INv8r_ZIM said:
No, and no amount of nerd rage is going to make this a David and Gloiath story as the media and some blinkered fanboys would love to see this. Ainsworth is a vacu-former, who made landscape pond liners. He was hired to vacuform the TK lids from the sculpture Liz Moore created (this came to light when Brian Muir came out with some info on the RPF boards after the first ruling). Ainsworth WAITED until she had DIED to try and claim that he alone sculpted the helmet. He has further claimed over the last few years that he designed around 200(!) characters in ANH; that LFL just told him to make whatever, and they threw it into the film. He claims that all he was given was a copy of 2" sketch of the whole character, but "that was enough for me(sic)." The art leads on the film do not recall ever having spoken to him. He was a tech responsible for reproducing the helmet en masse, not an artist or designer.
The judge who ruled on the case did not decide for Ainsworth. Rather, he said Ainsworth's story kept changing, was faintly absurd and overall not credible. However under UK law the judge ruled that the design fell under industrial design (which carries a 15 year max copyright) and not a work of art. The ruling was not that Ainsworth was the creator or owner, but that the copyright had expired, and anyone could produce and sell within the UK. LFL has won the right to pursue for damages on product sold in the US from the Uk court, and we'll see if they persue that option.
Ainsworth has been utterly unable to demonstrate that he can convincingly sculpt anything, producing absurdly clumsy sculpts in an attempt to give his case some credibility. It has FURTHER been pretty clearly shown that what he has, which he is passing off as his original ANH molds, is a recast of pieces of a RotJ suit, and a recast of an inaccurate fan-made helmet. His molds are so far from ANH screen accurate, let alone original, that when new details came to light very recently about the teardrop indents, he frantically requested pictures from people so he could ADD THOSE DETAILS TO HIS SUPPOSEDLY ORIGINAL MOLDS.
There's more, much more, but understand that this guy is a lying sack of crap, and a psychopath, willing to say and do anything, including taking credit from an artist who cannot respond, and above all of THAT who does not even have any better pieces than your average ebay seller, but charges vastly more. No matter what your feelings about LFL they are CLEARLY in the right in this case, not Ainsworth who is a common recaster trying to pass off his crap as something it demonstrateably cannot be, and not some heroic artist taking on "the man".
This.
