Is there any copyright issue with buying or selling for that matter, plans on Ebay? I just saw a set of plans for a still in production 2 meter glider I would like to buy to attempt a scratch build this winter.

Thanks
GW

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

I am an author also and do not like to stiff people who are getting royalties. I usually use the RCM or Model Airplane News services.

If this guy is a crook selling off copyright, he is probably making crap reproductions at Kinkos. Have an engineer friend who copied a set of plans I owned that had become creased and ratty. He says copying large blueprint like items ain't easy and he does not trust those budget services.

Tom

If an author is no longer around how do you find the current rights holder? Ihave tried to find the current owners of some of Bud Caddell's plans that appeared in Scale RC Modeler in the 80's. Ican not find Bud, if he is still with us, and attempts to contact the publisher have yielded no replies.

With that said, how do you find the current copyright holder(s) of an article or plan?

If the glider is still in production contact the manufacturer to see if the eBay seller is authorized to sell the plans.
I bought a set a few years ago that ended up being Meister plans just copied. The seller stated they had made the plans themself and did NOT say they were Meister plans in their ad. I contacted Meister and they told me this person was not authorized to sell them and they sought legal action and the guy was eventually shut down and his eBay account closed. Meister even lists several that they have identified as counterfeit so be careful!
Support the companies and individuals who did the research and work to make the plans. Don't support the thieves that steal them, copy them, and resell to make a buck off someone else's sweat.

I'm not an author but I used to think like you until I got ripped off by Model Airplane News/AirAge plans.

I ordered a set of plans for a large scale airplane and was sent a set of boat plans instead. The part numbers for both plans are the same except for one extra letter in the boat plans. I have tried to get the issue resolved but MAN/AirAge has completely ignored me and does nothing but pay lip service when I call. So now I have exactly zero qualms about buying anything AirAge from anybody EXCEPT AirAge.

I had some problems with plans from MANs, but usually these get resolved to my satisifaction. The problem might be with the company who is printing the plans for MANs. I noticed their plan service ships out of Minneapolis,MN. Discuss your problem higher up.

Jim

Ordering a set of plans from the owner can be accomplished, sometimes. An example is that I bought a Sangita Glider that was experienced. Idecided I needed a set of plans for it in case I had damage to repair. The Sangita was an AirTronics kit. It took a couple days on Google and chaising down leads, but in the process, I ended up with the orginal designer. He had sold the kit line to Airtronics, who sold it to another company who in turn sold or gave it back to the orginal owner. He was very helpful and a few days after talking to him, I received a rolled set of plans at a reasonable price. It turned out that I have an incomplete kit of another of his designs, everything but the wing. He even gave me some words of wisdom on that one, IEit was a great disapointment, but if you were to fita Sangita Wing to it, it would be a great flyer. Spending the time to chase down a ligitmate set of plans can pay off.

Most of the kit companies will sell plans. You can download manuals for a lot of them free of charge. Where you are going to run into problems most likely is where a company was bought out by the likes ol Great Planes only to be closed down. I not sure if those plans are still avaiable.

Don

I'm guessing the guy that was shut down on e-bay was "uncle-willie's plans". I see he no longer sells there. At least not under the same name. I bought from him several times and was quite happy with the service and very high quality of his cleaned up plans. He always threw in a free random plan set on each order too. Some were pretty good! I tried buying a Telemaster 40 plan from MAN plans service and after being told it would take 8 weeks to get them copied and sent to me I told them to pound sand and canceled my order. Bought it on e-bay and had it in a week. RCM isn't much better either. I usually buy on impulse so I don't spend what could take hours of research to find out who did the design and who I should seek out to buy from IF that person is still around. I don't do this to cheat the designer out of royalties. It's simply a matter of buying what I want when I see it available.

Joe

The Airtronics Sagitta was a design that came in three sizes. They were designed by Lee Renaud, who was the founder and owner of Airtronics. Many of the Airtronics kits were Lee's designs. Plans for the Sagitta 900 and Sagitta 600 can be found at

http://www.rcmplans.com/

Thanks Bax. I've got the 900. A nice set of pristine plans and after I got them, I discovered the orginal plans, cut up a bit, but all there that were in with a bunch of other plans from the bulk purchase.

The guy I traced down was in Michigan if I remember right, it's been close to 4 years since I got the plans.

Now if I could find plans for a 60 size Stinger.

Don