I was a bit harsh in the last thread about this and I understand SE's point of view. I would rather have true SE decal's but when there are none around what choice is there but repo? The same goes for pads there are 50 people wanting the same set and the price get's crazy. If SE comes out with remakes of the old school stuff I will be the first in line to rip off my repo decals and pads and replace them with SE made stuff. I am a die hard SE hobbiest and alway's will be.

i think the main thing to remember here boys and girls is that for such a long time se racing forgot their past and were as far as im concerned did not give a hoot about the die hard fans or people who wanted to restore bikes from this brand. on many occaiasion i wrote and sent many emails to se requesting product information or just general enquiries but with 100% no responce. so this is why i bought repo's and sold repo's. its only now that se bods have realised that they could make some money but what about thanking the people who have continued to be fans without any recognition from se at all.

I think everything that Todd is doing at this point is legal, responsible, and ultimately a service to the hobby. The fact that he didn't shut down the for profit repro dudes earlier was more generous than what was deserved.

THANK YOU TODD!

MANSELL, thank you for being a die hard SE fan.
There, happy now?

I am constantly amazed at the panty twisting by people on both sides of this issue. Todd is responsible for the SE brand. It is his right to do with it as he sees fit. That's it. There's nothing more to the issue.

Sheesh, what a bunch of crybabies...

do NOT for a moment doubt if Mansell, Flaz, or any other of the UK guys bemoaning SE for protecting their trademark were the owner of the trademark, they would do exactly the same thing as Todd is doing - protect their business from encroachment.

it still all comes down to $$ and guys not wanting to spend it. SE decals not available? hmmm. i managed to find originals easy enough. original SE pads too expensive? well, find something cheaper to collect. SE stuff is not particularly rare. it is simply in big demand, which drives up prices.

SE and its licensee will sell gobs of decals and padsets. Anybody who denies that need only look at Art29's sales and feedback over the last 4 years and do the math. and that was only one guy.

and btw... to answer the question on RAD - the US and UK have reciprocal agreements in place to honor each other's patents and trademarks; so, yes, SE can shut you down for violating their trademarks over the pond.

Wow, I ask a question on Rad, and it gets answered here. Good thing I'm on both boards.

I've often wondered on the copyright laws of one country, and how they are handled internationally. I see it quite often where fake widgits can be policed in one country, but openly touted in another.

Todd Lyons is doing his job, enforcing the right of his employer. Its ultimately good for the industry/hobby.

I thinks this is a good thing.

I also think the guys making SE reproductions should thank their lucky stars that Mr. Lyons went the kind route and didn't send out lawsuits.

My 2 pesos (I live in Texas)

Godo for SE, I commend TL for a job well done.

Hey Todd,
Its good to see that you are still causing ripples in the BMX world. I just recently heard about this sight and signed on to see if I recognized anyone. Drop me a line and let me kknow what you are up to. Jamson

OK, here's a bit from a post dated August 28th, 2005. Over 5 months ago, I gave a heads up that SE was going to put a stop to people selling counterfeit SE t-shirts, stickers, etc. And I also welcomed the people to contact me if they were interested in working with us and licensing out the rights.

You know how many people took me up on the offer? ZERO! They had their chance. I opened up the door and waited for people to walk in. But none showed. Now the door is PERMANENTLY shut. As of right now, there will be ONE company that is authorized to sell OFFICIAL SE old-school repo stickers, padsets, etc. It's the guys right here at Vintage. There will be a formal announcement soon.

So that means that NOBODY else has permission to sell ANYTHING SE. Not Retro-Fit, not VRP, not Art29, not BMXMuseum.com, nobody.

Speaking of which, does anybody have a contact name and phone number for the guy up north running www.BMXMuseum.com? He's selling a FULL range of counterfeit SE stuff on his site. I tried contacting him before, but got no respones.

If he doesn't pull that stuff of his site ASAP, he'll be getting more than an e-mail from the E-Bay police. Feel free to IM me with his info if you have it. And always feel free to e-mail me at tlyons@sebmx.com.

OK, enough of me ranting. Thanks again for the support of our decision. Soon, there will be AUTHENTIC and APPROVED old school SE stuff for all! -How cool is that?

Below is exerpts from that post over 5 months ago. They had their chance...

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You have approval? That's news to me. I'm the brand manager of SE & I have NO idea who you are. We're currently working with ONE company right now that will be licensed to sell SE stuff. And all the others like yourself? It's all bootleged stuff. We'll be shutting down the guys who are making crap SE stuff & possibly working with the guys who can make good stuff.

It would be in the best interest of ANYONE out there who is currently making unlicensed bootleg SE stuff to contact me @ tl@sebmx.com ASAP & come clean. Like I said, if we see that the stuff is of a good quality, then we may want to work with you. This may get you more exposure & more business. And the guys who try to hide & continue making unlicensed SE stuff? You'll be hearing from our lawyers.

So please contact me & tell me who you got "approval" from...

-Todd Lyons
SE Brand Manager
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Posts: 55 | From: HB, Brah! | Registered: Mar 2005 | IP: Logged |

TIM

Vet Pro
Member # 16

posted August 28, 2005 02:46 AM
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uh oh.. somebody stepped in some goo.
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Posts: 4285 | From: the Lightside of California | Registered: Aug 2001 | IP: Logged |

Randy

Vet Pro
Member # 20

posted August 28, 2005 02:59 AM
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quote:
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You'll be hearing from our lawyers.
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I've always wanted to be able to say that.
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Posts: 7233 | From: orney internet cus since 1998 | Registered: Mar 2001 | IP: Logged |

Todd Lyons
Novice
Member # 5793

posted August 28, 2005 01:59 PM
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Well, it'll be a letter requesting these guys to STOP making the unlicensed stuff & to contact us. Like I said, if they respond & come clean, then we may develop a working relationship with them. But if they ignore us & continue to make unlicensed SE stuff? Well, then they'll receive more than just a letter from our lawyers.

-Todd Lyons
SE Brand Manager

I still don't see how some people think that a bike company OWES them the ability to buy decals. You buy a bike on ebay and think because the manufacture made that 25 years ago you should be able to get the correct decals in a heart beat. Tell you what try that at a car dealer. Go to you local Chevy dealer and demand a door emblem for an 82 1500 pickup. GOOD LUCK!

Her's an interesting quiz to take

Ebay's Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) Program

http://pages.ebay.com/help/tutorial/verotutorial/intro2.html

Umm..Gooser...That quote isnt from me "brudda" !

I took this whole thing on yesterday with help from Tim in another forum.....

Reproduction of frameset decals is a necessity of restoring BMX bikes. These stickers are often the final piece of the puzzle. I find it hard to believe anyone on this board could truly feel that this is morally wrong. Is some counterfeiter getting rich making reproductions of 30 year old silk screened pieces of sticky coated vinyl? I doubt it. After all is said and done, they are only stickers.

I'm talking stickers only, sold with the understanding of being reproductions.

Here's a good example: G-Boy. I don't know anyone who has had G-Boy stickers. If someone created a set of reproductions from the originals for the (let's say 50) people who own G-Boys. They then sold them to cover costs of set up and printing. This is wrong?

So from this point on, nobody can use this forum to help fellow collectors by creating reproductions of stickers?

That stinks. I remember the BMX Products repops that were available for a little while. That was great. Someone once gave me a Thruster headtube decal that was repopped - I was stoked - it made my bike look complete.

I remember going to Kinkos in Rockford before the show to help someone make some SE Racing Innovations stickers for Cycle Pro forks. It was super hectic and made my weekend very memorable.

Lame Lame Lame

Ben Jerry,
I can guarantee you that I will NOT be at that Kinkos to stop you from making your own personal SE Racing repop stickers. For your own personal use? And for you buddies? Heck yeah, have fun with it!

But if you decide to sell them to the public on your own website (BMXMuseum.com) or on E-Bay (Art 29, WolfyBMX, Sidstore, 302zapper, decaluniverse, ajhodkin, bignaturechan, jimlockerbmx, lp300z, etc), then that is a problem. That is where we draw the line.

I hope that you understand that we're not the bad guys here. We are just trying to protect our trademark.

Please note the VintageBMX will soon be supplying all of the OFFICIAL olds school SE Racing decals. And if you still want to run to the Kinkos in Rockford to whip up your own batch, nobody is going to stop you. But if you want the real deal, please go through VintageBMX.

Cool Cool Cool

-TL

TL, I'm thinking Ben Jerry must not have seen the original thread yesterday that explained all this???Thanks for always being totally cool (no *** kissen here, just a fact).

Ben Jerry, If you read the thread from yesterday Hal reckons that Art29 earns an estimated $49.000 a year selling repro SE decals now today vintage are soon to be exclusively selling them ....as far as im concerned im not really fussed by it now my argument was that someone should sell them (never cared who) what did my head in yesterday was people who have used repros whether bought or made themselves preaching copyright laws to me,, like you said there the final piece of the puzzle of a crazy hobbie so someones got to sell em other wise we might as well all pack it in now because there is nowhere near enough originals left to go round

Ben, you have the largest collection of original decals i know of!

i have no problem with doing a small run to finish a personal project and a few extras to friends to cover the cost. extra no problem if the bike was made by a company no longer in business ie G-Boy. i've done it, as mentioned, until i found NOS decals (TONE did an AERO decal for my Buff Replica, and my G-Boy had repop decals at one point)...

but the guys churning out product of on-going companies like SE, Red Line and others without bothering or caring to clear it with the trademark holder, and making a nice steady income off it? they are helping themselves 1st, everybody else a distant 2nd.

Wow...my bad Hal. All you VBMX guys look alike.

I had my fill on the original thread, but fwiw, I read that education is another exception in the scope and detail in the law.

I am not a lawyer, but I have been involved with this same discussion in R/C Model Aviation. (Albeit there is usually a bit less mud throwing). The scope there involves pulling plans and blueprints from books, or books in the library, copying blueprints so that you don't ruin your originals with glue and knives and pins, or so that you can build a plane to a different scale, and even scaling down trademarked logos to 1/4 or 1/3 scale.

The results are the same there. Copy away. Use them all you want. Have them professionally done if you want. Just don't do it for commerce.

Which is the one last point that I see that nobody has brought up in 3 days of discussing this.

There are MANY, MANY, professional graphics companies that we modelers use to obtain graphics for our model airplanes, and model trains, and cars, and helicopters. They will do them in Vinyl Cut Graphics, Dry Transfer, Water Transfer, Multi Color Decals, and the list goes on. And you can buy a good quality Roland, or Bobcat, vinyl graphics cutter for about 600-800 bucks too.

You can send any graphics you want made to them, and they will onesie/twosie these for you for personal use all day long at a great price. Because that is legal. You can also set up your Roland graphics cutter on your computer, and cut your own graphics all day long. You can make your own water transfer graphics on your printer with kits they sell at Target stores. You can print dry transfers now. You can even have Laser etching done cheap. They don't care what logo or blue print it is. Because it is being done for personal use. If you take a set of copyrighted blue prints to Kinko's and say give me 10 copies they will probably refuse you. If you ask them to make 2 copies, one copy 22% smaller, and one at the same scale, they will usually do it for you. There is a fuzzy part of the line there. Some would say that Kinkos is producing it for profit, albeit for one copy. Others would say the customer is just being aided in making a legal copy for personal use.

The same argument can be made when making a copy of a CD. It is legal for you to burn a copy of your own CD to have in your car to protect the original from damage. However, what if you don't have a CD burner on your computer? So you have your buddy at the recording studio burn you one copy for personal use, and you paid them to do it for you? Same end result, different means to get there. The bottom line is that the line is fuzzy there, but in the end, totally not worth any intervention being taken from a legal standpoint. The personal use view wins out.

For someone like myself, that is used to needing graphics for scale model airplanes, this need for decals is all just a part of the hobby.

If you do some research online, in the R/C planes, and electric trains department, regarding graphics, you will find that the only difficult thing about getting decals made for personal use, is obtaining the artwork (exact copy of what you want in the correct file format).

Try viewing it as a small part of the VBMX hobby. Because some of the decals are so commonly needed in this hobby, it would be nice to be able to just get the ones commonly needed from one source all the time, instead of having to do the hard part each time you need it. But, in model aviation we need different graphics for every different plane we build. It is just part of the deal.

And not to push anybody down, the graphics that we get into there, are infinitely more complex, and many of the users are at a level of perfection that I can't imagine ever seeing on BMX bikes. So quality graphics can be made, and can be had made, for personal use, in a not for profit legal way. But Todd is correct, don't go into business selling them without contacting the owner of the trademarks.

If you want quality graphics. They can be done beyond your wildest imagination. Legally. Here are some pics to wet your imagination, and show you the detail that can be had if you want it, from customers so fussy that they REALLY won't accept a "Missing G" in the words LANDINGEAR on their finished project (that is not a shot btw, only a point being made). The first 2 show you the level of perfection I am speaking of, and the last one shows unlimited graphics that do not exist off the shelf. It sort of puts light on a BMX bike's graphics as being a minimal challenge. A BMX bike is generally thought of as an off the shelf build. Change your mind set to BMX having some "Scratch Building" aspects. It can be done. And if done right, Tim won't be able to tell the difference! (easy Tim....lol)

now thats what I call a model aeroplane!!!

Got movie of it flying anywhere?? (if it flys!)

It flys...not much past 200 MPH though.....

The first 2 are of Joe Grices F-86. The last one is an F-100.

Lots of videos you can search for.

http://gprime.net/video.php/miniaturejet

http://www.bandegraphix.com/decals.htm

http://www.pulsar.gs/DECALS/a_Pages/1_MENU...w/Overview.html

The possiblitys are only limited by your imagination and creativity. Those bikes long out of business, with impossible to find decals, can be done with a bit of hard work and ingenuity.

Hey Todd,
I'm glad you are taking a stand against these guys who have no respect for SE trademarks. As a longer time SE fan and product user, I for one would much rather purchase sanctioned products than cheap knockoffs. Keep up the good work.

If the stickers had already been put on the market I don't think it would have been such a big deal. But this is a case of a large corperation buying a no name smaller company and trying to figure where they can repair some small leaks in their income before they have made an effort to get their solution on the market. If you think I made an absurd comment about the no name thing go to work tomm. and ask your co workers about se racing. I believe Todds position is admirable if you are looking at it in a corporate sense but not when you look at it in a "I've been racing for 25 years and you guys are my people" sense. Sean

"but the guys churning out product of on-going companies like SE, Red Line and others without bothering or caring to clear it with the trademark holder, and making a nice steady income off it? they are helping themselves 1st, everybody else a distant 2nd."

Bingo!

I've purchased reproduction decals in the past too. There is always a window between when an original anything and an authorized official reproduction is made. That window gives birth to those who will reproduce quality limited copies. That is cool. At the same time there are those who will reproduce tons of poor copies to make a buck off a trend or hobby w/ no regard for the trademark. Those are the guys that will eventually and justifiably find themselves in hot water.

Right On Todd! it's about time SE got with the program and started to have these stickers officially made again and hopefully at a reasonable price. What about the pad sets will VBMX be selling these as well and will they be available soon? What about the old school SE racing jersey's will they be remade as well?, hopefully! Great job your doing Todd, it's nice to see SE caring about their past & future.

Sorry double post.

[ February 06, 2006, 05:06 PM: Message edited by: OS Jbay ]

I wonder what would happen if it was discovered that someone had made a serious attempt to copy actual frame and fork sets?

I'm guessing a riot

you guessed right, the riot already happened.

And on News At Ten tonight...

Bonnnnng!
- Marshal Law is in force as US lynch mobs hunt down a bootleg BMX sticker dealer somewhere in the United States...hundreds of innocent civilians that apparantly "looked a bit suspicious" already presumed dead...

Bonnnnng!
- Conterfeit-loving hordes of english folk go berserk at news of the crackdown and are ripping up Trafalgar Square as we speak...

Bonnnnng!
- "Sleeping cells" of corporate lawyers rumoured to be awaiting their call to arms...

Bonnnnng!
- while Art29 is now rumoured to be hiding out in a cave somewhere in Tibet

Actually, I was refering to your question of SE repro frame/forks causing a riot. Both already happened a few years ago.

You're kidding! Was this an eBay-based thing? What was the outcome?

I've never heard the riot part of the story. Do tell.

I thought he was joking.

This is funny.

Steve, It all started in a land far far away with a guy who was short a "G".

That's true. "Writ" squads roamed the streets looking for the vicious counterfeiting kingpins and their equally vile junkie customers, who were easily distinguished by their tell-tale "Landing Ears"...

Must I pay for the sins of an ancestor?