I actually disagree. I think that prices going up is not necessarily good. You'd want games to be set at a reasonable level and be able to maintain that level, but if all of the games pre-2000 tomorrow doubled in price, you would find that it wouldn't help the hobby at all.

You need an entry point for the average person, and that entry point couldn't / shouldn't be a $3,000 machine. Find a $1500 machine, figure out how to repair it, increase the market for those parts, and play it. At $3k, a LOT of people are just going to say no thanks, and that will be the end of that.

I've totally thought about it.

I don't have a good hookup for printing that sort of thing, maybe if I get one I'll experiment with it. I dunno what the minimum run for that kind of thing looks like.

Still, while alternates are fun, I absolutely get the desire to have original replacements. I just ordered new plastics for my Abra Ca Dabra from Pinball Rescue. Getting a new repro backglass from Ron Webb. Thankfully they've all managed to work something out with Gottlieb to make that stuff available. I don't want to retheme this one, I like it the way it is, just want it clean and sparkly.

Thumbs up for Abra Ca Dabra!

Sounds like you should start a business making them if you are so sure it in the way to go. I don't see a single new company springing up to fill this need. Not to mention $150 is more than most of the licensed plastic sets on CPR, so you should have a monopoly and make a killing if you are right.

I have had great luck with Pinball Rescue. The quality on their plastics if anything seems better than PBR.

There are obviously people making translites and decals (I'm not the only one) so I don't see why not. $150 is a common plastics price, and certainly not out of line with the mods being sold now.

You are assuming I have artistic talent which I do not.

I think Aurich could make some amazing sets. I would reach out to Spooky if he needs someone to actually produce a future design. if you are going to do this Aurich then I would suggest picking the correct machine for which there is a need and likely even more importantly DO NOT tell anyone until they are 100% made and ready to go. Even through PPS may have zero intent to make actual reproduction plastics for the game you pick at this time you can rest assure that as soon as he catches wind of a potentially better replacement he will "aanounce" that he is making a reproduction set.

Pinball rescue guys were making some great stuff, hopefully planetary will start making it all, but I tend to think they would not make it in 10 lifetimes. I understand that they bought the rights to something and they are not UNICEF which is fair enough, but surely common sense should prevail some money from pinball rescue has got to be better than nothing if you are never going to get time to do it yourself (money for nothing). Same story as the guys who making the Gorgar Apron skins looked great can't buy them though.......why not say I am never going to do the things give me 500 bucks a game for the rights and off you go

I like to imagine a world where, instead of Rick and his backer, we raised enough money as a community to purchase the rights to B\W pinball IP and released the work under a Creative Commons Share-Alike license (or some similar license).

We'd get rid of the middle man who just adds a tax to everything we buy without adding much (if any) value. The market would decide what is good and what is bad. Tinkerers extending games wouldn't have to bow down and get approval from the gatekeeper before releasing new rulesets. And there'd be no more confusion about who owns what. The community as a whole (except for the middle men) would flourish.

Since Williams still owns the IP and PPS is just a licensee, I guess this utopia is still feasible (yet very unlikely). It sure would be great though.

And who would organize this? Who would be in charge? Who would decide what products to make and how many of each? Who would be willing to make the molds and such to have some parts made? Who would stock all these items? Who would source all the specialty vendors to have these parts made?

If it were only that simple. I buy tons of parts that Rick is responsible for making and rarely have an issue with the prices I pay. I'm more than happy to let him do all the leg work while I sit at my computer in my underwear and order the stuff.

The exact same people that are doing it now. Until PPS acquired IPB, all of the (good) work was being done by people who are not PPS. If I recall, you yourself managed the effort to manufacture BSD plastics and the general consensus is that they're awesome. In my (huge) fantasy world of a free and open license, you wouldn't have had to deal with PPS at all. No plastics for his inventory, no threats of legal action, just you making quality products and being rewarded accordingly.

I realize my fantasy world is just that, a weird pinball utopia where anyone willing to go through the effort to produce quality goods would be able to do so without having to have a whole bunch of legal stipulations hanging over their heads. No one would be in charge, because the CC license is a free\open license. Companies who saw opportunity in investing in a mold would take that risk and do so. Just like Twisted has done with Taxi Spinout ramps. They made their own tooling, but surely had to get PPS's blessing before choosing to invest in said tooling.

Depending on your point of view PPS is either a white prince endowing the pinball community with amazing reproduction parts and machines or an IP troll hell-bent on being the god of all things pinball crushing all those that dare not bow to his might. Reality is certainly somewhere well between the two.

Rick's ball and court, Rick's rules.
If you don't like it don't buy any B/W games and you won't need any of his parts.

Boy did you nail that! I wish he would just make MM and other pins. Oh, I forgot he does make anything, everyone else is doing that for him. I do not see Gary or Jack on here daily. Talking about what might happen or yep we were just working on that decal, plastics or ramp for that machine. WHATEVER. To bad there's no blowing smoke
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Yes I see the water mark I did that just for him....LOL

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And we could make a brand new, best game ever, Double Rare LE based on the theme of the venture.

Cluster Fuck Deluxe

CFDLE

Has a nice ring to it.

Am I correct in thinking this applies to JJP and DP also?

There hasn't been a lot posted on this because it only affects a very small percentage of hobbyists, just the ones who desire to have nice replacement parts. I repaired all these items: the Pinbot and Taxi topper, the Taxi spinout, the Pinbot vortex, and more. We will get along just fine without new parts. If I can't find an original or used replacement part, I'll repair what I've got or I'll make something.

PPS pretty much stated the plan in there post on page one. They plan to increase parts production and bring on more vendors to partner with. When someone spends the money to purchase the rights to a product they have the legal right to control it's production. The rights are useless if they are not making the parts and selling them so I'm not sure why everyone acts like parts are suddenly not going to be avialable anymore. Why does everyone seem to think that PPS doesn't want the parts made? They want to make there money back on the purchase and the only way to do that is to make the parts or come to agreements with other sellers and contract them to make the parts.

I didn't know there was another source for these

http://pinballrescue.net/Plastics_Klondike.html

I would imagine generic yes, game specific no.

Yes, that's what I meant, thanks. Wish they could get away from this completely.

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Not to try to cause any problems, but has anyone considered altering the artwork by enough of a percentage that it no longer falls under copyright?

I seem to remember reading that, somewhere, at some point in time...

The term you're looking for is a "derivative work".

In this case it won't fly. The new work has to contain non-trivial changes so that it could be considered "original", rather than just a rip-off. There is no "percentage" rule--a derivative work has to be original enough and transformed enough in order to be able to stand on its own.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work

If a plastic as an image of a clown on it in a red costume and you alter the costume so that it is purple with yellow polka dots, it's a rip-off--you're not really altering the meaning of the work.

On the other hand if you take that clown and redraw it as a creepy evil clown in a torn-up red costume, that could probably be considered a derivative work since you changed the meaning--a happy clown into an evil-looking one. Although, this won't stop the copyright owner from coming after you if they really want to since this change might not be "transformative" enough for you to be in the clear, since it doesn't change the intended purpose of the artwork (ie, both would be for the same plastic). If you put the new evil clown on a poster instead of a plastic, you might get away with it since it's a derivative work with a different purpose (ie, a wall hanging, rather than a plastic).

What do you mean 'now'? They've had them!! The difference has been a stock of parts and original factory/manufacturing parts.

You had your facts screwed up in the first popst.. and you still do. No wonder you are worried about what it will do to the hobby..

PPS has been the licenser for williams/bally parts and IP since PPS was setup after they bought out Mr Pinball Austrailia.

*facepalm* - where are they going? The same place they've been going since PPS was setup.. a company to license and manufacturer parts for the pinball hobby. You think there has been some new pivot in what they are doing or what they controled... you are wrong.

I am done doing restores and sold off my B/W games so no more little 300 dollar + boxes of parts for me.

Ah, thanks for the clarification. But, what about this scenario: the OEM slingshot plastic has a clown on it. Someone completely redraws the character, but has him in a completely different but very similar pose. That is to say, the arms and legs are moved a little, position/tilt of the head...that sort of thing.

Then this image is placed on a "triangular shaped" plastic with no holes in it and marketed as a bookmark or whatever.

Someone with great artistic ability could make stuff like that, couldn't they? Like, "Novelty" items, plastics without holes in them? If people want to destroy the plastics by drilling holes in them, well, that's their problem.

Gray area, though in the end, you probably would not be in the clear.

It still would be too close to being a rip-off. Making slight arbitrary changes won't make the work "original", and simply slapping it on a slightly different object won't be transformative enough. Just putting artwork on a different material won't count. People have been sued for that.

'In the clear' or not honsetly makes very little difference. Make a design that is different enough and do the redraw yourself without referening the originalimage and you will be fine.

I say go for it and then let the liscense holder try to prove it differently. They can waste their time in court on lawyers and you can represent yourself.

Good odds are that at most you get a C&D.

If you really want to be smart about it then you make originals and leak them slowly out into the population with anonymous accounts on overseas ebay. The rights holder will spend more time attempting to chase an overseas account and to be completely fair many countries have VERY different laws regarding copy laws. It is pretty easy to 'set up shop' in one of those countries.

If you draw a different character entirely (ie, an acrobat instead of a clown), that would probably be alright, as long as the character doesn't appear anywhere else in the game.

Some of you guys are so outrageous- it's painful. But, this is America. Carry on and protest.....

Make your own reproductions and cut out the lawsuit That's what I did for my Gottlieb Flip a Card. The original plastic was so brown you couldn't even see color left in the art. They were all shades of beige.
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I agree 100%. I think PPS's new business model of total world domination will create a LOT of people willing to try and make their own replacement parts! Great job by the way, those look awesome....

Hey PP. Stop trying to scare people. The post above is obviously because you contacted him. Scaring your customers is no way to conduct business. If I keep hearing and seeing things like this I won't buy one part from you again. You are free to post comments and have an open dialogue with your customers. This is a small tight nit community you have to sell to. So far you are not setting yourself up to endear yourself to anyone and are openly going to make people figure out ways to leave you out of their purchase loop. Comet Pinball runs his business the way one should be run. Art bends over backwards to help and is trying to keep this hobby going with great prices, service and quality. So will I get a nasty letter next?

I understand that while contract agreements are being negotiated, details aren't typically made public.

People simply want details about what's coming down the pipeline so they can plan ahead on their own restoration project schedules or buy a project pin that they wouldn't otherwise buy if parts were unavailable.

Or, like too-many-pins says, sadly resort to parting out a machine if it is known that a pin is *never* going to have parts made for it.

Despite all the back-and-forth amongst ourselves, the conjecture, and the rumor mills, we're all simply enthusiasts and want to see things to succeed.

We also want to hear what is actually happening--good or bad. Yes, we're always excited to hear about all the good new stuff coming out. But we also would want to hear about unexpected delays or project cancellations--yes, folks will grumble and sometimes be upset, but it's better than silence. Silence only gets the rumor mill churning and gets people even more riled up. I'm sure PPS has seen this happen more than once now.

agree with your concerns, but I am an addict so... YES.

Package deal of project B/W for a decent price is the thing I dream about.

Also, I do not want to violate Pinside TOS by sharing personal messages but I have gotten some epically funny nastygrams from Rick/PPS.

I would be seriously tempted to pick out 1 or 2 if you're serious about it. (wish I had room for more)

Uh oh, the Chum is in the water... here comes the sharks.... LOL

If PPS just makes me a replacement ramp for Who Dunnit I'll be a happy camper

Pins in the watah.....Shaaaks in the watah.....

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I understand a break from pinball, I do it all the time. When the sites get too heavy, I just stay off em and hang out with my non-online friends and play the ball.