GW, there is a guy that has been selling plans for several years on Ebay. That copyright question popped in mymind a while back, but no one has shut him down. It's a really Gray area. An example is that in 2002, I wrote an article for the Lapidary Journal. Iretained copyrights on the article but sold them right of first publishing. I've since seen my article pop up on at least three different web sites. Probably, they are in violation of my copyrights, but the other side of the coin, could I win a judgment from them, and what would it cost me. A lot of the older plans are from guys who are no longer with us, and it would be up to the estate to pressure the issue of damages.

We are gun shy from the movie and record industry's claims of the huge potential damages for downloading a song. In my case, i couldn't imagine a law suit that would net me anything for a couple guys putting my article up on there web site, including giving me credit for it. Iwould think most model airplane designs would follow into the same frame of mind, but then you never know. There is no big money to be made, but ego sometimes trumps common sense and the designer will go for a kill. Idoubt that as a buyer, you would be involved, but there maybe a casethat you could be.

There isn't a copyright cop like there is a traffic cop. Any claims have to go through the courts and that cost big bucks. There isn't enough money involved to warrant the law suits required to cover a model airplane plan..

This isn't a legal opinion, but just my opinion. There will most likely be a lot of ideas on this as there usually are. My suggestion is that you evaluate your own standards to see if you would feel comfortable with someone buying something based on your work. You have to make the choice. It may be that the guy has obtained the Copyright for the plans. It may be that he hasn't. It would be a question to ask him.

Don