So What's The Difference?( Saturday morning musings)

[gary]

Some plans I could buy like wooden strip canoe plans only give the rights to build one canoe off that plan for personal use. They consider it a violation if I build more than one, build it for commercial sale, or build it and give the plan to someone else to build one.

They want additional funds in those cases.

[Tom Slick]

Put this in the context of software or music and it may become more clear. Allow free downloads of music or software you purchased and you are allowing others to pirate (according to contemporary ethics) . Make copies of it for personal use and it is ligament. Give the purchased CD to a friend and it is ligament, as long as there are no more copies.

we all love freebies but at some point someone is paying for them.

[Stytooner]

The simple idea is copyright is the right to copy.
These rights are typically owned by the owner, but is often shared by the publisher or producer.

It gets vastly more complicated from there.

I did have some of my cartoons published by some magazines. Some of the mags only bought the right to print it once. Another bought 1st printing rights and the right to reprint in a collection. And others wanted to buy the cartoon outright and have all rights. That particular one paid the best.

I often get asked by clubs and small church and school flyers if they could print some of my web based cartoons. I always tell them yes and to have fun.
I keep those on the web for the enjoyment of all. This is totally my decision as an owner though.
Same with Shark Guards.
I have the plans on the site and allow anyone to copy them.
Am I loosing revenue? Not the way I see it, but possibly. However if I wanted to retain all those rights, I certainly wouldn't be posting them in such a public place and expect to be able to defend those rights.

[leehljp]

I introduced "Y", a Japanese friend of mine, to a series of books by a US author, and he "Y" was very intrigued by the books and the author. He contacted the author and asked for permission to translate one book into Japanese. After a series of emails, the author agreed. Then came the problem. The US publisher had all kinds of nit-picky legalese requests (but understandably so) concerning "publishing" in Japanese in Japan. OK to translate, difficult to publish.

Publishers are often very much a part of the process of "copyright" permission.

[Thalermade]

To simplify things a little, include money in the discussion. You bought the magazine so YOU can use it for yourself. So ask yourself, is this plan (magazine) still for sale? If the answer is yes, then you have answered your own question. If the answer is no, then you have a ton of research to do to find out who owns the rights and what are the circumstances.

Libraries are your friend. If not your local library, but through your local library and inter-library loan you may obtain photocopies of the magazine articles and plans. some charge for the copies, some don't. But once again this is for personal use.
Libraries are usually open to suggestions for what magazines to carry.

Just because copying, scanning and posting are easy, in know way does it make it legal

(Wood magazine allows you to build 20 copies of one of their plans, but you cannot sell the plans as if they were yours). New Yankee Workshop says build all you want from their plans, just don't market the items as a New Yankee Workshop item. It all gets back to the making of the plans - the time, the R&D, and the effort to create the plans.

Happy building.