In an upsetting -- though somehow not surprising -- turn of events, it appears that Scholastic and partner company Klutz have ripped off the work of two Makers, Windell and Lenore Oskay. The duo (also known as Evil Mad Scientists) created a charming little droid called a BristleBot which can be easily constructed using the head of a toothbrush, a pager motor, and a tiny amount of elbow grease. Apparently, Scholastic liked the idea so much that they turned it into a kit and book for kids (with the help of Klutz), but failed to involve or even credit the gadget's original creators. Knowing how open and excited the Make crew (and friends / cohorts) are about sharing their ideas, this comes as a particularly disheartening piece of news. Check out the read link for the whole story, and we're including Scholastic's media relations page below if you want to get in touch. Video of the
original project after the break.
Read - Sad day for makers - unauthorized book from Klutz and Scholastic "BristleBots"
Read - Scholastic media contact
posted February 19th 2009 3:02PM
Can't these guys sue them for copyright infringement? I'm sure there's plenty of evidence of prior art. At the very least, settle for a tidy sum and credit on the package.
Depends on if they copyrighted it first :/
Copyright law doesn't require you to "Copyright" anything to claim priority (Unlike patents or trademarks). You only need to prove you came up with it first.
I don't think, however, that anything here falls under copyright law. "Bristlebot" could be a trademaerk, but I doubt they filed for one.
Oh right, I should know that. I "copyright" every story I write without doing any paperwork... just had a slip and confused it with patents I guess. It's been a long week.
That is pretty crappy. But stuff like that happens all the time in the video game world. I've had a few of my innovations pilfered by companies without credit. F'n CliffyB.
CliffyB stole an idea of yours? Now I'm all curious. Feel free to elaborate while I get some popcorn.
If you've ever played Unreal4Ever, you know exactly what Epic took from myself and my team.
ewwww! I'm not brushing elbow grease on my teeth!
I want
Go build one, not that hard.
I seem to recall reading about these toothbrush bots in a "Young Technologist" magazine in USSR back in early 80s... I wonder who actually came up with this first.
I could understand if Scholastic called it something else, heck I'd be happy to call it an unfortunate coincidence, but they named it the exact same thing. I find it harder to chalk it up to coincidence when they have the same exact name.
Am I right in thinking if they'd released this under the GNU general public license then the klutz company wouldn't legally be able to do this?
Incidentally, I'm in the UK but I remember getting "the klutz book of magic" from my American cousin for christmas one year. It came with a hollow thumb for making things dissapear & it was awesome!
I had that book!
I also had that book.
After the complete failure of that whole Harry Potter thing Scholastic really needs the money I guess...
What the hell?
Free Market and no oversight in action? Yup.
I sent Scholastic a LOVELY email. They lost my business unless they fix this mistake.
if you look at the highly informed discussion going on at make, you'll see that a number people have suggested that these have been around for years and that it wasn't stolen from anyone in particular. I'm not saying that they're right. I'm just saying that it's not clear that scholastic *stole* anything.
Um, 1st as has been said in this post previous Evil mad scientists were not the 1st ones to think of the idea. They may have been the first ones to call it a bristlebot though. 2nd they did not file for a trademark on the name. If you don't think Psion has a case with the entire "netbook" thing you should have less of a problem here. Therefore the term bristlebot is just another word that has entered our vocabulary. There is no claim to it.
"Bristlebot" is more a title of a single item than a manufacturing standard, as is the so-called "netbook." The Oskay's have a case.
Here I thought SC Johnson's ScrubbingBubbles came first.
Good idea, now i have to build a bunch of these to see if they can clean my bathroom...
Pager motor my a$$...this is from a durex PLAY.They gather the used ones and want your kid to play with it!
http://www.pestaola.gr/opening-and-getting-inside-durex-play-vibration-ring/
nothing is new, mostly all "innovative" ideas have been done just in different fashions. Same issue came up when there was that flying boat video in '05-'06. If they did not submit the idea to this company as in inventor submission, then they have no case. I always tell inventor if that idea was so great they should be able to make 100 more just as good, then they get mad. I've seen many inventor submissions that have no creativity or innovation and some how manufactuers eat it up.
BTW if you post you idea on the net some is bound to copy.
hmmm i'm not going to comment about author pat murphy's web domain other than to say here it is.
http://www.brazenhussies.net/murphy/index.html