[pabianice]

Greedhead alert. SHAME on them.

[Pan_Yan]

ping

[Stonewall Jackson]

This is just sad.

[BoBToMatoE]

This is really a sad day. Then again, I know of people who would be a okay with this and view it simply as another "review stream." They would say that the problem is not theirs, but the people who build the models. This represents everything thats WRONG with American business.

[EdReform]

GI Ping

[ken21]

i can't tell you how many hours i spent gluing wooden and plastic ships and especially airplanes during my childhood.

[R. Scott]

I’ve noticed that few are available that are Made in America.

[TChris]

Sounds like more brilliant management from our country's current crop of idiot baby-boomer MBAs. These guys would rather have $40 royalty each on 0 sales than $2 royalty each on 20,000 sales. Pinheads.

[Poohbah]

This move grew out of the idea that corporations should maximize "intellectual property" income. Models of a companys products are considered the intellectual property of the owner of a vehicle design.

Uh, last time I checked, these designs were owned by the United States government.

[roaddog727]

Very sad.

Just Damn.

[Myrddin]

This is a sad development. I once had a table full of beautifully detailed aircraft models. My little sister decided to have pillow fight with her friend in my bedroom. All the models were destroyed. I never had the heart to try to rebuild the collection. This development seals any hope of trying again in the future.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[durasell]

Too bad nobody has come up with a software system where you can design and fly your own plane...like Rollercoaster Kingdom.

[television is just wrong]

I have my step brothers lot. When my mother cleaned house she ran them all over to me. Do you think they'll be worth something???

[tutstar]

bump

[P.O.E.]

My all-time favorite:

More examples here.

[philetus]

The god of the world is the greenback dollar.

[rck12sq]

About 20 years ago when I started to produce limited injected kits as "12 Squared", I wrote to Boeing to obtain drawings of the new hi-by-pass engine cowling used on the B373. I received a letter from their lawyers asking what I required them for. After about six exchanges of correspondence they sent me a very detailed set of drawings of the new model of B373 with the stipulation that I could not use the words "Boeing" or "B-737" in the marketing of the kit. At that time they did not ask for a fee, but I'm sure my request helped speed along their decision to make money off the 'little guy'.
I went to the EAA fly-in at Oshkosh, WI, shortly after the Voyager did its around the world flight. I had done up a 1/144 resin copy of the Voyager with plans to do it in plastic. I stood in front of Burt Rutans booth twirling it between my fingers. He couldn't take his eyes off of it as a gentleman from France lauded him with praise about his Vari-EZ. Finally we got to talk and he said it was a good representation but the pods were two fat. He never did drawings of the Voyager, the only sketches being on the floor in chalk. The royalties for kits for the Voyager had been given to Gena Yeager as part of her share of the spoils from her split with Dick Rutan. I chased her down at the other end of the flight line where she told me that her recently fired business manager had lumped the kit royalties into the rights for a movie and that it had been sold to a studio. Hence you will not see a kit produced in the US. Fortunately A-Model from Russia or where-ever produced a kit in 1/72. I still work on masters and hope to get back into making kits again. So I was working up a Pegasus and wrote Orbital Science. There I was flat out told that they have their own 'model manufacturer' (I assume for the desk top models to sit around the exec's desks) and that they had no intentions of granting anyone else the right to produce their products in model form. So be glad there are Asian and East European companies kicking out those one off kits. When Boeing gained the rights to McDonnell - Douglas - and North American I heard from an engineer friend at Boeing that their legal department was going after US Customs to crack down on all the die cast kits coming into the country that were P-51's, F4's etc because they had not signed a legal agreement with Boeing the new owner of those 'proprietary designs'. They just don't realize how many aviation careers where launched by some kid building his first plastic model of a fighter from some era that fascinates him. Let alone the free advertising of ones products and hopefully the aspirations of that kid to one day fly a "Boeing" aircraft or fly into space.