Hi Calum,

I would agree with you about publishing your drawing of the float-lock vice, I assume you will give credit to those who desrve it. Regarding Harold hall's QCTP; I would say; of course you ask his opinion. I agree that the MLA-23 inspired toolpost is more difficult, but publish it and see what happens.

Thor

I see no issues with sharing the toolpost designs if you have changed them.

Obviously if its a simple build thread then reference back to the source rather than publish your drawings.

If its an "I liked the idea but changed things because I thought that would work better / be easier to make / better fit with my machine" or whatever then frankly the changes, unless stupidly trivial, make it your work so free publication is fine. But reference the source because other folk may prefer the original.

Copying and modification is how progress gets made after all.

Commercial use is a little different because clearly the person who has gone to all the trouble of developing something that works is entitled to a fair return on that effort. Patents are explicitly published so folk can copy and improve but "should" give the innovator protection form other folk selling something containing that innovation for several years after.

Clive

Clive

Im not a lawyer and have never played one on tv… disclaimer out of the way….

I don't think what John says is correct.

The process by which a thing is designed does not matter in copyright infringement. What matters is if the thing is a copy. So John's illustration is backwards imo.

As for the original question first one:

You have designed a vice. This is most likely not a "copy". There are features of a vice which are required for it to function. These features cannot be subject to copyright claim, hence most vices look quite similar. If a vice has a design feature that is aesthetic then copying that would be infringement.

Second one: You have made a CAD model of an existing published design. You are not trying to pass off as your own design, so I don't thinks there would be any issues – the whole design was published into the public domain with the clear intention that people would use it. Give credit and ask Harold if he has objections if you want (I would just because it's polite to do so) but if you wish to publish a CAD model of a design the 'thing' you are publishing is your work, based on Harolds work. So again I don't believe that there is any infringement.

Third one: Is much like the first. You have taken an idea and used it for your own design. It doesn't sound like a "copy" but an improvement. Features like removable tool holders are required for the design to function ago are not subject to copyright protection (patent protection is a different matter…. But I don't see a patent on the design)

Intellectual property is a wide area, but basically my understanding is copyright protects the "look" of a thing and patents protect how a thing works (in the UK anyway)

Dave

Normally a patent/ copyright on a design is valid for 15 years. Then you should be free to pass it around.

I suggest this very much is a question about copyright (and patents)! Model Engineers aren't exceptions to the law just because they're hobbyists.

I think the best way to stay safe is to understand the money aspect. If someone else's income is effected by an infringement of their rights, or their income could be effected in future, they will probably come after you. How violent the reaction, if any, depends mostly on the amount of money involved.

If a hobbyist privately shares a few copies of Harold Hall's design amongst his mates, I doubt HH will know or mind. But if Callum publishes his version of HH's design on the internet, open to everyone in the world including foreign manufacturers, then HH might well be concerned about losing book sales or the commercial rights to his design via Callum's version of it. In this case, I think HH should be asked for permission. It's HH's right to decide if Callum's efforts are good because they promote the book, or not!

The Float Lock vice is safe provided the patent has expired.

Callum's version of the MLA-23 tool-post needs formal permission as well. Recent design, sold as a kit, and the plans are still available for $6 each from the copyright owner.

Whether the US seller would chase an individual in the UK infringing his rights to a $6 drawing I have no idea. Legal action is expensive, so it probably won't happen unless serious money is involved. Could be – for all we know Seig and Colchester are in a bidding war for the rights to mass produce the design. Safest to get permission from the US.

It's wrong to believe making small modifications and improvements to a design are enough to evade copyright and patent protections. You only own the rights to the changes, not to the original design. Many examples of firms being obliged to pay big money after their in-house design was found to infringe someone else's existing rights, accidentally or deliberately.

Callum says 'A lot of my thinking here is coloured by my experience of the accepted standards in my corner of the musical universe.' And the corner he describes is typical of the low-value sharing that goes on in amateur circles. Copyright owners would like their money but it's too difficult to collect from a multitude of informal small groups!

Other parts of the musical universe aren't so cosy. The music industry pursues businesses aggressively: Performing Rights Society Inspectors march into a Hairdressers and are owed money if the customers are listening to pop music on a free-to-air radio. A business has to have a licence. And Mr Ed Sheeran is in court at the moment, because his song 'Shape of You', allegedly infringes Mr Sam Chokri's 2015 single 'oh why'.

The difference between Callum and Ed Sheeran is one of them is a big earner.

I suspect Copyright and Patent Law rarely impact Model Engineers because much of what we do goes back at least 50 years. Our designs are mostly variations of protection-expired ideas, many of them Victorian. Few of us design new world beating machine tools, solar panels, room temperature superconductors, smart phones, electric cars or fusion reactors!

Dave

I am not a lawyer, but am aware ( from my days in academia) that there is a doctrine of "Fair Use" in copyright law which allows use of copyright material for a number of purposes including criticism, teaching, research, and study amongst other things – one of the criteria for many of the uses is that it should be non-commercial.

I am not aware that there is any similar defence in Patent law, but it is far from clear to me whether publishing a design is copyright law or patent law.

I would have thought ( and my view would be) that publishing the drawing on a forum such as this for feedback and criticism from other "experts" would have a valid defence under fair use non-commercial use.

Publishing the same thing on a Youtube channel in the expectation of creating income from the channel would probably fail the non-commercial test and therefore fall foul of copyright law. Where patent law applies I don't know.

It can boil down to three questions: 1. What can you do legally? 2. What can you get away with? 3 What can you do morally?

Question 1 will keep lawyers arguing until Doomsday and beyond, let alone the myriad bar-room barristers.

Question 2. You can get away with a fair bit if you are not making a profit out of it or preventing the owner from making his profit from it. Not worth lawyers coming after you for a few posts on a forum etc. Worst case scenario, you might get a "cease and desist" notice if you were taking revenue away from a commercial operation by publishing their intellectual property. So then you take your posts down and carry on.

Question 3 Well that is up to you. Morals are like that. If you get permission all good. If you are not making a profit from it, well ok. If you are not putting a dent in the copyright owner's business model, ok too. But publishing designs so forum members can avoid paying the copyright owner for the same material is a moral no no on par with Bit Torrenting music and movies etc on the old Pirate Bay etc.

Speaking of music copyright, even Donald Trump is currently caught up in that one. Reggae superstar of the 80s Eddie Grant is suing him to the tune (owww!) of $300,000 for pirating "Electric Avenue" in one of his election ads. You are unlikely to face that reaction to posting a toolpost drawing though.

Looking at the websites concerned, I would not publish the MLA design. He is selling the drawings for $6 a pop so might be rather peeved if you were giving copies away free, even if you added your own minor mods.

If Harold Hall is already giving his design away free, he possibly would not object to you giving copies away free if they credit him as the designer and link to his site etc. But best to contact him and ask.

The floating clamp is an old and generic idea so no problems there.

"Fair useage" usually covers only a part of a copyrighted work, copied for personal, research, teaching or review purposes so not really relevant if you publish the whole design, not part of it, on a public forum so others can copy and use it.

Peter has mixed up a few concepts. UK law has a specific exception for teaching, which is not Calum's intention. As Hopper says, the exception relates to an extract, not the whole thing or a substantial part, and the criticism aspect refers to the extract, not a modified version thereof (which is what Calum has generated). Non-commercial use is often mentioned, but is a not a defence – copyright infringement does not require commercial loss to be proved, though it may be helpful to the claimant and guide a damages award.

Sometimes it is better to ask forgiveness than permission, but perhaps too late for Calum now. John is right to draw a distinction between the drawing and an article made to a drawing, but it is a very complex area of copyright law.

Edited By john halfpenny on 02/04/2022 15:49:20

Some people have mentioned academia and teaching.

Without a legal qualification the rules I was given at several Colleges and schools include:-

If you write an academic article the copyright is yours.

If you write something to use as part of your employment (teaching) the copyright is your employer's (eg a worksheet for a class)

If you wish to use something for academic study you can use extracts only – 'Fair Use' – but this must be for academic study only and not because you just want to read the chapter or chapters. ie you cannot photocopy a chapter from someone else's HH book as that is the only thing you want to make.

If you wish to use something for teaching it can still only be an extract and in addition you will be audited by the Copyright Licencing people every so often during which audit you will have to list every thing copied within the institution and your licence is based upon this.

If you wish to change the format of something for access purposes you must have an original that you can then translate into braille or a voice recording – but you need an original for each copy you make.

Whether the last of these is the case for drawing up something that you have on a paper drawing as CAD sounds possible, but I suspect not.