I was on a business trip last week in China, out of blue, I bought a Modeling magazine in the news kiosk. Then totally forgot about it, today whilst I was reading it, to my shock I found my earlier Pz III ausf J was in it, they must downloaded it from tracklink or something

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/photos/showphoto.php?photo=2062&password=&sort=8&cat=500&page=1

So I give them a call, now they are going to apologize to me in the next issue, and also pay me a little, even asked me to write an article for them in November.

Geez , talking about getting infringed. Well, at least I am a little famous in China now. 1 billion people, can't beat that, I bet there must be some hot Chinese Modeling chicks. #:-)

Well, be sure to mention Armorama to them when you forward the article.... After they have paid you, they may have some budget left for an advertisement over here...

Dave,
I've been wonderring about that, the last time I was in Beijing. Are model kits easily available in China ? Are they popular or only for a very select part of the population ?
Knowing the Chinese, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there would soon be Chines copies of all resin kits and plastic kits you can think of.
We're probably not quite there yet, but I predict that in the coming decade, the world market will be flooded with cheaper Chinese aftermarket kits.. Or am I thinking wrong here ?

PS : I was recently interviewed by a popular Chinese magazine that runs over 160 million copies, but that doesn't beat my appearance on BBC world with 600 million viewers !
(but I have to admit this was not about modeling )

Dave,
That is not good at all, You know dave you could make a big deal about this I can see the headline now.............Obscure Hong kong modeler makes millions from copy right infringement.
And once you get out of the court house you will see a little Kiwi kid selling shirts that say "I spoke to this guy online"
seriously dave that is good you actually rang them up and found out what was going on.
I wonder how many other modelers they have riped off?

"OH MY GOSH ITS DAVE THE MODELLER FROM THE MAGAZINE!!!!"- 10000000 Girls in China once seeing Dave.

Dave you Good ol Celebrity You!!

Hubba Hubba maybe you can meet a Kobe Tai chick to model with Hubba Hubba (++) (++) Oink Oink would not mind giving some lessons or learning some Her Hubba Hubba (++) (++) (++)

Well Dave, it's not a very good thing...but when you think about it...your model was good enough to be in a magazine You should feel complemented :-)

Cheers,
Matt

Lets hope there are some hot modeling chicks! If there are, you have my address right?
~chip :-)

Dave, sorry to hear but hope that it is all straightened out. They've been doing that kind of stuff for years... CDs, Movies etc. and the list goes on and on... < insert tougue biting here.>

Let me know how the women are as I'm expecting a massive influx of them (ya, right!) myself in the next few months when my reference book 'appearance' comes out. I've been trying to prepare the Mrs. here since early last summer.

#:-)

I have to agree with Machu's comment. Could have been worse... you never saw the mag...

At the risk of upseting some people:
The Chinese have been ripping people off for years, as far as designs are concerned.
I am not surprised in the least that they have stolen your photos.
I would even go far as to say that that they have no taste.............
They haven't stolen my professional photos yet!!!!!!

LOL, good one, Martinus. #:-)

BADABIM BADABOOM!!!

1:1 scale models for the master modeler (++)

Modelling groupies? That I have to see.....Dave Tong the new pacific-rim Spice-Boy? David-I-Can-Only-Speak-In-Monosyllables-Beckham eat your heart out #:-) .....

Seriously, a similar thing happened to me in the 1980s, in this case, a leftie-mag got hold of photographs of mine (from a we-love the Soviet Union demo.) and reprinted them without permission ,either of myself or the agency who held the rights. The result was a rather 'serious' letter from one of the heaviest firms of copyright lawyers in Britain. I almost became the owner and publisher of a nasty little left-wing rag....instead, I was paid more for the pics than I would have done normally and the 'magazine' almost had to close down......hehehehe...Jim

A British aviation scale modeler magazine ripped off an article I had done on the P-40 back when I ran the IPMS-Houston Scale Model Forum, they took it word for word for the first three paragraphs. i was amazed. They never did apologize and pretty much told me to have my counsel contact them. I was broke at the time and really didn't want to mess with it, but it really hacked me off.

Hello All,
I've been posting allot of reference photos lately and I too was amazed at other people claiming they took the shot.. Maybe we all need to add signatures to our work.

Semper FI
Andy

As a large portion of us post pictures here, it was bound to happen. Personally, to have your work pubished I would find an honor, and that they are going to send you compensation, well that just adds gravy.

not to scorn any brits here (as armorama does have its share of brits!) but....cheeky bastards haha :-)

I've had people claim that my photos were taken by them as well Tankleader. I have a ton of reference stuff on guns and uniforms and some aircraft, and I found a guy even linking off my own server in a Chinese forum and he claimed they were his pics in the forum he posted them in! Amazing.

BUT- get a load of this.

I published a website in 1994-2000, and once put up some pics of a submarine I had photographed. A guy emaile dme and said that I had used his photos and I should take them down. I told him to get lost. Anyway, he tracked me down and mailed me cpoies of his pictures and negatives to "prove" to me that HE owned the pics. Oddly enough, his pictures were very much LIKE mine- same angles, same kind of weather, etc. But enough difference was present that it was obvious our photos were each from different sets. So I mailed him his stuff back along with duplicates of MY pics, and he was amazed as well, and apologized.

As it turns out, there are just certain places to stand and angles that work best when photographing this submarine. I would imagine there are many sets of pics out there that are similar. If you ever see photos of the armor on display at Aberdeen, most of it looks idetical, most folks take the photos from fairly standard angles.

But to be truly ripped off sucks, no matter what.

I've seen my motor pool photographs show up in other people's websites. I gave several people permission to do so and would probably not turn anyone down who asked.

I just wish they would ask before borrowing my photos and reposting them on their site. That's common courtesy and they should credit where the photograph came from.

Yo guys
Here is a little program that may slow down the casual "internet picture grabber"
http://www.webattack.com/get/copyrightleft.shtml
And it's free!

Bloody cheecky if you ask me. This happens all the time so I am told. Watch out you all...you may be next.

they're coming for us all

I read somewhere a couple of days ago (could very well ahve been here) of a chinese company selling Eduard photo-etch as their own.

The box is different, but when you pull out the PE it is exactly like the Eduard sets, with the writing on the sprues etc.

The Chinese have a huge boot leg movie and DVD business going as well, even worse then the Russians. Friend of mine works there. Went into a computer store to buys some computer games. Pulled the boxes off the shelf to go and pay for them. He paid, then the cashier took the boxes, gave them to another guy who went in the back and made CD copies for him. He got his money back for that, but they don't even try to hide it.