Quoted from csprings74:I would like to address another form of "copyright infringement" that was mentioned in the very first post… Mods. From what I remember from product design legal 101, and also from speaking with a patent attorney to try to get a business name copyrighted, the standard is, how common and publicly available are the "components" about which you are trying to share information?
Whether those components are words, or the product itself (like a mod) as long as the knowledge is part of the public domain, i.e. knowledge of electronics, knowledge of soldering, working with parts that are commonly available on the public market, there is no infringement on copyright to duplicate something like this. A perfect example is a company that takes a toy that can be bought from many retail stores, adds LEDs to it, and specifies where to place it on a particular pinball machine. Legally, they do not have exclusive rights to make that mod (unless they have obtained a patent for it.)
One pretty common example would be the Merlin mod for MM. That exact Merlin toy can be purchased online, and either making it yourself, or publicly sharing the information about how to add a color changing "crystal ball" is not proprietary. There are several people making this mod and selling it on eBay. However, this shouldn't preclude anyone here sharing information about how to make it themselves. Neither the toy or the knowledge of how to make it is proprietary.
I have seen some posts/videos which share information on how to make a unique mod, but I have also noticed that if a major company regularly stocks and resells that item, there seems to be a general attitude that this is taboo. Perhaps, there exists a mindset that it is an ethical breach to share how to make your own out of loyalty to the company that makes mass quantities of it? What about the pocketbook of the end user? Many of these mods can be made for a few dollars, but "the big company" sells it for $150. Is it unreasonable to make your own and/or share how to make it rather than pay an enormous amount to someone else to get it? (Obviously, this is not directed to people who don't have the time or aptitude to make it themselves, and are happy to pay someone else to make it for them.) What's the general consensus about this, especially the issue of posting instructions on how to "copy" a commercially available mod that does not have a patent?
I ran into this problem with the TZ piano mod I was making, but since the original piano mod was made from a McDonald's toy, I was allowed to continue. Also received permission from the original manufacturer as long as it didn't look like theirs.
