It all started with me trying to pick my next project, as I talked about a couple of days after Mrs. Graybeard broke her thigh. The obvious choice was a beginner's engine called the Webster, but I felt like going after something that was bigger, and perhaps more entertaining. I recalled seeing a couple of cool engines at Cabin Fever in '15, during our one and only trip there, and found I had posted a video of one. The focus is pretty bad toward the end.
Some of the details are a little more visible (certainly better focused!) in this photo I took.
I did some research that turned up that this was a scale model of a (roughly) 100 year old tractor called a Holt 75. Some more research turned up that the plans and some castings were available from company called Coles Power Models. This is where progress stopped.
Coles Power Models has shut down. The prints don't appear to be available anywhere.
Here we enter the world of copyrights and patents. If someone had a copy of the prints and gave away a photocopy is that copyright infringement? The answer to that is "almost certainly". Copyright law now says that a work is copyright to the author for their life plus 70 years. When possible, the copyright flows to the next of kin, however in this case it seems the originator of the Holt 75 engine plans (or his descendant) probably sold or transferred their copyright to Coles Power Models. That's something I don't know how to track down.
It's my understanding (and IANAL), that the process of going to trial over copyright infringement depends on damage. Let's say I buy a book to use in the shop (as I did) and copy the pages to bring into the shop so that when they get oil on them, I haven't ruined my book. Is that damaging to the copyright holder? No, they made a sale already and at most they lose the sale of a replacement copy. Copying a handful of pages out of a book you bought for your own use is certainly "fair use". If I make a copy of the book and give it to a friend, have I damaged the copyright holder? That's probably considered damage, but courts would probably not go to the expense of a trial for being deprived of one sale. To cross the threshold into going to trial, I would have to be making copies and selling them, undercutting the copyright holder's sales.
Questions like this come up on the hobby machinists and engine makers' forums all the time. Part of the problem is that everyone knows we're in a small, specialized hobby, and wants to keep the suppliers of such plans in business for the future. People split hairs in making decisions, saying "if someone bought the plans but didn't make the engine, I'd buy them, but if they made the engine I wouldn't." I think of the plans like a cookbook. People sell and buy used cookbooks everyday. Every city has a used book store. Does it matter if the people buy the cookbook but don't make recipes vs if they have made many recipes? Can't say I've ever heard of that question.
There are people who sell plans to their engines online by way of emailed .pdf files. An alternative is the seller who prints out the drawings onto paper and mails them to the buyer on demand. In both cases it's easy to see these people being damaged directly thanks to this "on demand" distribution.
I had to conclude I had no way to get plans for the Holt 75 (which is an entire tractor, not the engine). I ran across references to another inline four cylinder engine called a Panther Pup (video from this year's NAMES show in Detroit, last weekend) and bought the plans from Little Machine Shop. There's going to be some study and decision making before metal cutting really gets going in earnest. The plans include parts that the builder can cast in their backyard foundry, or LMS sells the castings as well. The engine was envisioned like the one in that video, gleaming brass, but other videos on YouTube show most engines are made of aluminum and steel. The LMS castings are aluminum, not brass.
First thing to do is I have to decide what I'm making it out of - which means what it will look like. After that I need to decide if I'm buying or making castings, or if those pieces can be made another way.
Obviously I'm going to encounter problems. Goes without saying. Every part that I need four of will probably get five or six made. But if I get too far behind, too lost, well, I have the plans for the Webster printed out next to me.
Are these "working" engines that require fuel to run, or are they a variation of the 'compressed air' engines I've seen?
ReplyDeleteI had a friend who built a "Connely V8", which was like a 1/8th scale small block Chevrolet, and I had friends in the R/C biz who had numerous radial and horizontally-opposed engines, some glow ignition, and some spark ignition.
Fascinating hobby, and I always wanted to build a little V8.
Full four stroke, internal combustion. Runs on gasoline or Coleman lantern fuel, but I think the cylinders in the Panther Pup are lubricated by a mix of oil in the gas. There's an oil pan, but no oil pump. The crank gets lubricated by oil in the pan.
DeleteAs I understand it. Subject to correction as I learn more. All the usual disclaimers.
I can get you in touch with a guy who publishes plans for a scale model miniature Chevy V8.
Cool...little OHV engines!
DeleteIt would have to be more than just the plans. A fully-machined kit would be nice, as I really don't think I'll be buying any machine tools in the foreseeable future.....
Copyright law is like ATF's definition of being in the firearm business: As long as you are no doing it as for profit, you are fine.
ReplyDeleteThat is why you could make cassette copy of our favorite Bee Gees album nd not be breaking the law. :)
X2
DeleteThat's the way I've always heard it. The whole thing is based on monetary damages.
DeleteI already had the pattern making and foundry skills to build a scratch built model, but had to learn the machining as I progressed through the build. Just treat your next build as a journey rather than a destination and enjoy the time in the shop.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0KtL2hotCY
Back issues with plans are available.
https://www.modelenginebuilder.com/
http://www.strictlyic.com/
If there's no copyright holder in business to offer you a sale, then there's nobody to be monetarily damaged if you make a copy without paying them. It's abandonware, like old software.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding of copyright was that TJ intended it as a government investment to ultimately get more stuff in the public domain. Therefore, making something unavailable by abandoning it is contrary to the purpose of copyright. Similarly, I believe, with a patent you were supposed to be building and selling the protected object. You can't just lock it up.
That's the way I always heard it. I've had patent and copyright training several times and the emphasis was always that it came down to proving monetary damage. There's a world of difference between selling the book you bought versus making and selling many copies of that book.
DeleteThese engine plan books are kind of an odd case in that they don't sell many copies in a year, so making one copy and selling it does damage the seller. OTOH, they're rather low budget operations so they probably couldn't afford a lawyer to go after the violator even though they could win.
As you say, in the case of the engine that started this, the plans have a copyright that belongs to someone but they're apparently not utilizing the copyright. Has the copyright been abandoned or is someone somewhere working on selling the plans again? How can we know?
I claim it's the duty of the copyright holder to advertise enough that people know where to buy it. Otherwise it's just locked up.
ReplyDeletePut the price of a set of plans in an escrow account in case the copyright holder ever shows up. Ethical dilemma solved!
ReplyDeleteInteresting idea. If the amount in escrow could be learned, it might encourage them to do something about publishing the prints.
DeleteI could write a note and stick it on my checkbook saying, "$50 is for the publisher of the Holt 75 plans", but they'd never know. If they could go see that 10 people put $50 in an escrow account, it might motivate them to publish the prints again.
escrow
ReplyDeleteWho knows what the courts would say, but if you go to the trouble to organize commercial reproduction of the prints, then you've homesteaded the copyright.
From Wendy McElroy I learned the idea that political analysis/conclusions are only meaningful in response to the real world, just like scientific theories. If the observations change, then her answers would change in response. Therefore, she won't answer hypotheticals because too often they assume magic.
Similarly, I don't claim copyright rules are moral principles which apply regardless to the human situation. This blueprint is abandonware, so the copyright has vanished, poof. Do what you want, you have salvaged it. You do not legally-morally have to speculate that some currently-gone-from-the-commercial-world copyright owner might magically reappear after its ten year exile on Gilligan's island.
Well, the speculation is irrelevant in the case that started it for me. The copyright owner can't be found and the people that have copies of the prints are not willing to post them anywhere or make them public. So I paid for someone else's plans.
DeleteCopyright law says the originator has copyright for life plus 70 years. In this case, the plans typically go to a widow or other family member who has no idea of what they are or about the hobby in general. One guy said he successfully found the copyright holder on another engine's plans and they said they were keeping copyright and not publishing.
Home machinists aren't a great big hobby and model engine makers are just a part of that. I don't think anyone is taking advantage of us by charging for plans, a lot of work goes into them, but when the copyright holder vanishes their plans wink out of existence.
One guy said he successfully found the copyright holder on another engine's plans and they said they were keeping copyright and not publishing.
ReplyDeleteCopyright, patent, and monopoly are limitations on the public's freedom to act; actions that are innocent of trespassing or spying on the original creator's real estate or personal possessions. The sales pitch claims copyright's limitation is overbalanced by the greater amount of goodies that will eventually end up in the public domain. But if there is no promise of public domain, the justification for limiting freedom is no longer supported. I seem to remember back in the good old days of the late 1980's that if somebody wasn't actively selling the goodies, they could be challenged to lose the patent.
I've heard a lot of circular "arguments" for monopolies: '1) the law demands X / 2) because the law demands X, X is morally correct'.
The sales pitch claims copyright's limitation is overbalanced by the greater amount of goodies that will eventually end up in the public domain.
ReplyDeleteWhen you look at the sheer volume of things that have been patented and released to the world from the US (for a profit, of course), I think it's a net positive. Of course there have been some bad examples of misuse and almost malicious use, but I still think it's a net positive. Copyright is a bit harder to argue for the social benefit of (IMO, of course, as is all of this), but there's no denying the vast amounts of books, music, movies etc. that have poured out of the US either.
I seem to remember back in the good old days of the late 1980's that if somebody wasn't actively selling the goodies, they could be challenged to lose the patent.
That's the case today. If you think someone is sitting on a patent and not producing something, start selling them. The way a patent case is won is by proving damages and if they're not trying to sell that thing, how can they be damaged by someone else doing it? They lose their exclusive rights on the patent.
Likewise, if someone doesn't guard their trademarks and copyrights and allows someone else to use them, they can loose their trademark.
At least according to the patent training I've had.
When you look at the sheer volume of things that have been patented and released to the world from the US (for a profit, of course), I think [patent is] a net positive
ReplyDeleteI don't know how that argument is constructed. You're making a comparison between situation A with copyright/patent/monopoly/government central planning picking winners and hypothetical situation B without, but only situation A exists to be measured.
Then some drug company lobbyist says 50% more patent protection would motivate the invention of 50% more drugs to cure cancer, and they can show graphs from some hocus-pocus witch doctor economist employed by the fed to prove it.
My making a libertarian objection runs into the same problem of what observed measurements am I comparing to, but at least I can say my phase space of potential allowed actions is larger.
The economic calculation debate in 1920-1930 decided central planning can't work because when you ban the alternatives you lose the data to know the plan you've picked is the best of all possible.
I thought it went without saying that it's physically impossible to have a controlled experiment with countries and populations. I'm sure you know that, based on your reply, but I guess I needed to say it.
DeleteIf I need to let you in on the secret, throw out just about every health study you've ever seen in your life because maybe one or two percent of those are randomized, double-blinded controlled studies. And those are probably wrong because most of published science is wrong.
If you're a particularly observant regular reader, you may have noticed that while I'm decidedly pro second amendment I hardly ever talk about cross cultural things like comparing Swiss gun laws to ours, and that sort of common comparison. I view cross-cultural things like that as far too complicated to sort out.
So, yes, when I talk about the explosion of innovation out of the US compared to other countries over the course of our history, and attribute that to our strong patent protections helping inventors, there's no control.
I thought it went without saying that it's physically impossible to have a controlled experiment with countries and populations.
ReplyDeleteSure it is: East/West Germany, North/South Korea, China/(Taiwan, Hong Kong).
What if West Germany had further split into West and Libertarian Germany? And Libertarian split off the highly annoying land of toll roads and coin-op toilets
and Ayn Rand rants at the least excuse? Except everyone there became independently wealthy and the payments were functionally trivial costs?
So, yes, when I talk about the explosion of innovation out of the US compared to other countries over the course of our history, and attribute that to our strong patent protections helping inventors, there's no control.
What about Germany, with weak patents and copyrights? Germany has a much longer and deeper claim for being the land of industrial/scientific/medical/musical innovation than the US does.
I view the Swiss success with federalism and guns as nothing to do with human culture, but rather a result of the mountainous terrain, the most expensive for armies to operate in. When crime doesn't pay it mostly won't be attempted. Encryption seems like a way to produce artificial mountains and oceans to protect economic stuff from thieves.
it's physically impossible to have a controlled experiment with countries and populations.
ReplyDeleteIt's not physically impossible any more than privately funded roads; there's merely government policy prohibiting it. There are about 3K counties in the US, why doesn't government permit 10 of them to go libertarian, to create bad examples to prove the value of governmen? Could it be government already knows the results of liberty, and it doesn't make government look good? Hobbes' Leviathan claims societies destroy themselves in violence without a ruler, but cites no historical examples. By a similar argument form, I know the universe's creator takes the shape of spaghetti and meatballs. It is true merely because I asserted it.
It's physically impossible because you can't take a group, run things one way, then go back in time and run them a different way. It's physically impossible because you can't control every thing in every external (not experimental group) society that can interact and change things. A true controlled test would take a homogeneous population, randomly assign individuals to test groups and vary one parameter while keeping everything else constant. Any outside influence has to be eliminated.
DeleteThere are statistical techniques that allow one to account for more than one thing changing at a time, but they reduce the value of the experiment.
Social sciences are not science.
There are about 3K counties in the US, why doesn't government permit 10 of them to go libertarian, to create bad examples to prove the value of governmen? Could it be government already knows the results of liberty, and it doesn't make government look good?
DeleteFirst of all, any county can go as libertarian as it wants right now. They still have to abide by all the other Federal and State laws every other county does, though, which makes them far from the libertarian ideal. All you could say is "that group of people had different results than another group". Then you'd get arguments that it's not because of their government but because of other differences. It wouldn't settle anything.