I think that partly explains their interest at cornering as much of the type market as possible.

Thankfully, I have a nice font collection that's robust enough to cover my needs, but even if I get something now, I make sure that they aren't connected to any of the big guys and so far they are not. The use cases are also very, very niche, so I think that helps them fly under the radar as well. I tend to use a program that also handles fonts directly, not thru the system loaded fonts, so support for older deprecated formats is still there even though the system may not support them.

But you are right and it's going to get worse now, as consolidations are going like gangbusters and it will be no bueno for us.

 

[Bobby H]

All the mergers, buy-outs and monopolization will lead to ever more financial squeezing of end users, customers, etc until we end up in our next great depression. This private equity mindset or ideology that has infected much of the business world knows no sense of balance. These greedy idiots are only interested in short term gain even if it involves them eating their seed corn.

The private equity company that owns Monotype isn't exactly keeping it a secret that they may ultimately sell Monotype to someone else. They're just pumping up the portfolio of type foundries Monotype has swallowed like the Borg Collective to score an even bigger payday. Who knows what will happen from there if Monotype is sold? Will Monotype even exist after that? I can imagine buzzards picking over a carcass.

In the broader economy, all the financial squeezing being done on the most basic aspects of life is going to end up killing this nation's future. I'm pretty worried how conditions may be 20 years from now. The 2040's may seem like they're far on the horizon, but it sure seems like we went from the year 2000 to 2024 pretty fast.