Parma Molds Status

[mytimac]

I am officially giving up on running the Parma repro molds. I will do the gear covers for Mini-Mustang and that is all. They won't even give me the time of day. No returned emails or phone calls after trying multiple times in the last 3 months. Guess they don't wont easy money, so forget them. Maybe Mike sees me as competition in the industry.

[GoMachV]

While I get it, permission is nice, if these are original molds they had to leave Parma somehow- as long as they sold the molds then why wouldn’t you be able to use them?

[mytimac]

No these are Parma repro molds from MRLEXAN.
Also as an FYI, because I know from lawsuits in the pinball hobby, just because you have the mold doesn't give you copyright rights to sell stuff from it. Then there is a opening for parts that are functional non-artistic parts. That is why doing gear covers, that isn't much of a copyright artistic part.

[GoMachV]

Yeah if they aren’t original then that makes sense

[duckhead]

No these are Parma repro molds from MRLEXAN.
Also as an FYI, because I know from lawsuits in the pinball hobby, just because you have the mold doesn't give you copyright rights to sell stuff from it. Then there is a opening for parts that are functional non-artistic parts. That is why doing gear covers, that isn't much of a copyright artistic part.

I'll preface this with saying that my question comes from a completely ignorant point of view...

While there is significant effort to create a mold, does it qualify as "artistic copyright"? Especially if they are emulating a full scale item, which is essentially someone else's "artistic copyright"?

In the case of a unique item, say the Parma 'Eagle', there is probably more grounds for an "artistic copyright" although I'd suspect the legal enforcement of said "copyright" would be shaky at best given the niche' market and 25-30+ years having transpired since any of this was relevant from a significant monetary perspective.

The vintage reproduction market is an interesting one, I dabble in vintage video/arcade games as well where reproductions, emulation, etc. is rampant. It seems largely that most folks don't seem to care anymore about stuff that was relevant 20+ years ago, which is quite possibly why Parma is ignoring you.

However, I can relate to wanting to do things in good faith and getting permission ahead of time, that a character trait of a good person with good intentions.

PS> Might I suggest reproducing Dahm's bodies instead, say the Warrior or Warrior II?

->Mark

[GoMachV]

Dahms reproductions will get you sued there’s a thread or two here about that. Ira sold to Vans Invent iirc, and I’m not sure if it was Ira or Vans that was threatening

[a01butal]

Dahms reproductions will get you sued there’s a thread or two here about that. Ira sold to Vans Invent iirc, and I’m not sure if it was Ira or Vans that was threatening

It was the Van's Invent guy.

https://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=10969&hilit=Van%27s+Invent