Howdy,

Strolling around e-bay when I noticed these pics advertising a sale of a Roden Sopwith 1-Strutter kit that looked familiar.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Sopwith-1-Strutter-two-seat-british-WWI-1-48-Roden-402-/270333524333?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3ef122396d

Are these your builds Stephen or are some of them somebody else? Did they have permission?

Brian Riedel

Hah! Good eye Brian.

Looks like they used the images on the Roden website. Even using one of Roden's mistakes. Roden mistakenly posted interior images of my build of their Bristol F.2b with the Sopwith 1.5 kit images. The last few of the white fuselaged Sop 1.5 strutter are mine.

Hmmmmm...

Interesting that they have added their own watermark to the images – as if that makes it OK to "borrow" images from others???

Mikael

This may be a good opportunity to explain what we do here. As you know when ever I am doing a kit review I have taken to contacting one of you who is building the kit. Sometimes I get lucky and can add so much more to the review by referencing Aeroscale members builds. I ask - if I can use your build images and even add the URL of your build to the review in the additional images section.

It is the wish of the Aeroscale Admin and so general practice that we "brand" images with the Aeroscale logo. This is not a copyright but a identity mark as to where the image(s) originated. When I first did the Roden 1:48 Sopwith Strutter is was before we began this practice. I gave Roden permission to post these on their website and accepted the fact that they "might" be lifted one day for other modelers personal use. Some advertizers tend to use images of well built models as a selling point but with the Aeroscale logo people at least can reference back to the site.

I use to build about 10 -13 kits a year. That has considerably slowed down due to the product reviews I do. Mind me I don't resent the work. I really like talking to the various manufacturers, historians and modelers to get a review out to you all at kitmaker. A typical kit review may take upto 8 hours to write, edit, post, format text, take photo images, format the images, converse with various manufacturers, post the finished work and finally do a "whats in the news" post for the forum to link to the review. Sometimes info come in later that I need to incorporate into the review to get you the members the best info you can have.

As our Aeroscale General Manager Rowan (Merlin) Baylis told me once, ". . .this really has to be a labor of love". Also I can't build every kit that falls at my doorstep so as many of you have found I will send it on to those who I trust, to commit to a build at my own cost. Life always intervenes and we do the best we can.

The first Page of the Early Aviation forum and all subsequent pages tell us one thing. We are doing something right! Model On Please!

Just to clarify, the previous post is only for the general information here to the members not a critique of anyone's participation. Thanks to Brian and Mikael whos continued support I sincerely appreciate.