Huh? How is this vote negating any legal requirement for builders to pay royalties to Kirby? Neither the old rule nor the proposed new rule mentions royalties or references any contract between the parties. And I'd be amazed if the contracts were dependent on the class rules.
Actually the old rule did require that a builder must have an "agreement" with Bruce Kirby or Bruce Kirby Inc. The whole point of this vote was to delete that requirement. I think it's reasonable to assume that any such contract between a builder and BK or BKI would require that the builder pay some fees or royalties to BK or BKI in return for the right to build boats to the Laser design.
And personally I would not be at all "amazed" if this class rule were the only thing requiring that builders continue to hold such agreements with BK and BKI. Why do you think Bruce Kirby and Global Sailing were so opposed to the rule change if it had no impact on BKI's ability to collect fees for using the Laser design and/or control who is allowed to build Lasers?
GS were opposed to the rule change because they have been working for a long time towards taking over LPE's market. They have capacity through PSA to to build a lot more boats than they currently do and understandably want to use this capacity to generate large piles of cash. That's why they purchased the rights in the first place. Whether or not this would be a good thing would depend on your view of the current builder in your neck of the woods but I'm sure many in Europe would welcome it. Problem is there would be huge trauma for the class in getting from here to there, and the class might not survive
I'd love to see the evidence you have that GS / PSA have been working towards taking over the LPE market.
I'd love to see the evidence you have that GS / PSA have been working towards taking over the LPE market.
Global Sailing Limited
We are looking for enthusiastic and well established marine dealers to become national or multi national distributors in the European region for the
Bruce Kirby designed Olympic Sailing Dinghy
This well established brand has already attracted over 200,000 devoted sailors globally and its long term future remains extremely positive. Over 4500 new boats were produced in 2009. Further details will be available after receipt of your expression of interest.
Contact:
+61 458 800 651 kevinmccann.pte@gmail.com
I'd love to see the evidence you have that GS / PSA have been working towards taking over the LPE market.
As far as I can see, nothing in this rule change will stop Global Sailing from making boats to the specifications of the Laser class rules and the Laser construction manual and then distributing them in Europe (or anywhere else in the world) if they want to. I guess they couldn't call them Lasers if they don't have rights to use the Laser trademark in those regions, but if it walks like a Laser and quacks like a Laser....
What was written in Scuttlebut and also the PSA website were all written whilst this dispute between GS and LP occurred, so it can hardly be claimed they have been working on this for a "long time".What Eric and Tillerman said. And the containers of (slightly used) boats the PSA have been known to ship to Europe for sale.
Not saying it's all GS's fault. Just saying it's at least shared. GS definitely aren't angels in all of this.
As far as I can see, nothing in this rule change will stop Global Sailing from making boats to the specifications of the Laser class rules and the Laser construction manual and then distributing them in Europe (or anywhere else in the world) if they want to. I guess they couldn't call them Lasers if they don't have rights to use the Laser trademark in those regions, but if it walks like a Laser and quacks like a Laser....
Other problem is that the builders might not like it, and they do have a couple of votes on the World Council. They would also fight hard to protect their trademark value in the market.
I thought about that. Actually the real problem is the Advisory Council that only has 4 members - 2 real class officers and 2 builder reps. Currently there is one builder rep from GS/PSA and one from LP. The recent change to the fundamental rule only got through the Advisory Council (3 votes to 1) because the LP rep voted for it. (What a surprise!)
The Laser Class (meaning the sailors) have recently voted for a rule
change, part of which would allow the Laser Class to appoint builders,
rather than Bruce Kirby Inc, which owns the rights to the Laser design. The
official name for the Laser is the KIRBY SAILBOAT.
This vote was taken at the urging of Heini Wellmann, Laser Class president.
The notice for the voting was issued long before Kirby Inc. was able to
make arrangements to re-establish its design rights, so most of the class
were only concerned that there was no proper direction in class affairs.
Had Kirby Inc re-established its ownership of the design rights at the time
of the vote rather than on Sept. 22, 2011, the voting obviously would have
been very different. Class members were not allowed to change their vote
once it was made!
The International Sailing Federation (ISAF) must now decide whether it will
allow the class vote to stand or be disregarded. In Wellmann's proposal to
the class, he has stated erroneously that the Kirby Inc rights have expired
in Europe. These rights are based on Designer/Builder contracts, not on
copyright, and they are valid with all Laser builders - Performance
Sailcraft Europe, Laser Performance in the U.S.A., Perforrmance Sailcraft
Japan and Performance Sailcraft Australia.
The legal right for the Laser Class to interfere with these long
established builder contracts is very doubtful. And any such change in the
Class rules would not alter Kirby Inc's rights to appoint builders. So if
such a change were approved, the confusion for the Class, builders, and
200,000 sailors would be devastating.
Probably because he wants to see the class prosper into the future, it's his baby so to speak. He thought he was doing the right thing selling to GS if his family weren't interested in taking it on and now he sees the moves of LP and the ILCA being as being counter-productive and tried to get things back to where they were.Makes you wonder if Kirby decided to try to require the rights just because of the vote and did it just at the last minute the vote was going to happen. What prompted him to buy the rights back?
And finally, is the change went throught, exactly how would it be devastating for the class and the sailors?
When are we going to receive an accurate, detailed, unbiased explanation of the whole situation?
Because the agreements are based on contracts not copyright/patent. The ILCA and more importantly their legal advisors admitted that they do not know what those contracts are. So, suppose they were a contract saying that LPE would pay the "rights holder" a fee for every hull built and suppose that LPE unilaterally stopped paying, breaking the contract, then "right holder" could take out an injunction stopping all production by LPE whilst they took the case to court - so no hulls being built outside australia and region ! GS were being very tolerant whilst trying to sort things out but ILCA's action seems to have predictably "pissed-off" the current "rights holder" so they may be a lot less tolerant; and may act straight away!
Even though the ILCA is an Association by the members, for the members, the current ILCA leadership seem totally unmotivated to provide any additional information. Even when such information was repeatedly sought before the vote - details to allow people to make an informed decision, nothing was forthcoming. So, given the way the ILCA seems to operate, I would not expect any explanation; ever. For me that is not how an organisation should work. Even public companies (with shareholders) have more accountability that the current ILCA leadership seems to consider appropriate. In every other association I have ever been a member of, the leadership is more accountable and would ahve been thrown out long ago for behaving like the ILCA seems to be doing. But maybe things are different in the US (although even News International are begining to discover the meaning of words like "accountability", ...). For example, the ILCA web site states "Discussions on the different web forums during the 6 months voting period showed that there were some misunderstandings on certain element of the proposed rule change. These were attempted to be clarified by the ILCA President with a statement of 19 September 2011". So they recognised there were questions and failed to provide any info until just a few days before voting finished (i.e. when many will have decided and far too late for most people to notice the statement and they refused to allow people to change their vote). If they recognised people needed more info they should have published that info in a more timely matter or extended the voting deadline allowing people to change their vote. The last minute info suggests stuff that one cannot suggest on a public forum.
This incident has convinced me that it is not the organisation for me to be a member of any more so I will not be renewing.
Ian
It seems there is a serious commercial disagreement between two large Laser builders and Kirby, who alleges he is owed significant amounts of money by those two groups.
The Laser Class World Council is scheduled to meet this coming weekend and it appears there is some discomfort amongst the Council members, over the possibility that the pre-amble copy was not factual, as Bruce Kirby alleges and this casts doubt on the validity of the vote.
One can imagine that this mess might be ringing alarm bells at ISAF. It has been also been alleged by some influential members of the ILCA, not in favour of this rule change, that ISAF has previously let it be known that this change was unlikely to be ratified by ISAF.
The outcome of the ILCA World Council meeting will be most interesting.
Maybe so ..But Wednesday evening we will be loading lasers on the five boat trailer so we can go to the Wurstfest regatta. I suggest we all quit posting here for a while and go sailing.
That which I thougth was going on, that which I currently believe is going on, and that which is actually going on are almost certainly three different scenarios.