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Nice thing of Tamiya to do after all the hard effort of you guys putting that 'Community Scorcher' together !

Any idea's on where to get manuals then lol, Guessing there prices are gonna rocket !

Cheers Chris

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Any idea's on where to get manuals then lol, Guessing there prices are gonna rocket !

Unfortunately, links to sites sharing manuals will be deleted;

From Netsmith;

We must insist that manuals or links to manuals, artwork for decals or associated links are not published on this site anywhere. Please also do not ask me or anyone else associated with the running of the site for copies as we will not supply them.

So that's it - no more manuals on TC, and no more advertising copies of manuals or 'reproduction' decals.

The manuals have been copied and republished loads of times now all over the web and if anyone really wants to find them then google is your friend. All we are saying is TC can no longer host them or provide advertising to places that do host them. I am not interested in finding ways around the decision that 'might' be ok. Its not worth the risk. People can use the private messaging service to ask for, or give links to anything they want.

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Is it just me, or does anyone else feel put-off by the whole manual situation? I've already decided to let my membership to TC go.

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Is it just me, or does anyone else feel put-off by the whole manual situation? I've already decided to let my membership to TC go.

I'm not following you there ... Are you saying that TC should have carried on hosting manuals & selling decals despite the threat of legal action? Well, it would have been nice - but totally unrealistic to think that was going to happen - at best it might have bought a little time, but when you look at the resources of TamiyaClub - a couple of blokes, part time, versus more full time paid lawyers than you can shake a stick at - who are also in the right, legally speaking - expecting anyone to go on some "moral" crusade is bonkers.

If you look around elsewhere on the 'net, you'll see that everyone (barring one seller on ebay) is no longer selling repro stickers (not whole sheets anyway), and that any site that was making money in any way (subscriptions, DVDs, etc) now no longer has any images of sheet decals, or manuals. These have disappeared without a word of explanation - apart from on TC ... in other words, TC has gone a lot further than anyone else to explain the situation.

I'm really not happy about this at all - but TC is not to blame here.

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Is it just me, or does anyone else feel put-off by the whole manual situation? I've already decided to let my membership to TC go.

Since Netsmith was threatened with legal action, can't blame him for removing them.

I feel the opposite and just renewed my TC membership last week.

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Is it just me, or does anyone else feel put-off by the whole manual situation? I've already decided to let my membership to TC go.

We all feel put-off, but I'll still support Chris every year by renewing my membership. It's Tamiya who should cop it, not Tamiyaclub.

I do understand that it would put you off collecting, I feel the same. Definitely taken the shine off it, and it's hard to be devoted to a companies product when the company is dealing out such savage blows to an entity that does nothing but support, publicize, and generate massive sales and therefore revenue for it.

They can go and get badworded as far as I'm concerned.

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I'm not following you there ... Are you saying that TC should have carried on hosting manuals & selling decals despite the threat of legal action? Well, it would have been nice - but totally unrealistic to think that was going to happen - at best it might have bought a little time, but when you look at the resources of TamiyaClub - a couple of blokes, part time, versus more full time paid lawyers than you can shake a stick at - who are also in the right, legally speaking - expecting anyone to go on some "moral" crusade is bonkers.

If you look around elsewhere on the 'net, you'll see that everyone (barring one seller on ebay) is no longer selling repro stickers (not whole sheets anyway), and that any site that was making money in any way (subscriptions, DVDs, etc) now no longer has any images of sheet decals, or manuals. These have disappeared without a word of explanation - apart from on TC ... in other words, TC has gone a lot further than anyone else to explain the situation.

I'm really not happy about this at all - but TC is not to blame here.

We all have our reasons for being here. Mine was always based on the ability to use a paid subscription to research the manuals, ect. No to copy. But to assist in restoration and collecting. TC can do what they want with an obvious one-way relationship with Tamiya. In a nutshell, I'm not getting what I paid for and that makes TC as $$ greedy as Tamiya. It's all about the money. I can email members and such and keep my money in my pocket. By the way, there is another site put up by a TC member that is free and (now) will be getting yearly "donations".

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Is it just me, or does anyone else feel put-off by the whole manual situation? I've already decided to let my membership to TC go.

I agree that it is very disappointing, and that it did upset me - but my fanmanship (or whatever you should call being a fan of something :)) goes further than having the ability to look into all manuals or buy repro items. Plus, I think the mods won't see much harm in asking about parts numbers or starting topics about measurements or identification of parts (if we keep it at that and not sharing manuals) - if you actually need a whole manual, then there are many contacts to get it - after all, we are talking about mass products here :P In the end you'll still get to your goal, it's just been made say into more of a challenge - one that we weren't asking for, but that's another thing altogether ;)

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I agree that it is very disappointing, and that it did upset me - but my fanmanship (or whatever you should call being a fan of something :)) goes further than having the ability to look into all manuals or buy repro items. Plus, I think the mods won't see much harm in asking about parts numbers or starting topics about measurements or identification of parts (if we keep it at that and not sharing manuals) - if you actually need a whole manual, then there are many contacts to get it - after all, we are talking about mass products here :P In the end you'll still get to your goal, it's just been made say into more of a challenge - one that we weren't asking for, but that's another thing altogether ;)

I couldnt agree more, well put sir.

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We all have our reasons for being here. Mine was always based on the ability to use a paid subscription to research the manuals, ect. No to copy. But to assist in restoration and collecting. TC can do what they want with an obvious one-way relationship with Tamiya. In a nutshell, I'm not getting what I paid for and that makes TC as $$ greedy as Tamiya. It's all about the money. I can email members and such and keep my money in my pocket. By the way, there is another site put up by a TC member that is free and (now) will be getting yearly "donations".

Couldn't disagree more. TC isn't greedy, and frankly it isn't greed that's made Tamiya act in the way it has. TC's annual subscription is more than just the manuals, and really there were a lot of manuals that didn't work properly anyway. For me, my subscription is about supporting the site and the community rather than what I can get out of it. The bits I do get out of it are just a bonus, and I will gladly pay the relatively small amount of money that it costs.

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....it isn't greed that's made Tamiya act in the way it has.

Nope. It was spite.

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Tamiya are acting no differently to any other large company who have had their work copied

Google "ebay sue fake" and there's plenty of instances where Rolex, Dior, Tiffany, etc have all had enough of people making money off their brand image/designs/intellectual property etc. and Tamiya's the most recent.

Regardless of whether Tamiya (Rolex, Dior, Tiffany etc) are losing potential sales or not is irrelevant, there's legal backing to protect them - chavs buying fake Dior goods are hardly going to stump up real $$ for the genuine article, so Dior aren't technically losing money, but at the same time counterfeiters are making money off their work

Repro decals are no different to fake Rolexes, pirate DVDs or dodgy perfume - if Tamiya didn't have the law on their side they'd hardly go after people that 'were doing nothing wrong'

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I really hope that was tongue in cheek.

No, not at all. It was a classic case of corporate spite; an organisation flexing it's muscles simply because it can. It wasn't done to actually achieve anything positive; more a case of an action simply carried out as a means of taking a resource away from somebody else because the law will allow it. Yeah sure it was a clear cut legal action to take but I'd like to see someone come on here and explain how it was the correct ethical one to take.

Tamiya are acting no differently to any other large company who have had their work copied

Google "ebay sue fake" and there's plenty of instances where Rolex, Dior, Tiffany, etc have all had enough of people making money off their brand image/designs/intellectual property etc. and Tamiya's the most recent.

Regardless of whether Tamiya (Rolex, Dior, Tiffany etc) are losing potential sales or not is irrelevant, there's legal backing to protect them - chavs buying fake Dior goods are hardly going to stump up real $$ for the genuine article, so Dior aren't technically losing money, but at the same time counterfeiters are making money off their work

Repro decals are no different to fake Rolexes, pirate DVDs or dodgy perfume - if Tamiya didn't have the law on their side they'd hardly go after people that 'were doing nothing wrong'

Except that this particular company has known for years what has been going on, where it was happening & who was doing it & yet they turned a blind eye to it until they realised that they were "back in the game" and decided that people who previously could be considered as allies were now seen to be the competition. So they took their ball away.

It's a bit like, say, someone who owns a field of grass that they used for activities. Over time they grow older, lose interest in it as it has no real relevance to their life anymore so they abandon it and leave it to the elements. Then a bunch of kids discover it, clean and tidy it up & cut the grass etc so that they can play sports etc on it. For years this goes on & the owner knows this but turns a blind eye as he has other stuff going on that is more important to him until one day he it realises the field is important to him again. Over he trots to the kids, "thanks for keeping this in good shape for me guys, now sod off"................

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Except that this particular company has known for years what has been going on, where it was happening & who was doing it & yet they turned a blind eye to it until they realised that they were "back in the game" and decided that people who previously could be considered as allies were now seen to be the competition. So they took their ball away.

It's a bit like, say, someone who owns a field of grass that they used for activities. Over time they grow older, lose interest in it as it has no real relevance to their life anymore so they abandon it and leave it to the elements. Then a bunch of kids discover it, clean and tidy it up & cut the grass etc so that they can play sports etc on it. For years this goes on & the owner knows this but turns a blind eye as he has other stuff going on that is more important to him until one day he it realises the field is important to him again. Over he trots to the kids, "thanks for keeping this in good shape for me guys, now sod off"................

With respect, cobblers - the repro market is relatively new, and since March last year it has grown massively - one seller alone had 55 different Tamiya sheets available.

With equal amounts of unproven speculation as the post replied to, it could be just as likely they saw how many people were trading off their brand and decided to put a stop to it - making it a fairly short process, not one that's lasted "for years" and the manuals could well be a victim due to the clamping down on decal sheets - if they're going to protect their brand and who profits from it, I guess they have to do it across the board.

As for comparing it to a playing field, it's more like the land-owner eventually realising there were trespassers on his property and threatened to call the feds if they didn't clear off.

The fact they been trespassing for years is overlooked in favour of a speedy solution

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This all seems like a joke to me.

Since Tamiya has not really brought forward any new ideas for RC cars over the last decade, all they can do is copying competitors or re-re-re-releasing the 27th re-release again, and limiting kits in volumes to keep the price high.

And because obviously their development department has some spare time, they scan the old patents and figure they can capitalize on the old IP again: Let's start melking the manual market....

Legally absolutely understandable - but justified as well?

What about ethics, emotions, trust and other values? What about the ROI? What is the damage?

Do they plan to re-re-re-reprint vintage manuals again and sell them in limited amounts or the first 100 manuals as the black manual edition?

So to me, this misbehaving does not make sense at all. Purest negative publicity from my perspective. Makes me stopping to buy Tamiya products.

So allow me this question: How big is the distance between Tamiya legal office and the place of the latest contamination? Do we have to fear more of those negative effects?

Luckily TC is more than just Tamiya - one of many Brands.

My suggestion to the moderators: Can we rename the TC into something more neutral?

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...And because obviously their development department has some spare time, they scan the old patents and figure they can capitalize on the old IP again: Let's start melking the manual market....

Legally absolutely understandable - but justified as well?

What about ethics, emotions, trust and other values? What about the ROI? What is the damage?

Do they plan to re-re-re-reprint vintage manuals again and sell them in limited amounts or the first 100 manuals as the black manual edition?

So to me, this misbehaving does not make sense at all. Purest negative publicity from my perspective. Makes me stopping to buy Tamiya products.

So allow me this question: How big is the distance between Tamiya legal office and the place of the latest contamination? Do we have to fear more of those negative effects?

Luckily TC is more than just Tamiya - one of many Brands.

My suggestion to the moderators: Can we rename the TC into something more neutral?

You have to remember, the manuals were kinda used as a reason for people to subscribe - or at least a benefit of subscribing, whether every subscriber actually used the facility or not - Technically, TC could've been seen to be profiting from the large manual scans.

Tamiya don't need to justify anything, they're stopping people making illegal copies of their product - this seems to be overlooked

Whether they have plans to re-issue them or not, that doesn't change the law, which is on Tamiya's side

[sP]The negative publicity probably doesn't extend very much past Tamiyaclub - no-one in the pub has mentioned it yet :lol:

As for renaming the site, it's unlikely seeing as it's based around Tamiya's RC output - www.tamiyaclub-eventhoughwedonotreallylikethemasacompanyanymore.com is a bit of a long address to remember <_<

Personally, this hasn't changed my opinion of Tamiya at all, they're a company doing what they need to do to protect their brand - we've had a good run for a couple of years with all the repro stuff, but that's now finished - we're no worse off than 2 years ago, apart from the lack of manuals and, as has been pointed out several times, TC isn't the only place they were available, and they were a pain in the derriere to download here anyway.

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June 28 2011 11:02

96 total votes.

the outrage, the anger, the spite; ooooo a NIB Tamiya Bruiser with decals on ebay, GOT TO GO BIDDING!!!

open the door to the basement the sun is out.

Couldn't agree more......

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June 28 2011 11:02

96 total votes.

the outrage, the anger, the spite; ooooo a NIB Tamiya Bruiser with decals on ebay, GOT TO GO BIDDING!!!

open the door to the basement the sun is out.

<_<

Pretty much sums it up. Doesn't mean we can't grumble about it all though.

With respect, cobblers - the repro market is relatively new, and since March last year it has grown massively - one seller alone had 55 different Tamiya sheets available.

With equal amounts of unproven speculation as the post replied to, it could be just as likely they saw how many people were trading off their brand and decided to put a stop to it - making it a fairly short process, not one that's lasted "for years" and the manuals could well be a victim due to the clamping down on decal sheets - if they're going to protect their brand and who profits from it, I guess they have to do it across the board.

It's not cobblers, it's fact. The manuals have been on this site from day 1 (or thereabouts) and it's that issue, and the consequential message it sent out, that has irked people more than anything else. And just because they decided to hit the ebay sellers hard does not in any way mean that they were somehow obliged to do the same with TC.

As for comparing it to a playing field, it's more like the land-owner eventually realising there were trespassers on his property and threatened to call the feds if they didn't clear off. The fact they been trespassing for years is overlooked in favour of a speedy solution

No it's not. The land owner allowed the *trespassers* to play on the land for years. Heck, he even accepted a gift from the trespassers as a show of their respect for him. Although from what I hear he probably gave it to his mother-in-law or summat.

It's also a poor comparison to make between what goes on here and the actions of companies like Rolex etc. For a start if Rolex stop companies from producing replicas of their goods this does not mean that customers will then go out and buy the real thing. Anything but. The truth is that those customers will just go out and buy a different watch from another manufacturer for the same price as the fake because no way are they gonna go out & pay thousands of $$$$ on a genuine one. Neither are potential Rolex customers urging the company to bring out their old watches because they want to pay more for the real thing than less on a perfect replica.

You can repeat yourself all day defending Tamiya's legal rights but that one has been done & dusted. What we are talking about here is whether it was a smart move in terms of their relationship with their customers & the future revenue generated from them. One thing is undisputable, they are most certainly not going to increase it (in terms of them spending even more than they had originally planned) and, as we all know, at the end of the day it's all about the money.

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<_<

Pretty much sums it up. Doesn't mean we can't grumble about it all though.

It's not cobblers, it's fact.

The manuals have been on this site from day 1 (or thereabouts) and it's that issue, and the consequential message it sent out, that has irked people more than anything else. And just because they decided to hit the ebay sellers hard does not in any way mean that they were somehow obliged to do the same with TC.

No it's not. The land owner allowed the *trespassers* to play on the land for years. Heck, he even accepted a gift from the trespassers as a show of their respect for him. Although from what I hear he probably gave it to his mother-in-law or summat.

It's also a poor comparison to make between what goes on here and the actions of companies like Rolex etc. For a start if Rolex stop companies from producing replicas of their goods this does not mean that customers will then go out and buy the real thing. Anything but. The truth is that those customers will just go out and buy a different watch from another maufacturer for the same price as the fake because no way are they gonna go out & pay thousands of $$$$ on a genuine one. Neither are Rolex customers urging the company to bring out their old watches because they want to pay more for the real thing than less on a perfect replica.

You can repeat yourself all day defending Tamiya's legal rights but that one has been done & dusted. What we are talking about here is whether it was a smart move in terms of their relationship with their customers & the future revenue generated from them. One thing is undisputable, they are most certainly not going to increase it (in terms of them spending even more than they had originally planned) and, as we all know, at the end of the day it's all about the money.

As stated before, if the manuals are an 'incentive' to subscribe, then technically having them on the site is no different to repro decals - TC were effectively 'selling' large format scans of Tamiya manuals.

Had the large pages been free from day one, they may have been left alone - no way of knowing now.

Whether goods are available or not, copying old product is still illegal when it bears the manufacturers branding - the fact the goods are no longer available doesn't cancel out any legal claim the original company has to it. A company doesn't have to lose money to want to protect their brand etc.

I'm not defending Tamiya's legal rights, they're the same for everyone - as a company, I couldn't care less about them if you paid me.

In terms of their relationship with their customers though, the 'vintage' mob aren't their customer anyway, they're customers of some bloke on eBay, and it doesn't look like Tamiya care too much about whether the re-re Scorcher etc. was 'period faithful' otherwise it would have come with 'proper' decals - To produce a car they didn't think would sell because of some stickers would've been stupid.

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No, not at all. It was a classic case of corporate spite; an organisation flexing it's muscles simply because it can. It wasn't done to actually achieve anything positive; more a case of an action simply carried out as a means of taking a resource away from somebody else because the law will allow it. Yeah sure it was a clear cut legal action to take but I'd like to see someone come on here and explain how it was the correct ethical one to take.

Except that this particular company has known for years what has been going on, where it was happening & who was doing it & yet they turned a blind eye to it until they realised that they were "back in the game" and decided that people who previously could be considered as allies were now seen to be the competition. So they took their ball away.

It's a bit like, say, someone who owns a field of grass that they used for activities. Over time they grow older, lose interest in it as it has no real relevance to their life anymore so they abandon it and leave it to the elements. Then a bunch of kids discover it, clean and tidy it up & cut the grass etc so that they can play sports etc on it. For years this goes on & the owner knows this but turns a blind eye as he has other stuff going on that is more important to him until one day he it realises the field is important to him again. Over he trots to the kids, "thanks for keeping this in good shape for me guys, now sod off"................

Personally I think it's a question of extent. To use your land ownership analogy, it's all fine and dandy a few kids keeping it clean and playing football on it, but when they start holding regular matches with people coming along and paying to watch, its a different matter entirely. I think all the time a few people made a few quid selling decals or like TC printing manuals, then no big deal, but if everyone jumps on the band wagon then action has to be taken. For that action to be fair, then a blanket approach is the only way to keep things simple.

This is further complicated by the fact that the re-re's have taken off in the way that they have, and the fact that there's now so many of them. People selling repro SRB decals for example start to come in DIRECT competition with Tamiya themselves. 5 years ago where we didn't have so many re-re's if some guy was selling off repro Scorcher decals, no one gave a ****, and in actual fact keeping the Scorcher name fresh in peoples minds by allowing it, is actually, probably in Tamiyas best interest. Same goes for the manuals. With so many re-re's now available, and a whole load more in the pipleine (as far as we can ascertain), then the playing field (see what I did there) is now entirely different.

I'm sorry, but saying the reason is "spite" is frankly ridiculous. I'd have thought you'd have come up with something a little more reasoned than that.

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Whether goods are available or not, copying old product is still illegal when it bears the manufacturers branding - the fact the goods are no longer available doesn't cancel out any legal claim the original company has to it. A company doesn't have to lose money to want to protect their brand etc.

The fact remains though that TC has been reproducing copyrighted material for years and they knew it. And if anything by following this path they have damaged the brand amongst this group of customers. Yeah it's probably microscopic in terms of measurement but it's still damage regardless. If after communication with Chris they had stipulated that the sale of repro items must be stopped but the manuals would be allowed to remain so long as they were free then that in itself would have generated good feeling as it would be seen on here that the company are able to distinguish the difference between the TC community and the ebay sellers.

In terms of their relationship with their customers though, the 'vintage' mob aren't their customer anyway, they're customers of some bloke on eBay, and it doesn't look like Tamiya care too much about whether the re-re Scorcher etc. was 'period faithful' otherwise it would have come with 'proper' decals - To produce a car they didn't think would sell because of some stickers would've been stupid.

I think most people on here were under no illusion that the Scorcher & other re-re's came back slightly altered because of some sentimental regard to the originals and their owners. In this case though they do seem to have forgotten that the same people spending silly money on vintage gear are those who have bought re-releases and have (or had) planned to buy future ones too.

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