"Miniatures intellectual property transfer—how's that work?" Topic

Not sure why but I've been kind of curious about how people track intellectual property rights on miniatures.

A few months ago, I realized some figure makers sometime buy up the rights to other foundries of the past.

I get how right transfer work, and I've got a decent enough understanding of copyright (which is what counts here).

Wen it comes to someone retiring or closing down and the buyer buys direct, that seems easy as can be (provided the sculpts are owned outright and not licensed by the sculptor).

What I find interesting, and curious about is:
1. Do the sculptors ever retain their rights to the model and just license it to the caster?
2. In the case of older molds, how does that work? Is it whoever owns the molds? That seems both practical and not how copyright works.

Again, just curious.

What's in the contract? That's the key.

Is the sculptor an employee of the company? Is he doing paid work? Unless he has it in his contract that he retains rights, it's the property of the company.
Was the sculptor leasing his rights to the company?

A patent example. A good friend of mine, who recently passed away, told me that in a previous job he noticed that in a high speed extrusion process, if he put a nub in front of the hole, the product came out coiled. The company then owned and patented the process. My friend was a tad bitter about that, since that was in his contract. He was an engineer.
This came up because I was joking about an extremely cheap way of shipping nets with hooks on them, and that I should patent it. I wasn't really serious about it, but he was dead serious about his case.

If the sculptor owns the company, the rights will …. Totally theoretical here. 😄 If he sells the company, all rights should be covered in the contract.
And if he passes, and the widow inherits, again contracts apply.

When the OFM was a YFM, there were quite a few one man band "true 25mm" companies. The owner died, and so did those lines.
My gaming friend and I came up with an imaginary scenario where the widow was offered the imaginary sum of $10,000 USD "for the rights", but a friend told her that it was "worth a lot more than that", and so the figures never saw the light of day again.

As for the molds and masters…. Go to the top of my reply, and read that sentence again.

Some current "large" miniature companies have been around a long time, with several owners. At each transfer, I'll bet that lawyers were involved.
There is one particularly messy example of a "true 25mm" company that had several lines by the same sculptor and… Like I said it was messy, particularly since lawyers were probably not involved. Nice figures. I have some units that are incomplete.

Obviously, every case is different. And so are the legal cases.

"Intellectual property" is too vague. It's almost meaningless.
You have to go to the strict legal terms like patent, copyright, royalties, etc.
plus the willingness of the "i p" holder to enforce their rights.
There is no one real explanation, and that's why lawyers make more money than I do.

1. Do the sculptors ever retain their rights to the model and just license it to the caster?

AFAIK those conventional sculptors who do contract work sell full rights to the company selling the figure, rather than licensing their designs. However, when it comes to digital design and 3D-printing, the process seems to be often license-based, with the digital "sculptor" selling licenses to multiple printing companies.

Then there are experienced sculptors who run their own business, sculpting the models and selling them to customers. However, they do not necessarily do the mouldmaking and model casting themselves, outsourcing these to a specialised company. My understanding is that the customers in these cases do typically own the moulds, though for practical purposes they are likely stored in the production facility. Good practice should involve clearly labelling all the moulds with information about their owner.

Back in the late 20th century there were sometimes cases with companies licensing foreign companies to produce their models abroad (to work around customs costs), but I am not aware of this really been a practice anymore.

2. In the case of older molds, how does that work? Is it whoever owns the molds? That seems both practical and not how copyright works.

In an ideal work, one would transfer both the copyrights and the physical materials (master models and moulds) with a contract at the same time, though whether this always happens in practice is another issue. The master models are quite important, since rubber moulds for metal models wear and need to be redone regularly. (Steel models for plastic models on the other hand may last very long, but are expensive to tool.)

Malchor, by all means check individual cases, but I think you'll find that when the sculptor doesn't own the company--as noted, very common at one point--it's almost always "work for hire." The sculptor provides a master figure in return for cash in hand, and the person who paid the cash is the one with the right to produce copies for sale. That person can then sell the rights--which is why you can't legally buy new original GW Squats, the Eureka Teddy Bear armies or any of the old Mike's Models line among many others. (If it wasn't work for hire, who would sculpt musicians or standard-bearers?)

There have been, of course, some fairly blatant piracies--and my own hands aren't clean, since I bought some. Best I can say is that I was in my teens, so it was a very long time ago. But in the cases of actual legal transfer of ownership, as noted master models are an important consideration.

Anyone know what happened to the old Minifigs 30's line--last seen--quite literally--in Wally Simon's basement?

I forgot to mention that currently in UK there is an interesting business arrangement between North Star and three sculptor-owned miniature companies (Artizan Designs, Crusader Miniatures, Copplestone Castings).

Essentially, the sculptors have lisenced the day-to-day business (manufacturing and sales) to North Star, while holding the rights to the existing ranges and creative freedom to add to the ranges as they wish.

To further complicate issues, Mark Copplestone (who owns Copplestone Castings) has also done plenty of contract sculpting for North Star (mainly for Frostgrave and Oathmark ranges), as well as having sold them rights to one of his historical ranges (Glory of the Sun King?) that he had designed and owned for a time.

Minifigs 30s Robert.
1970's?
i would also like to see them.
I expect they are in the skip along with minifigs strips.

Have 25mm grown enough to match these 30mm anyway?

martin

Almost surely a different skip at least, martin. A three-gamer coalition in the US bought rights and master figures--Wally, Mark Wellington and a third I may never have known. They were marketed for a while as (I think) Fusilier Miniatures. But it was the usual sad story: casting figures is work, and maintaining molds is money, and everyone incolved had a real job. As I said, the last person I knew to have physical possession of the masters and molds was Wally Simon.

Last time I was interested enough to check, modern 28's were taller than a Scruby 30, but shorter than a Stadden or Suren--or, I think, one of these guys--but tended to be stockier. I'd be OK mixing them in a gun crew or skirmish line if there were enough variety, but I'd be a little more reluctant to mix them in formed ranks.

25mm was always a growing lad. He just kept in growing!

In the case of Minifigs in the USA: I have permission to produce figures that I have the masters for.I just no longer have the facilities to set up shop.

On the 15mm strips: Years ago I inventoried the contents of the master molds for them. I discovered that I have very few of little of the lines. (None of the earlier 30mm ranges- heard that they were sold long ago to 3-4 US owners.) The production molds and the remaining master strips were sold off to customers after the Super Detail range came about. The Super Detail range was to have been an improvement over the strips and ownership in both US and UK wanted to push the new ranges and drop the older ones- If you need to spend money on new molds might as well be the latest and greatest…) Before I left for Germany (1 Feb 2010), I was comptemplating bringing back the Super Detail range of 15mm Napoleonics. Despite having brought out third edition (Dave Higgs' sculpts for Napoleonics) I felt there was enough demand (based upon customer inquires) to have both lines available. The 25mm Napoleonics molds were 100% redone by BGR Partners by the time we purchased Minifigs from them. Sales for 25mm were negligible at that time as 28mm was the "hot"/popular ranges of others. We (GFI) ran with the 12mm/N scale WWII, Vietnam, Moderns and developed WWI. We also bought Armies in Miniature (AIM) in toto and added Samurai (who's sales really surprised me!) We also added to a few 15mm ranges (WWI) Tricorn era especially, with additional figures and equipment. (Even had a 15mm model of the ACW "General and tender"awaiting it turn for production molding when I left.)

I have had all the molds stored in climate storage waiting for someone to run with the standard! Many talked a good game but bowed out at the last minute for various reasons (the realization of what start-up costs would be in getting a facility configured for gas, electricity, casting, dismounting, packaging, proper mold library racks, office and shipping space in addition to employee benefits. Not that many who expressed interest were more hobbiests than running it as a business.

Since I have retired I have had opportunities to purchase 3-4 other ranges but without the ability to produce, I can only hope that they land in the hands of more capable people. BTW, anyone remember the old "Series 77" line? The last owner passed without heirs and the molds, masters etc. had to be trashed per a close friend who was tasked to dispose of it all. This was in Hawaii. Sad ending to such a magnificent range!

@Dye4minis
I can imagine that is exactly what happened to the one man band "true 25mm" companies I alluded to above.

Old timers lament: "I knew I should have bought those Bombay Sappers and Miners 25 years ago!"