VW or Porsche Boxer Engine Plans?

Shop deals on ebay
Advertise with us
Home Model Engine Machinist Forum

Help Support Home Model Engine Machinist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Corrad,

I highly suggest you go back to page 1 and read this whole blog. I didn't know I'd learn a lot about copyright laws. To be legal, you have to OWN the magazine, have permission from the magazine publisher or have permission from Brian Perkins, to make a copy for yourself to make this model. Brian has passed away in March of this year. According to Cogsy, if you purchase the Magazine Set (5 issues), you can make copies so you can make ONE model. And after you make your model and IF you sell your magazine set, you have to destroy your copies of the plans as you don't have the issues in your possession. That's how I interpret the legality of this issue. With that being said, after I received all my issues, to me, the plans are lacking and I probably won't be making this model. As a side note, I found a NON working, plastic resin VW engine kit that really looks good and I think I'll get this model just to have it sitting on my desk. Here's the web site for The Weedub:
http://www.theweedub.com/
Grasshopper
 
There is nothing in copyright law stating that only one unit can be built from a plan in the US. That would be the same as saying you can only cook each recipe once from a recipe book. Or you can only read a book once. You guys must be kidding. A casting set is the best practical means to limit production to a single unit if that is the authors intent.

https://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/matters/matters-9509.html

"One limitation on the copyright on engineering drawings is that it does not, in general, give the copyright owner the right to prevent a third party from creating a utilitarian object in accordance with the drawing so long as no unauthorized reproductions of the drawings are made. For example, engineering drawings relating to a highway sign could not be copied without violation of the copyright, but the copyright would not be infringed by a third party constructing a sign in accordance with the drawings. Part of the rationale for this approach is that the copyright system is a registration system that requires merely compliance with the formalities of the statute in order to obtain a copyright. Unlike patent applications, obtaining a copyright does not involve a rigorous investigation of prior art and an examination of the utility, novelty, and unobviousness of the work with respect to the prior art. An author merely needs to have a nominal amount of uniqueness to obtain a copyright. As a result of the differences in these two systems, it was not deemed desirable to give the equivalent of patent protection through the copyright."


If you want people to support the hobby, just say so. Sending some money to repay someone who put a significant amount of time into producing something of value is a fair way of thanking them and could incentivize them to produce more. Being honest and direct will go much further than boilerplate or unenforceable agreements.
 
dieselpilot,
I cut and pasted this from Cogsy's response on page 2 of this blog:

"Now, most copyrights are covered under 'fair use' and would likely allow for personal copies (such as backups or working documents) to be made if you have a legal right to the original (as in you currently own the original magazine and you want workshop copies of the plans). If you were to give or sell the magazine to anyone, for any price, you no longer own the right to use that material and the copies you made are no longer legal for you to possess and you must dispose of them."
And also this:
"A lot of plan sets, as mentioned previously, only allow for one engine to be produced from each plan set. This means that if you buy a set of plans with this condition, then build an engine from them, you are breaking the law if you then on-sell the plans to another person."
Please comment on his responses.
Grasshopper
 
dieselpilot said:
There is nothing in copyright law stating that only one unit can be built from a plan in the US.
Click to expand...

That is correct but it is a condition stated in many drawing sets and the VW plans may be one of them. Most people put that condition in to prevent the buyer from building many copies for sale. If you want to sell 100 engines you would need to pay the amount that 100 sets of drawings would cost to the author. Then of course you would need to build the engines. If that condition is not stated in the drawings then you can build as many as you want. Most also have a provision to allow copies for shop use. My drawings had that language on page 2. If you purchase the drawings you are agreeing to the terms on page 2. If you don't agree then simply pass and purchase something else.

I think that might have been a condition set up by the magazine and not from copyright law.
 
+1 on what Steve said and also, as I stated in the piece of quoted text that got snipped out of that quote, I don't know if there is any such condition in the magazine but I mentioned it because many other plans sets have that condition and it's worth noting. I never meant that this condition was somehow incorporated into copyright law.

+1 on the sentiment from dieselpilot too - support the hobby and be honest and fair. In my mind there's no amount of 'want' that can justify breaking copyright.
 
Last edited:
Cogsy said:
Again, I'm not a lawyer, but I think it's certainly possible that if you were making and selling model aircraft that were good copies of actual aircraft, then technically the full-size aircraft manufacturers may have been able to pursue a copyright claim against you. Possibly that's why (at least when I was involved in RC aeromodelling) there were so few commercial scale kits available except for the really old designs (P51, Spitfire, Pitts Special, etc.). In practice though, I would guess a small operation would likely fly under the radar of an entity such as Boeing.
Click to expand...

Copyrights don't apply if you are drawing a small version of a something. Though it's possible Chapter 13 applies to scale models.https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap13.html What does apply though is trademark. Nobody will let you use their name to market your model. You can design a Dreamliner model, but not use the name. I don't know how much they charge or if they do, but they will come after you. This did happen with Boeing in the RC industry about 15 years ago. In some cases people did get licensed, and I don't think the fee's were ridiculous and the benefits as I understood were excellent(think like accurate outline drawings, etc.).
 
To reiterate from my earlier post, this is from the publisher's page of Model Engineer Magazine, "The Publisher's written consent must be obtained before any part of this publication may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, including photocopiers and information retrieval systems". I wrote to them and am still waiting for a response.
Grasshopper
 
As I replied on ME forum you will need the permission of Myimemedia to copy and and circulate the articles and drawings as they appeared in the mag. You can copy pages from a mag in your possession for personal use only eg a copy to take into the workshop rather than damage the original magazine.

Now that I know Brian is no longer with us it is unlikely that you could track down his family and get permission from them to copy the original drawings if they even know of their whereabouts.

All is not lost, by taking out a digital subscription via ME's own site you will get access to the digital archive for one year which goes back far enough to include these articles. Again you can print of pages for personal use only

Back issues can be picked up cheaply in the UK but may be harder to find elsewhere, SIC back issues may be easier to find in the US.

It is worth pointing out that Brian's engine was loosely based on the aero version of the VW boxer so will need altering if you want it to resemble a car engine and redetailing if you want a scale replica rather something that was practical to use in a flying model aircraft.

Jason
(Moderator ME Forum)
 
Jason your right it is LOOSLEY based on the VW. Reading Brian’s explanation in the mag I would say he did it the same as I probably. That is he scanned a sectional drawing from the Haynes manual imported it as a jpeg into his Cad program scaled it to his required size and basically just traced it from there making a few required adjustments on the way. Quit simple really but still requires some input of time but no where near as much as designing it from scratch. Apart from bore size being a little under most of the engine block is very close to 1/3. When all is said and done the VW boxer is a very basic engine wether real or scale and Brian’s is even more basic because of its intended use in a model aircraft using glow plugs as opposed to spark ignition etc. He did obviously run the engine but we have no idea how successful it was in the Colibri. I’m still not sure wether to build this yet as I have seen a couple of others that look interesting but would require a bit more work obviously.

Rod
 
I got somewhat a response from Model Engineer magazine. It was from their forum. It reads:
Posting:
The copyright in the plans now belongs to his estate, presumably his family.
Copies may be available through Sarik Hobbies even if not listed on their website.
Neil.

I did check out the Sarik hobby website. They have a lot of plans for sale. I didn't see the VW plans listed and e-mailed them a request to see if the actually have the plans available. I'll keep you posted. Here is the Sarik website:
https://www.sarikhobbies.com/model-engineer-builder/
Grasshopper
 
Hi Grasshopper -

I've been tempted to buy one of those WeeDub model engines. I'm looking forward to hearing your review of that model.

- Jimi -
 
Hi, am I correct that this is a pre fabricated kit that is none functioning
 
The web site states that these are only models, not running engines. Might be possible to use some parts (like the VW valve covers) on a running engine.
 
Cast resin kit with a bit of wire and photo etch for detail, The resin produces good detail without the need for injection mould dies so ideal for small volume production. display only

http://www.theweedub.com/page3.htm
 
This sure brings back memories of my first car a '69 Karmann Ghia. I bought it for 800$ which cleaned by account & over time turned it into something nicer. Looked exactly like this one.
https://www.erclassics.com/volkswagen-karmann-ghia-1969-v6345/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Karmann_Ghia
The nice thing was you could just add displacement power by bolting on bigger jugs, +/- a few other countermeasures to keep it together LOL. I think mine was 1300 cc stock upgraded to 2000 cc. There were so many cool hop-up parts available, particularly west coast US vendors. But I was a starving student at the time.

Maybe I should have kept it. OTOH, I didn't define 'what kind' of memories. I was probably the only guy scraping the INSIDE of his windshield on cold Canadian winter days. It had a gas (as in gasoline) burning heater which made your left leg nice & hot but little else. I could only run it in 5 minute intervals before it started to huff like a steam locomotive. Windshield squirter was hooked up to spare tire pressure. Funny how things like this are always more humorous after the fact. But I digress...

Production of that kit is no small undertaking. Some background.
http://www.scaleautomag.com/how-to-models/2017/12/model-volkswagen-engine
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

I
Boxer 4 cylinder engine
Replies
13
Views
4K
Igor_toko
I
jcreasey
Stuart Number 9 Engine
2 3 4
Replies
60
Views
8K
delalio
delalio
E
Jerry Howell Powerhouse 4 Cycle
Replies
6
Views
2K
BWMSBLDR1
B
PaulsGarageProjects
Atom Minor Mark III - First IC Engine
Replies
17
Views
3K
D and D
D and D
Moxis
Open sloop with false engine
Replies
1
Views
1K
oldCB
oldCB

Latest posts

Back
Top