I hear that ideas for a few new designs have been banded around already and a few existing designs have already been customised to incorporate things that you might like to see but don't find in current SPs/lures.
Sounds like a winter project!
Great thread Paul
As the person who started the ball rolling on the DIY SPs I feel I should chip in
In my original instruction sheet I do point out very early on: "Remember if you’re going
to sell baits, copying someone else’s design for profit breaches copyright laws.
I neither advocate nor encourage this."
For the record I do use copies I have made of x-layers and other lures (including some of my own design - watch this space for my own design lrf style SP)
I also still buy and use genuine megabass x-layers - there are some things they do that I (and other home hobbyist makers) just cannot replicate
There was a lot of discussion in the US forums over the last 10 or so years about "fair use"
its generally been held that if you are making the molds for your own use and don't sell the lures its acceptable - most people will not make their own SPs for a variety of reasons - start up cost - time, space non-understanding partner etc - which of course means the DIY crowd is limited
My understanding is that less than 2% of fisherman will make their own lures
and of that 2% more than half do it a few times and stop
perhaps thats because there hasn't been the information available?
also as Andy states: how do you copyright a rib or a paddle tail
or in the case of a x-layer the 7 main components:
1) tapered triangular cross section - other lures have them
2) rattle - other lures have them
3) salt layer - other lures have them
4) waist - slug-gos have them ... (had them first in fact)
5) ribs - other lures have them
6) aniseed scent - uh ... obvious
7) colours - nothing than other lures might not have already
an argument could be made that its the sum of the parts
and this is a fair point
but to bring a level of moderation to this:
is yuki ito going to be more worried about 5 or 6 guys in the uk/ireland making a dozen lures a year each for their own uses (especially if they continue to buy, use and promote his products)
or a factory in china which will bang them out by the hundreds of thousands (often at an inferior quality level) and take away his profits and denigrate the reputation he has built? - it has already started
(the china cheap copies anyway)
its called cabbage in the fashion trade
my own view - and shoot me down if you want - is that my couple of lures and my know how isn't going to upset the japenese lure companies profits or their lawyers
I'm not advertisng that I'm selling lures in competition nor am I trying to say stop buying Megabass - quite the opposite! Ask my wife about my bottom drawer :lol:
In short copying/cloning is niche
I had a need for a fluoro pink x-layer (need? WANT!)
Megabass don't make them (and never will) but I knocked up a dozen - which is a lifetime supply for me
copying/cloning is a good place to START - but we should all be pushing our boundaries into original designs whether for our own use (and that of a few friends i.e. everyone here on Lureforum) or whether we take another step further and go into production
I know that if I like my new design LRF tail
I'll be offering it here as public domain for anyone who wants to use it
Nick
