Legal Questions?
Hi, I'm sorry if this is the wrong forum for this question, but it sort of seemed to apply... feel free to move it if appropriate!
Anyhow, what are the legal ramifications of taking an existing kit, photocopy/trace/somehow get the bits and pieces printed on the wood onto paper, then take that plus the plans over to kinko's, shrink the whole thing down to the desired size, scan it all, somehow get it into a CAD program, and ship the CAD files off to a laser-cutter so that I don't have to spend hours with the now-shrunk-templates, sheets of balsa, and a #11 blade? Would this fall under "personal use" and thereby not infringe upon copyrights, or would mailing the CAD files off to the laser cutter be considered distribution? Likewise, if I were lacking the appropriate CAD tools and experience, what would be the ramifications of sending a (single) copy of the scanned in files to a friend so that he could CAD-ify the plans for me, thus enabling me to get my parts laser cut instead of building up my x-acto-grip-calluses?
I ask because I want to take an Astro-Hog, shrink and build a 2/3 scale and a 1/2 scale version of it (The 48" span Astro-Sow and 36" span Astro-Piglet) but would rather not become quite THAT intimate with my x-acto knife. (What can I say... I'd rather shuffle electrons than lumber!)
thanks,
Rick