Wanted - Long EZ and Q2 plans

Excuse me for being stupid, but why keeps a person from selling a set of
plans they bought and built with?

Fred

"Corrie" wrote in message
om...
So why are the plans no longer avilable?

More than likely they were withdrawn out of a fear over liability or the
owners just couldn't justify the time and expense of supporting them.

Whatever the reason, Bob is right. Intellectual property law serves
the public good. That's the reason the Constitution gives Federal
government control of copyright and patents - to encourage the
"useful arts and sciences." If Burt wants to put the EZ plans in the
public domain, he's free to do so. No one else.

For all the jawing about "information should be free" - and there is
in fact a TON of taxpayer-funded (nothing's free) aeronautical
information available for the downloading from NASA and the dot-gov
sites, including AC 43 and the AIM/FAR - there doesn't seem to be a
single "open source" airplane design. The closest are arguably the
Pietenpol Air Camper, Evans VP-1, and Bowers FlyBaby, but the plans
aren't *free.* Very reasonably priced, but *not* free.

In article _yn1b.223504$Ho3.28382@sccrnsc03, "Frederick Wilson"
writes:


Excuse me for being stupid, but why keeps a person from selling a set of
plans they bought and built with?

Fred


Probably the arrangement made at the time of purchase. You buy the plans with
an agreement to use them once and once only. Depending on the purchase
contract, if you never use them you might be able to transfer them.


Bob Reed
www.kisbuild.r-a-reed-assoc.com (KIS Builders Site)
KIS Cruiser in progress...Slow but steady progress....

"Ladies and Gentlemen, take my advice,
pull down your pants and Slide on the Ice!"
(M.A.S.H. Sidney Freedman)

"Frederick Wilson" wrote in message news:_yn1b.223504$Ho3.28382@sccrnsc03...
Excuse me for being stupid, but why keeps a person from selling a set of
plans they bought and built with?

Fred

Risk of bad karma.

On 22 Aug 2003 01:23:42 -0700, (Corrie) wrote:

For all the jawing about "information should be free" - and there is
in fact a TON of taxpayer-funded (nothing's free) aeronautical
information available for the downloading from NASA and the dot-gov
sites, including AC 43 and the AIM/FAR - there doesn't seem to be a
single "open source" airplane design. The closest are arguably the
Pietenpol Air Camper, Evans VP-1, and Bowers FlyBaby, but the plans
aren't *free.* Very reasonably priced, but *not* free.

One of the biggest ironies I see in homebuilding are people who are willing
to spend $10,000 or more to build a plane like a Pietenpol, but want to
start by ripping-off the plans vendor for the $50-$100 for the building
instructions.

I have my hopes that some day the Fly Baby will end up public domain.
Still, it does lend itself to some problems. People insist on badly
thought-out modifications, and you'd probably end up with plans sets being
passed around where folks have proudly incorporated their own changes but
unsuspecting builders might think are original. Obviously, an awkward
situation.

One thought was, if the plans went public domain, that they could be
distributed by an official source via web site or CD-ROM. A couple of the
guys on the Fly Baby Yahoo list have experimented with digitizing the
plans. One has run an OCR of the complete plans, but the drawings are
still problematical. Many are full-scale templates, but of course, by the
time the drawings are scanned, converted to JPEGs or GIFs, saved in a
document, and printed from a random computer, the scales have shifted just
enough to make the templates erroneous. Although, after 40 years of
photocopying, the templates are a bit off, anyway....

One niggling problem of the all-electronic approach is that there are still
folks out there who don't mess with computers. They'll want hard-copy
plans, so you're still stuck with dragging a master copy to Kinkos every
once in a while.

Ron Wanttaja

Ron Wanttaja wrote:

One niggling problem of the all-electronic approach is that there are still
folks out there who don't mess with computers. They'll want hard-copy
plans, so you're still stuck with dragging a master copy to Kinkos every
once in a while.

Nah, mail 'em a CD and a letter telling them to go to Kinko's with the "shiny
plastic disc." :-)

Russell Kent

Ron Wanttaja wrote:

On 22 Aug 2003 01:23:42 -0700, (Corrie) wrote:

For all the jawing about "information should be free" - and there is
in fact a TON of taxpayer-funded (nothing's free) aeronautical
information available for the downloading from NASA and the dot-gov
sites, including AC 43 and the AIM/FAR - there doesn't seem to be a
single "open source" airplane design. The closest are arguably the
Pietenpol Air Camper, Evans VP-1, and Bowers FlyBaby, but the plans
aren't *free.* Very reasonably priced, but *not* free.

One of the biggest ironies I see in homebuilding are people who are willing
to spend $10,000 or more to build a plane like a Pietenpol, but want to
start by ripping-off the plans vendor for the $50-$100 for the building
instructions.

I have my hopes that some day the Fly Baby will end up public domain.
Still, it does lend itself to some problems. People insist on badly
thought-out modifications, and you'd probably end up with plans sets being
passed around where folks have proudly incorporated their own changes but
unsuspecting builders might think are original. Obviously, an awkward
situation.

One thought was, if the plans went public domain, that they could be
distributed by an official source via web site or CD-ROM. A couple of the
guys on the Fly Baby Yahoo list have experimented with digitizing the
plans. One has run an OCR of the complete plans, but the drawings are
still problematical. Many are full-scale templates, but of course, by the
time the drawings are scanned, converted to JPEGs or GIFs, saved in a
document, and printed from a random computer, the scales have shifted just
enough to make the templates erroneous. Although, after 40 years of
photocopying, the templates are a bit off, anyway....

One niggling problem of the all-electronic approach is that there are still
folks out there who don't mess with computers. They'll want hard-copy
plans, so you're still stuck with dragging a master copy to Kinkos every
once in a while.

Ron Wanttaja

Man, been there, done that.

The plans for my parasol are printed in 8-1/2 x 11 booklet format
(about 110 pages). The text was done in MS Word, the drawings done
with Design CAD.

Origionally, every time Kinkos printed books, the formatting would fall
apart. Pictures moved around, text wandered off, etc.

I finally put the whole thing into a single PDF file and just take the
CD to Kinkies. Life is good.

The new plans for the new plane are going together in 11x17 format.
But I plan to use the same technique for printing.

At one time I thought about selling plans on CD, but backed away
because there are already so many bogus copies floating around.

Richard

Ron Wanttaja wrote in message . ..

On 22 Aug 2003 01:23:42 -0700, (Corrie) wrote:
One of the biggest ironies I see in homebuilding are people who are willing
to spend $10,000 or more to build a plane like a Pietenpol, but want to
start by ripping-off the plans vendor for the $50-$100 for the building
instructions.

An excellent point.


I have my hopes that some day the Fly Baby will end up public domain.
Still, it does lend itself to some problems. People insist on badly
thought-out modifications, and you'd probably end up with plans sets being
passed around where folks have proudly incorporated their own changes but
unsuspecting builders might think are original. Obviously, an awkward
situation.

Unless the family continues to re-register them (as I believe the
Pietenpols have done) Bower's plans will pass into the public domain
under US copyright law in April 2073. We'll all have flown west by
then, I suspect.


One thought was, if the plans went public domain, that they could be
distributed by an official source via web site or CD-ROM. A couple of the
guys on the Fly Baby Yahoo list have experimented with digitizing the
plans. One has run an OCR of the complete plans, but the drawings are
still problematical. Many are full-scale templates, but of course, by the
time the drawings are scanned, converted to JPEGs or GIFs, saved in a
document, and printed from a random computer, the scales have shifted just
enough to make the templates erroneous. Although, after 40 years of
photocopying, the templates are a bit off, anyway....

One niggling problem of the all-electronic approach is that there are still
folks out there who don't mess with computers. They'll want hard-copy
plans, so you're still stuck with dragging a master copy to Kinkos every
once in a while.

If you're going to actually build the thing, you have to have a hard
copy at some point. Of course, maybe by 2073 we'll be able to just
call up the plans on our replicators and select "Fabricate" from the
File menu...

That'd take a lot of the fun out of it.

The folks that don't want to mess with computers or the hassel of
getting large format prints can pay someone for that service. The
real value is the support you get from the original designer. Being
able to call up a human being and say "Hey Ron, that bracket is way to
weak to support that load, what am I missing." The plan author can
verify ownership before he spends his time answering questions.

I'd venture to agree that the reason that the Long EZ plans are no
longer available was the free support cost too much and unlimited
liability provided once again by our lawyers and gullable public.

Ron Wanttaja wrote in message . ..
On 22 Aug 2003 01:23:42 -0700, (Corrie) wrote:

For all the jawing about "information should be free" - and there is
in fact a TON of taxpayer-funded (nothing's free) aeronautical
information available for the downloading from NASA and the dot-gov
sites, including AC 43 and the AIM/FAR - there doesn't seem to be a
single "open source" airplane design. The closest are arguably the
Pietenpol Air Camper, Evans VP-1, and Bowers FlyBaby, but the plans
aren't *free.* Very reasonably priced, but *not* free.

One of the biggest ironies I see in homebuilding are people who are willing
to spend $10,000 or more to build a plane like a Pietenpol, but want to
start by ripping-off the plans vendor for the $50-$100 for the building
instructions.

I have my hopes that some day the Fly Baby will end up public domain.
Still, it does lend itself to some problems. People insist on badly
thought-out modifications, and you'd probably end up with plans sets being
passed around where folks have proudly incorporated their own changes but
unsuspecting builders might think are original. Obviously, an awkward
situation.

One thought was, if the plans went public domain, that they could be
distributed by an official source via web site or CD-ROM. A couple of the
guys on the Fly Baby Yahoo list have experimented with digitizing the
plans. One has run an OCR of the complete plans, but the drawings are
still problematical. Many are full-scale templates, but of course, by the
time the drawings are scanned, converted to JPEGs or GIFs, saved in a
document, and printed from a random computer, the scales have shifted just
enough to make the templates erroneous. Although, after 40 years of
photocopying, the templates are a bit off, anyway....

One niggling problem of the all-electronic approach is that there are still
folks out there who don't mess with computers. They'll want hard-copy
plans, so you're still stuck with dragging a master copy to Kinkos every
once in a while.

Ron Wanttaja

In article , Richard Lamb
writes:


Excuse me for being stupid, but why keeps a person from selling a set of
plans they bought and built with?

Fred


Honesty?



Gee, that seems to be a very outdated concept in today's society.


Bob Reed
www.kisbuild.r-a-reed-assoc.com (KIS Builders Site)
KIS Cruiser in progress...Slow but steady progress....

"Ladies and Gentlemen, take my advice,
pull down your pants and Slide on the Ice!"
(M.A.S.H. Sidney Freedman)

In article , Todd Pattist
writes:


Excuse me for being stupid, but why keeps a person from selling a set of
plans they bought and built with?

The plans and/or the signed contract restrict you to building *one* copy
from the plans. To do otherwise violates the agreement between the plans
purchaser and the designer/owner/...


So the designer/owner could sue the original plans purchaser
if the original plans purchaser built two planes. The second
purchaser didn't make any such agreement and can't be sued
unless the plans/design are protected by intellectual
property laws in some other way (patent being the obvious
one). The intellectual property laws not only work to
protect intellectual property (for the constitutional
"limited times"), they work to make sure it is possible to
copy those things that are not protected in compliance with
law. The right to copy unprotected work ensures that we can
enjoy the fruits of progress and is as strong as the
prohibition on copying protected work.

Typically, contracts are used to protect otherwise
unprotectable work.

If the design is not protected against copying by IP laws,
the contract would have to specify not only that the
original purchaser can't build two, but that he can't sell
the plans. Does it include stuff like that? Anyone have
any actual language in e-format they can post?
Todd Pattist

You might try reading the full details of most software contracts to get an
idea.


Bob Reed
www.kisbuild.r-a-reed-assoc.com (KIS Builders Site)
KIS Cruiser in progress...Slow but steady progress....

"Ladies and Gentlemen, take my advice,
pull down your pants and Slide on the Ice!"
(M.A.S.H. Sidney Freedman)