Category and Ethics questions regarding a build

[jamoldover]

I recently purchased a copy of Alan Rose's cable car model (in book form) as one that I had wanted to build back when it came out in 1982. In order to avoid the risk of screwing up the parts and therefore not being able to complete the build, the first thing I did was scan the pages at high resolution. I then took advantage of having those scans to do some cleanup, recoloring, and remodeling of some of the pieces so that they better represented a specific cable car as it is today instead of a generic one from 40 years ago.

I'm assuming (based on what I've seen posted on the forums to date) that it would be acceptable for me to post information about the build itself.

Here's the category question - should something like this go in Railway Related builds, or would it be better in Alternate Dimensions (or is it really up to me)?

Here are the ethics questions - 1) given that Mr. Rose is now no longer living, and I cannot, therefore, ask permission to share what I did, can I describe the process I went through in terms of scanning/remodeling, or should I only share the actual build process?

2) If it is OK to share what I did in terms of the remodel process, would it be OK to share the remodeled version files with the other members of this board? I have no plans to do this commercially or to claim any sort of copyright. As far as I'm concerned, this started as an Alan Rose model, and it still is an Alan Rose model - I just tweaked it a bit and changed the colors.

Thank you,

Joshua

[Rubenandres77]

That would be interesting to see. That cable car is a nice model, and one rarely seen in the forums.

As for the category, probably the railway section would be most appropriate, as the cable car kit is derived from a real vehicle. While Alternate Dimensions is more about fictional/sci-fi objects.

I believe sharing the build and describing what you did to enhance the model would be very useful for others. That way they may get inspired by your own process.

Having scanned the kit for your own use, and to make your modifications is ok.

However, since the book is still under copyright protection, and the publisher (Perigee) still acts as part of Penguin Books, and since the kit can still be bought from vendors like Amazon, it would be considered piracy to share scans of the original kit.


Did you re-draw all the parts of the kit, or just a few? I'm sure Alan Rose would be happy to see the new enhancements. He was glad modern technology allowed for his designs to be revitalized. However, I think permission from his state would be required to share the new digital files (in case the digital version comprises all or most of the kit).

If what you redraw were only a few parts of the kit, and they can be considered as add-ons that someone having the original kit can use, there is a chance you can share them (only those few parts, not the whole kit).

Regards,

[jamoldover]

I completely agree that sharing scans of the original would be piracy (and is something that never even crossed my mind to do - it's just wrong).

I scanned the entire model to make sure that all of the parts I was working with would be to the same scale, so the entire model has actually been digitized.

It's a question of how the amount of new content (created by me) vs original content (created by Alan Rose) should be calculated. For a part that's been redrawn simply to clean it up, so it's still the same shape, in the same colors, and obviously is the same part as designed, the amount of new content is clearly 0%, and clearly is not something that can be redistributed.

For a part that has the same shape as the original, and fits in the same place as designed, but has been recolored so that the result is a different appearing model, what percentage is original and what percentage is new? How much does "this is the shape of the model and how it fits together" contribute vs "this is the color pattern of the model and what it will end up looking like"?

A part that has been redesigned and now has a different shape than the original, but goes in the same location on the final model, I would consider the percentage of new content to be more than 50%, which therefore would probably be OK to distribute, although it's possible a designer might disagree, depending on how much redesign was done.

A completely new part that's intended to replace or supplement part of the original would obviously be OK.

In this case, there are parts that fall into all four categories. A number of them are simply recolored, since the original model was of car #16 in a particular paint scheme, and the new version is of car #1 in a completely different paint scheme. Others are simply cleaned up. Still others are redesigned to make them sturdier or remove overlapping joints and replace them with flush ones (especially since the original model has some parts that are double-sided, and my version uses two separate parts to recreate that). I also have some completely new parts that would be enhancements that could be used by someone else building the original.

I had in mind to show reduced-size images of the changes in a way that would prevent them from being used to build a model from as part of this, which I assume would be OK in any case. It's the gray area between the "clearly not OK" and "clearly OK" that I'm trying to figure out.

Thanks,

Joshua

[mbauer]

Originally Posted by jamoldover

Here are the ethics questions - 1) given that Mr. Rose is now no longer living, and I cannot, therefore, ask permission to share what I did, can I describe the process I went through in terms of scanning/remodeling, or should I only share the actual build process?

2) If it is OK to share what I did in terms of the remodel process, would it be OK to share the remodeled version files with the other members of this board? I have no plans to do this commercially or to claim any sort of copyright. As far as I'm concerned, this started as an Alan Rose model, and it still is an Alan Rose model - I just tweaked it a bit and changed the colors.

Thank you,

Joshua

Hi Joshua,

Alan Rose work was for sale on eBay. If I remember right it was all models and rights to them.

Not sure if anyone purchased the package. If someone did then it might be best to contact them for permission to share as a down loadable model.

Best regards,
Mike Bauer