New "Pool" Idea

Mines ugly, there's 43,183 emails in there. 212 left to follow up on. Ugly.

 

The beauty of the air box are the small velocity stacks built inside. Try pouring water into a small bottle without a funnel , messy and sloppy result. If that doesn't make sense then I'm sorry for you!

 

DOH! I didn't catch that auto-correct typo.....lol

Trying again..... I don't think the AIRBOX is ugly----.

Haha!!! LMHO

 

My XJ won't be the first lady I've ridden that had an ugly box!

(sorry I just couldn't help it).

 

Or ugly lady with a box HHHAAAYYYOOOOOO

 

I guess I don't understand what the big legal deal would be for a guy with a 3D printer to make replacement emblems and side covers for these old bikes. If the manufacturer opted not to make them available anymore then that means they didn't want to spend the time, money, and effort to produce something that they would not get a return on. So I would not think anyone at Yamaha Corp would give a crap about someone making a few trim parts for a 30 year plus old product of theirs.
Example: Year One reproduces parts for Many GM cars from the 60's and 70's. Phoenix Graphics makes decals for all the same cars. Dorman makes an a$$ load of parts for almost any car or truck. Even the GM dealer parts department referred us to "aftermarket" for a door handle kit for a 2010 Chevy pickup truck because you have to buy the whole door panel from GM for $300 if the inside door handle breaks vs $70 kit from Dorman that NAPA or O'Reilly stocks.
So my take on making parts for this stuff is, do not label it as OEM but aftermarket reproduction and call it good. 3D print away my friends the side covers for your 550's for the dozen or two that would be needed no one cares anyway but the dude making them and the person who does not have one.
Speaking of which I need a tank Emblem for my 650 Maxim I was thinking of filling the sides of the tank and get my local decal graphics guy to cut some Gold vinyl decals. I know its not Correct for the purists but is better than nothing at all.

 

The issue is it costs them nothing extra to send the lawyers they have on staff and are already paying to chase you down. To them, the end result is either you license the rights from them which brings in revenue for them or you stop watering down their brand at no additional cost to them or you put up a fight and they make an example of you.

 

Whew.... That's not what i would want to assume--- you'd be unpleasantly surprised.....

In the music world, we have copyright laws to follow, regardless of whether a composition is still in print, or out of print. We STILL have to get permission to copy a POP ( permanently out of print) composition unless it is a definitively Public Domain.

You could also do some reading on all the instrument builders who get sued by Gibson, and other manufacturers, for copying parts without express permission.

My bet would be that most of the aftermarket companies HAVE permission to market those parts.

 

I'm in the same boat, but already had the tank professionally painted so I'm stuck finding some good emblems.

 

So a question rolling through my head is how would I even find out if I could license making POP (to borrow Dave's terminology) XJ parts?

 

you could make a part

the contact us link

http://www.yamaha-motor.com/corporate/home.aspx

 

REPop reproduction original parts

you could produce aftermarket parts as long as there is enough change in the design your free and clear.
instead of rounded corners leave squared off or hexed shape with enough material to sand round by the end user to bring it closer to original

 

It's the word "YAMAHA" that is copyright, along with the "design" of the piece.

Yamaha will license them (we've talked with them before about this), but it takes quite a bit of up-front $$ to do them. Typically, they don't want to fool around with licensing 500/1000 (i.e. "small") production runs, the licensing departments of the big boys are set up to rake in $$ off of hats, jerseys, clocks, plastic footballs, coolers, etc. that show up on the shelves of Walmart, eBay, etc. and sell by the 100,000's.

The legal department is paid to do their job, and to protect the brand. Legally, if they let "infractions" such as that just "go" (and it can be shown that they know about it, yet still turned a blind eye), then they lose the rights to the copyright! That's why they tend to come down hard on any violations.

 

Technically you're talking about trademarks, not copyrights. And that is precisely how Hydrox (the former Oreo competitor) got its recent revival. Kellogg's did nothing with the brand for years. The guy interested in reviving the product posed the question to Kellogg's as a concerned consumer, and they made the mistake of putting it in writing that they had no intentions of bringing the name back. With that evidence, the guy was able to file for a "forced-cancellation" with the Trademark Office in his favor to award him the trademark. It's a pretty cool story.

http://consumerist.com/2014/06/14/t...-hydrox-astro-pops-and-maybe-marshall-fields/

Unfortunately here that would only apply to the "Yamaha" name, and they're definitely still using that. You might be able to wrestle away the "XJ" name, though. Sometimes you can extend a trademark to include a certain kind of look or style. The circular taillights of a Corvette; the seven vertical slots of a Jeep grill; the spherical design of a Weber grill; these are all considered trademarks.

Copyrights are only for written/typed/composed works: books, music, art - basically anything you could feasibly print or watch on TV. Copyrights last the life of the author plus 70 years.

A patent is for designs, concepts, and processes, and only lasts 20 years.



So now that I've thought about this some more I'm wondering what exactly would be stopping us from making a replacement side cover? The copyright and trademark aren't applicable and the patent (if there was one) should have run out already.

What do aftermarket auto body-kit makers have to go through?

 

Hell. And a lot of $$$. Because the OEM's got this whole clever idea of introducing the concept of a "design patent" into law, which states that the particular "shape" (or other characteristic) of an item can also carry patent protection..........

 

Greeeaaaat.

 

Just make a slightly-off copy.


YERMAHA

 

YA MA HA

 

YA MA, HA

 

Patents have limits and they have to be resubmitted to the patent US patent office.
So by some of your folks logic the to own and use a 3D printer to reproduce something is illegal? So if that were true then the companies who make them should be warning the public they would be breaking the law by owning their product to reproduce something!
So Jay Leno should have his ass handed to him for reproducing some parts for his steam driven cars? I was watching his show and they were making some parts he needed to get one of his cars back on the road. So I guess we all saw it and I don't see or hear anyone arresting him for that. So.... I would bet he made a few extras off camera for spares , I know I would have. And if someone needed one that would make me a criminal? If I sold him one?
So by this logic then why are all the aftermarket companies that make car parts like Dorman , Year One, Classic Industries, and the rest in court and why don't we hear about it? You don't because it does not happen. They get around it somehow.
Interesting conversation but we are not talking about making copies of CD's , Guchi hand bags, or Snickers Bars and offering them to the general population.
I think if you BaldWonder were to check and maybe even write a letter to Yamaha Corp Office to see if they have a problem for you to make reproduction parts that are deemed obsolete by them. You would know for sure and they would tell you what you could and could not do by their legal standards. I guess if I had the want or need to do such a thing for a business opportunity, why not give it a shot.