Hi everyone. Me again! Hope you’re not getting bored. I seem to have posted a lot recently.
OK - Here is my question:
I want a bunch of dwarf signals for my yard. I can’t afford to buy the signals available on the market, or to be more honest, I won’t pay the price. If I buy one dwarf signal and then have it copied via 3D printing am I violating the mfrs copyright? These would be strictly for my own use.
I have sent this question to Shapeways but I am curious to hear from those of you with some knowledge of copyright law.
How could it be a copyright issue? If you look at something, then make a drawing to machine parts, is that a crime? No! Of course not. If you made a silicone rubber mould on the other hand, then it is more questionable…
I’d be hardpressed to believe there would even be a copyright on a model train detail part like that. It’s a replica of a prototype part that already exists - it would be very expensive to put a copyright on the model replica when the prototype company already has the patent for the design. What you would be doing is no different that what that other guy is already doing … copying something in miniature that already exists.
This would never happen, but the only glimmer of legal infraction would be from the company that makes (made) the real signals. We all know that other guy didn’t get permission from the prototype to copy their design and sell miniatures.
Dave, since you are, presumably, a Canadian citizen, your country’s copyright laws differ from those in the United States. So, to be certain, you would need to be advised by someone knowledgeable in Canadian copyright law. Chances are, though, that your country’s law in this regard is similar to U.S. copyright law.
In the United States, someone who purchases a product has the implicit right to photograph the product and even to publish the photograph without being in violation of copyright law.
Where there could be a potential violation of copyright law would be an instance where you used a commercially available photo of a product to promote your own product. Let’s say that you want to build and sell your own scratch built dwarf signal but you use a photo of Tomar Industries dwarf signal to promote your product. Tomar Industries has copyright protection that would prohibit your use of a photo from their web site to promote your own product. On the other hand, let’s say that you own a Tomar Industries dwarf signal and want to sell it on eBay. You may use their stock photo for this purpose since it depicts the purchased product that you are selling.
I am not a lawyer, but wasn’t this the gist of the Suit filed by Woodland Scenics against MTH on the copying of one of Woodland Scenics buildings and producing it for sale along with using photographs in MTH’s catalog.
The only diffence is the original poster is not selling the item being copied but using it for his own use. In this case Shapeways could not sell it to other people.
Just remember, no one here so far is a Copyright Attorney, but I think as long as this item does not leave your railroad room your probably ok. Remember the old cassette tape days where your could copy a tape and have one for your car for your use only was ok but, if you sold it, or gave another copy to someone else it was NOT ok. Doug
Since you are copying their model you probably are in violation of their copyright if you sell it. You copying it for your own use probably won’t get you in trouble since the manufacturer most likely wouldn’t know about it, care, or be worth his trouble to sue. However, having a third party copy it for you might get them in trouble and they may not want to take the risk - kind of like when the Kinko’s or Staple’s copy folks refuse to copy a book or magazine for you. If you produce (or have produced for you) a computer file that can be used to drive a 3d printer to produce copies of their model and give the file away or sell it, they may come after you for that.
The issue here is that you are copying someone else’s model. If you build your own model there should be no trouble having it copied for you.
From another perspective, seems to me that 3D printing is expensive & am not sure how much you would save over buying them outright. It also may be morally wrong to use someone elses time & talent that they used to manufacture an item & then copy it. For example, if i needed several feet of stone retaining wall & bought 1 pc. of WS or Chooch & copied it, I would be using their engineering without paying for it. Selling them, Definitely wrong, For your own use, you decide. jerry
Scanning - I am not sure if you can scan a small model to get the engineering drawings so it can be fed into a computer guided 3D printer. I agree that some place like Staples may balk at doing that(if they had the capability). Now, if you made drawings with the appropriate software - Then there would be no problem - This is your ‘art work’. The issue with W/S vs MTH is that the ‘artwork’ is copyrighted, and they are making duplicates(on a larger scale) for sale. Making a rubber mold and reproducing a part for personal use on your layout is not a problem.
Technology - The quality of 3D printing varies,and much of the stuff I have seen has ridges since they cannot do curves real well. Also, the engineering plastic is quite soft - You will need to use LED’s for sure.
You will need to weigh the cost of those signals vs the eventual cost of reproducing them(I bet you can buy them cheaper).
I think the question is whether it’s OK for the 3-D copier service to make them for you. They are profiting from making the copies. If the piece is copyrighted or patented they are the ones who’d be in violation of any applicable laws.
It would be nice for a copyright lawyer to dhime in.
IMHO, don’t copy the model, make a drawing of the real thing, then shrink it down, send it to shapeways, or wherever, and it is your drawing, your design. You generally only get in to copyright law suits when you are taking money out of the copyright holders pocket by selling your stuff, and you are making money that the copyright holders should be making. I have seen copyright holders send cease and desist letters for other reasons, but those, it would seem, would be rare. So, in sum, IMHO, if you made a mold of thier casting, and copied it, you would be braking the copyright law, but since you are not selling them and they are for personal use, you are not going to jail. That said, it is wrong.
FWIW, I do my own design work, so I don’t worry about this issue. You can see hundreds of items I have 3d printed on my blog at nvrr49.blogspot.com
For a time I did do copyright and other intellectual property work in my legal practice (before my work took a different turn but also before intellectual property became such a huge and active part of legal practice) but am reluctant to start spouting off in detail given that I am a bit removed from the latest legal developments in intellectual property law as well as the inner workings of 3D printing/rapid prototyping and the like.
What I can tell you however is that the question is a valid one and if you google a search such as “copyright issues with 3D printing” you’ll get a fair number of hits and links to some interesting articles. Some of them are British; I did not search for or notice one that is Canadian.
There are a number of legal issues however in addition to copyright, such as trademark, patent, trade dress and design. The fact that the part might be made for home use MIGHT be of some significance, but recall for example that the music industry regards each download (and in the old days, each cassette tape copy) of a protected recording to be an infringement, since each one does in fact deprive them of the money that they would have made through a sale they could control or benefit from. I can recall some publicized lawsuits against college students for huge amounts of money because the kids filled their Ipads with protected music that they downloaded “illegally.” The kids weren’t selling their tunes to anybody, although file sharing probably makes the violation more self evident.
The legal scholars are not in total agreement over copyright applying to the mere shapes of things, although technical drawings are clearly copyrightable – but the thing about 3D printing is that it does not need to start with a drawing. Look and feel of a thing are in the gray area between copyright, trademark and patent.
Again all I intend to do here is to mention that interesting (and seemingly readable by the lay
Ditto this. Don’t even bother buying one of theirs. Just find some photos and/or drawings of the real thing and make your own model using Sketchup or Blender. Then you won’t have any copyright issues. Although I doubt you’re going to save much money. For small detail parts, you’re going to want the Frosted Ultra Detail material at Shapeways, which is expensive.
Dress it up with some details such as a protective hood over the light, then paint and weather it.
ETA: Here’s an idea for making the hood. If you can find a small drinking straw (like the ones that come with those little drink boxes) that fits over the LED, just snip it at an angle to get a hood.
The same question has been asked in the 3d graphics forums, so far, no good answer except, the usual formats for 3d aren’t suitable for 3d printing. My guess would be scanning and reproducing someone’s product isn’t something any reputable service would do.
That’s what I was questioning in my original reply. I highly doubt any of the detail makers like Detail Associates or Details West got legal permission from the multitudes of companies that make the real horns, antennas, ditch lights, etc… Taken to the next step, if you copy their part, what is their legal ground, as they don’t have legal permission to make theirs from the original owner of the full size device ?
I would tend to think it goes past legal and settles onto morals.
All you have to do is modify the dwarf signal to some extent so it doesn’t exactly match the one you are copying. Add the mounting bracket and concrete base to the part. It is now your design and you are good to go. Your out ? - you are copying the proto-type - not your problem if somebody else copied the proto-type as well. If both of you did the job properly, they both SHOULD look the same !
NOTE: I am not a lawyer, that’s just my 2 pennies worth …
I contacted Shapeways and their answer is what Southgate and a couple others suggested. They would be the ones violating copyright law, so they won’t do it.
However, as has been suggested, you can take a drawing or program of your own design to them and they will print it. There are companies that will write the program for you based on your drawings, and that seems to be OK.
As for the cost of getting useable copies, i.e. smooth and detailed, I have not explored that yet. I did go through the Shapeways offerings where Shapeways sells items designed by outside individuals, and I noticed examples like HO scale fire hydrants that were printed in sets of eight or so. I think they were somewhere around $12.00 for the set which is reasonable IMO, and they looked fairly good but that might not be true once they are painted. A dwarf signal might be a little more complex but I can’t imagine that would add a ton to the cost. I could be wrong. That of course doesn’t cover the other costs of getting the program written, or what Shapeways would charge for the initial run.
Lots of questions still to be answered. By the way, Shapeways got back to me the very next day which was nice to see. I think I will explore this a little further. I’ll let you know what I find.
