forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com

Modelers Lounge => The World of Scale Models => Topic started by: macsporran on November 05, 2021, 06:37:23 PM

Title: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: macsporran on November 05, 2021, 06:37:23 PM
Acknowledgements to the Wingnuts FB page where evidence of a spat over the Borders/WNW 1/32 Lancaster appears to be developing. Good luck to them both!

With no claims for veracity and admitting no liability, here is the alleged WNW statement and Borders post:
 
Today BORDER MODEL will issue a statement about Lancaster.
We released the 1/32 AVRO Lancaster w/full Interior 2 months ago. We did not mention any words about WINGNUTWINGS in all our official presentations. And did not use any rendering used by their company. The only BOXART used is from Mr. Mark Postlethwaite, the artist from whom we purchased the rights to use this Lancaster painting.  Although all modelers know that this kit first belonged to WINGNUTWINGS.
But the true story is that WINGNUTWINGS has never paid for the Lancaster molds since they announced their closure in 2020. As far as I know WINGNUTWINGS also owes a lot of mold fees to many mold factories in China. The factory owners are already on the verge of closing down because of the COVID19 in 2020 and the 2021 China's power restriction policy. One of the factory owners who helped WINGNUTWINGS to make the Lancaster molds is our friend. They complained to us that the department that WINGNUTWINGS has not responded to emails for a year and a half since 2020. They don't pay fees and would not say anything about the reason. Finally in June of 2021, the factory owner sent them a final email, which probably read: If you do not pay for the tooling and give a reasonable response and explanation within a month. We will dispose of LANCASTER's molds by ourselves. 
One month later, the factory had not received any positive response and certainly no payment. Subsequently, for many reasons, including helping the factory to recover its costs and BORDER also very much hope that this LANCASTER can be successfully launched, because it is the dream of many modelers including us!Then we signed a contract to purchase the mold on July 29th 2021. From now on, the 1/32 scale LANCASTER molds belong to BORDER MODEL!
But it was not an easy project. First of all we didn't have any CAD drawings of the Lancaster, and we used a special method in order to finish the assembly instructions. It took a lot of time and money to complete the instructions. Secondly, the molds for the Lancaster were not finished. There are many parts of such a huge bomber that contain many mistakes. Some details were missing, and some parts could not be assembled. We spent more time and money tweaking and repairing the molds because we didn't want such an epic product to come to market with flaws!
Our high retail price is also due to the above reasons. High tooling costs, more modification tests, difficult assembly instructions and all kinds of unforeseen risks. And we didn't think there would be great sales for such a huge aircraft.
Then in October, we received a letter from the lawyer of Peter Jackson, the founder of WINGNUTWINGS.
The lawyer's letter claims that we stole WINGNUTWINGS' molds and violated their intellectual property rights. The lawyer's letter is full of fabrications and lies, and claims that "BORDER obtained the molds from WINGNUTWINGS". Everyone knows that all official statements of BORDER do not mention even one word about WINGNUTWINGS. And our molds were legally purchased from the mold factory!
Then we replied and explained everything, but got no reply! After another half month, all BORDER agents around the world received a letter from Peter Jackson's lawyer. He threatened our agents not to allow them to sell BORDER 1/32 LANCASTER, which made us very angry! The lawyer's letter slandered us as thieves and said we were infringing their intellectual property rights. 
First of all, according to the contract between the factory and WINGNUTWINGS, the ownership of the LANCASTER mold belongs to the factory until the payment is completed made. The factory finally sold the molds to BORDER legally after a year and a half of communication without any response and learning that WINGNUTWINGS had closed down and sent an ultimatum. So 1/32 of LANCASTER's molds belong to BORDER without any doubt!
Secondly, the article about infringement of intellectual property rights is even more ridiculous. Everyone knows that military models are not copyrighted. Neither we nor the factory keep or use any of their company CAD drawings (which I think WINGNUTWINGS employees know), the factory only has 3D drawings of the parts used to design the molds. We have relied on a unique approach to creating the instructions. And we have modified many bad designs of the mold. The overall design has also undergone some modifications due to problems with the mold and the injection process. This is already a completely new development, so WINGNUTWINGS has no so-called "intellectual property" for this mold!
A final word about Peter Jackson and WINGNUTWINGS: Many people at WINGNUTWINGS knew in advance that we had purchased the LANCASTER mold, and they were all very happy to have this product available and helped us out a lot. They are all very wonderful and friendly people. As for the great director Peter Jackson, I guess he must be especially fond of LANCASTER, but unfortunately, although he is a great director, he is a failed scale model company owner. His own company is operating without any concern for all projects, and when he encounters difficulties, he simply closes the company, completely disregarding the livelihood of his employees! His company owed several factories in China more than a million US dollars in unpaid mold costs, which is the sign of a completely selfish and irresponsible person!
Maybe Peter Jackson thinks he is very rich and has a bunch of lawyers with nothing to do, so he can go around slandering and insulting people, and these lawyers' letters make us out to be criminal thieves and liars. Seriously damaging the image of our company and intimidating our agents! However, it is you who can do such a bad thing without knowing everything, or maybe you think that Chinese model companies and mold factories only steal your poor "intellectual property". And you are free to break the contract and default on the money that the factory depends on? So next time before you send a lawyer's letter, please make sure you are a responsible and trustworthy person.
At the end, I really hope Peter Jackson can reopen a modeling company, we would love to compete and battle with you in this industry. If not, then I think it's better for you to make movies.
BORDER's 1/32 LANCASTER will be released worldwide in December 2021, we have finished all the mold modifications, finished all the instructions, decals, painting instructions, and are in full production and packaging!
Either way we will release LANCASTER !!!!
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: ColonelKrypton on November 06, 2021, 02:50:41 AM
Not surprising, seemed inevitable given the personalities involved.

cheers, Graham




Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: WD on November 12, 2021, 04:58:24 AM
Wow, but then again, I'm not surprised.

WD
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: KiwiZac on November 12, 2021, 03:24:02 PM
The threads at Britmodeller and LSP on this have been looooong and in one case locked in fear of libel.

Some people just want their Lanc! It's such a shame this is happening. (Of course I'd love to have one but 1) cost b) space, iii) I don't think I'd have the energy to build anything ever again and, finally, cost)
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: bobs_buckles on November 15, 2021, 01:05:49 AM
Just my 2 cents.
I wouldn't touch the Border Lanc with a barge poll.

I hope WNW and Peter can get this stopped, but I do have my doubts.

vB   
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: Borsos on November 15, 2021, 02:23:41 AM
Just my 2 cents.
I wouldn't touch the Border Lanc with a barge poll.

I hope WNW and Peter can get this stopped, but I do have my doubts.

vB

Fascinating: you seem to have evidence that PJ/WNW is definitely right and Border is wrong. I for myself can’t see that at all. Would you share your special knowledge with us, please?
Andreas
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: Bughunter on November 15, 2021, 03:35:57 AM
Same question from my side.
If you look at how PJ ended up dealing with his employees, why should he have dealt differently with the mould makers?
If the moulds of the Fokker Dr.I had been paid for, Meng would certainly not have put them on the market. Exactly the same will have happened with the Lancaster.

Cheers,
Frank
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: bobs_buckles on November 15, 2021, 05:13:31 AM
Guys,
 I don't have any special knowledge and although we may disagree I respect your opinion. I don't have first hand experience working with Peter, So I can't judge the man. If he did wrong by his staff, then I'm sorry to hear that, but that is between him and his former staff. It is none of my business, nor would I want it to be my business.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel for me. Kotare  models will be releasing a Mk.1a Spitfire and by all accounts it will be a world beater. Happy days!.

Cheers,
Borderless Bob  ;)


Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: pepperman42 on November 15, 2021, 08:23:06 AM
Is it me or does Border's statement have a bit of "Thou dost protest too much" in it? On the other hand stopping them from bringing the Lanc to market solves nothing and buries it in legal red tape forever.

Steve 
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: Dave W on November 15, 2021, 08:25:51 AM
Folks

Trying to decipher the legal complexities of the Wingnuts/ Border Model war is way too complex for us non-lawyers and it has the potential to become volatile when discussed so I am keeping a close watch on this thread, mindful that on some other sites it has gone wildly off tangent.

From what I understand of this issue (I'm a journalist, not a lawyer but I work for IP lawyers):

1. Wingnut Wings engaged a toolmaking firm in China to tool its two 1/32 Lancaster kits. This company is not a model retailer.

2. Wingnuts abandoned the Lancaster projects and all other in-development projects when the business was shut down last year.

3. While the project was abandoned, Wingnuts did not assign or abandon the Intellectual Property (IP) rights it has in the design of the components.

4. The toolmaking company seized the tooling and sold it to Border Model which it could legally do under Chinese law.

5. The issue is that Wingnuts insists the tooling company did not have the right to assign Wingnuts' IP (contained in the tooling) to another party and thus Border were not legally entitled to own, develop and produce the final kit.

6. The Wingnuts Lancaster projects took something like 10 years of development I am told and sadly the only people likely to see a profit from this will be the lawyers.

7. While Wingnuts may not be able to force the Courts in China to meet its claims and stop the kit's production, the company can employ its lawyers to warn western model retailers and hobby stores not to stock the kit, claiming the manufacturers did not have the right (the IP rights) to use the tooling.

Very messy, a very sad ending to what should have been Wingnuts' crowning glory and an interesting insight into what might happen to the tooling for those  1/32 Handley Page O/100 and O/400 kits that Wingnuts had ready for production. The tooling is somewhere in China.

It's a fascinating example of how the law and business can impact on our hobby but in the case of our little forum folks- it's a plastic model and it's a hobby so please keep it friendly.

Dave Wilson
Gold Cooast
Australia
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: Bughunter on November 15, 2021, 05:27:44 PM
Thank you Dave for the complete summary.

For me the main point is: are the tools paid or not.
If not, it could be sold to legally to Border model (loss limitation/insolvency law).

In my eyes it is exactly the same story as with the Fokker Dr.I and no lawyer stopped Meng to sell it world wide.

The world wide community still miss a official sentence about the end of WNW from PJ.

Cheers,
Frank
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: Stuart Malone on November 16, 2021, 04:59:09 AM
I am not in the market for one of these, but if I were, I would only buy one from a guy in a dark alley claiming it fell off the back of a truck. Paid for with cash of course. 

Stuart
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: bobs_buckles on November 16, 2021, 06:09:54 AM
I am not in the market for one of these, but if I were, I would only buy one from a guy in a dark alley claiming it fell off the back of a truck. Paid for with cash of course. 

Stuart

The normal way of buying then?  lol

 :) :)
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: jamieg on November 17, 2021, 08:23:24 AM
Owning the lumps of metal that are the moulds is one thing; owning the rights to produce anything from them is something entirely different.
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: Borsos on November 17, 2021, 06:42:44 PM
The only thing I can see is I can’t see anything through a fog of uncertainties.  Has WNW paid for the moulds? (Producing such „lumps of metal“ costs quite an amount of money…). If yes, I can understand that PJ is upset, if not — you cannot order 10 beers in a bar without paying them but insist on deciding who might drink them (even if the beer should be brewed according to your recipe).
What I generally wonder about is: Despite of the lack of crucial information regarding this case some people seem exactly to know who is right and who is wrong. Folks, no insult intended, but wouldn’t it be better to choose sides after knowing every important point of this complex case — if it is possible at all to choose a side? The world isn’t just black or white, good or bad. There’s no Saint Peter on the one side and evil orcs on the other ….  ;)

Andreas
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: jamieg on November 18, 2021, 03:46:53 AM
This is a very standard situation in injection moulding.  I know; I worked in the industry. Someone designs a product and commissions a mould to be made from another company. The mould is machined but not yet paid for. The designer goes out of business and fails to complete the transaction. The mould will eventually become the property of the mould making company, but the rights to manufacture and sell the product still reside with the designer or some company they have assigned those rights to. Generally, mould makers are not also injection moulders so it is unlikely they would ever have held those rights. So buying the moulds does not automatically confer the right to produce and sell Lancasters on Border. That right resides with WNW or whomever they choose. Border would have been smarter to have made an offer to Jackson as Meng apparently did.
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: Borsos on November 18, 2021, 04:09:49 AM
Where do you know that the situation is the same like you described?  ;)
We simply don’t know enough details to blame Border or anybody else. I for myself am going to sit back and watch this drama unfold.
Ah, yes, I recently bought the HK Models Lancaster.
In 1:48 scale.
My cabinet isn’t big enough for 1:32.  :)

Andreas
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: jamieg on November 18, 2021, 10:18:46 AM
Read Border's statemeent on the matter. They are the ones who have informed us as to how this has developed, and in the process, pretty much admitted to being in the wrong. They bought and improved the moulds which WNW abandoned, but nowhere do they say they have legitimately acquired the rights to produce the model.
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: macsporran on November 18, 2021, 06:43:01 PM
Given PJ's long-time interest, investment, maybe even obsession, with the Dambusters story, movie rights, etc perhaps it's not surprising that of all the unfulfilled WNW projects the Lancaster has become contentious.

Even if the door was closed on any more WWI models, maybe he still harboured a hope that he might have brought the Lancaster to market himself at some future stage. (Perhaps a movie tie-in?)
But of course the mould makers ought to have been paid for their work so they didn't seek to recoup losses elsewhere.

Wonder how Hannants etc view the threatened embargo.
Sandy
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: Pup7309 on November 18, 2021, 10:22:22 PM
Yes it’s still ‘watch this space’
To echo Dave it represents a sad end to what was supposed to be a crowning glory for WNW.
And do we mortals fully understand the decision to shut down? No. It still seems bizarre. Or why payments weren’t made ?
And what chance will the Handley Page have to come out?
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: jamieg on November 19, 2021, 12:34:51 AM
With this in the air, there is an element of risk for any distributor outside of China. These will be very expensive kits, so I can't see companies jumping to buy large numbers of them with Jackson threatening legal action. Inside China, where laws may be different, distribution would likely not be affected. That would mean that people outside of China could probably still buy the kits direct from Chinese sellers, though there might be a risk of the kits being blocked for import with various national customs and excise folks. However, people with ethics might feel that Border is engaging in piracy and not want to deal with them on principle. I'm not interested in the kits at all, but I would be leery of buying one for that reason.
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: KiwiZac on November 20, 2021, 11:45:33 AM
One has to bear in mind that as right around the time Wingnut Wings stopped producing, Sir Peter was dealing with major fraud cases involving the now-former head and chief pilot of The Vintage Aviator Limited Gene DeMarco (https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/01/peter-jackson-and-the-airplane-thief), which have been ongoing for at least two years and are only now (maybe) nearing their end (https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/127035430/sir-peter-jackson-parties-awarded-26m-in-case-against-fraudster-exemployee).
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: jamieg on November 20, 2021, 12:38:05 PM
We still don't have definitive information about what happened to cause Jackson to pull the plug. A contingent of speculators floated the notion that WNW decisions vis a vis what kits to produce caused them to fail and they've convinced themselves and a lot of other folk that they have it all figured out, but that does not explain why TVAL went down too. I think this had far more to do with what was happening in Jackson's world than it did with the actual operation of these companies. I think a whole pile of bad things happened all at about the same time, necessitating him abandoning some of his pet projects. Even rich people can find themselves in financial difficulties...
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: KiwiZac on November 23, 2021, 06:43:46 AM
I think this had far more to do with what was happening in Jackson's world than it did with the actual operation of these companies.
My thoughts exactly.
Title: Re: Border and Wingnuts go legal!
Post by: GHE on November 24, 2021, 03:58:19 AM
Hello,
Regarding the demise of WNW - well, there was no open-doors -policy.
If something runs into trouble you can't help that it happened BUT the way out of the mess might be quite different.
PJ inevitably must be aware of how much fun and pleasure he brought to modelers around the world.
As far as I know he never addressed his customers " Sorry, I know it is sad but at the moment we can't go on and I appreciate you as customers etc etc. " or just: thank you."
The overall behaviour and impression is strange.
Well hell, leave it to him , it is his duty to smooth out mistakes and to act responsible with regard to the conduct of his enterprises.
With regard to his loyal customers: he left without a word...
WNW is over, welcome to new projects!