Now You're Talking: Soap Box

Now You're Talking: Soap Box

Author

Bill Warner

From time to time this section will present thought-provoking ideas on modeling/AMA issues. Timeliness and available space are factors which may affect publication. The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and should not be construed as being those of AMA Headquarters staff or the AMA officers.

I received a letter from an old friend who is a model plans dealer, and it opened up a topic many modelers do not want to think about: "piracy." Some plans he was selling (legally) were being copied and sold without so much as a "by your leave."

The subject was already on my mind from a conversation I had last year with Ed Packard of the venerable Cleveland Model Supply, who has complained of the same thing for many years.

I put the piracy issue out for discussion via the "F/F Sport & Scale" column and received a landslide of feedback, much of it quite emotional. The term "can of worms" was used by a number of respondents, and I was chastised for even exposing the issue!

The thoughtful comments that poured in from concerned plans dealers, buyers, designers, and newsletter editors stripped my capabilities to deal with the issue within the confines of the column.

The "pirates" in question will remain nameless—the process is more important than the players. I know a few of the persons accused, and they are honorable men who have done more for the hobby than most modelers ever will, but the issue remains.

Piracy: Legal and Moral Aspects

Piracy has two aspects: legal and moral.

#### Legal The legal part is about as simple as it gets. The creator of a set of plans, or the person or entity purchasing the rights to the plans, has the exclusive right to profit from it for the duration of the copyright (if one has been secured). Persons who copy and sell copyrighted plans without permission are breaking the law and can be sued (although this has rarely happened, because the expense of the process would exceed the amount of money that might be recovered).

• Works published prior to January 1, 1978 could be copyrighted for 28 years and renewable for another 47 years. Some plans, like Cleveland's, were copyrighted and renewed; some plans for magazines and now-defunct model companies were not.
• Plans copyrighted since 1978 are protected for the creator's lifetime plus 50 years.
• If a prospective buyer sees no copyright and date on a set of plans, how is he or she to know there is one? It is generally assumed that someone selling materials has the rights to do so, but this is not always true.

Of people who engage in piracy, there are those who cause "loss of income to the copyright owner" and those who do not. If you legally buy a set of plans and enlarge it on a copier for your own use, you are not in trouble. If you make a copy and give or sell it to a friend, a strict interpretation of copyright law states that your friend deprived the copyright owner of income. One could reasonably argue that the recipient would not have purchased the plans on his own, so no one's income would be affected either way, but the law is the law.

Considering the number of people who record songs from the radio, or record movies from television, most of the U.S. population should be behind bars for depriving the copyright owners of what they would have gotten had their works been purchased on the market.

The law, although on the side of the copyright holder, is all but useless for several reasons: the difficulty of documenting "loss of income," the ease with which copies can be made, the widespread nature of the practice, and the prohibitive legal costs involved. These factors make it possible to pin down only one or two flagrant violators. Perhaps the main issue for the individual modeler is the ethical one.

The Parties Involved

#### The Plan Creator (Designer) Designers put in hundreds of hours of hard work. Vern Clements, for example, has created plans from which even full-size Gee Bees have been successfully built and flown. The sale of these plans is a significant part of his income, so when someone copies and sells them, he is directly affected.

Legendary designers such as Bill Winter, Earl Stahl, and the late Walt Mooney have had countless models published in magazines, and the plans are readily available from many dealers; some dealers sought the designer's permission and some have not.

• A magazine intending to sell copies of plans printed in its pages will hold the rights. If no special arrangements have been entered into with the creator, a plan that is printed on a "one-shot" basis will have rights retained by the creator.
• Many authors consider their work "for the good of the hobby" and are not in the plans business; they are not always upset when someone wants to add their plan to a selling list. They realize the margin of profit is usually small, and paying royalties would be too much of a burden on the dealer.

Reactions from designers vary:

• Earl Stahl says he is not bothered by the piracy of his plans, but he gets annoyed when someone makes changes and leaves his name on it.
• Bill Winter says he "...feels pleased and honored when somebody runs something of mine which may be older than most of my family."
• Walt Mooney used to say his main interest was to get people to build, and he didn't care if they passed his plans around.

An interesting scenario: Suppose a person makes a three-view drawing of the outlines of a full-sized aircraft—he has taken the work of the airplane's designer. Then someone uses the three-view to do a model plan—this person has taken two previous creations without paying, and if Jim Walker's patented bellcrank idea was used, would it be three? Then someone takes the model plans, changes a few lines on it, and sells it as a different set of plans under his or her own name. From there, a plans dealer makes an unauthorized copy of that one and adds it to his line without asking anyone. It gets complicated.

#### The Plans Seller Does the seller own the plans he sells? Sellers vary:

• Some don't so much create as modify many of the plans they sell, often improving them (putting several magazine pages together on one sheet, adding missing part outlines from the original kit, adding the missing wing half, etc.).
• Some have the rights to the plans they sell as the result of a financial transaction, even though they did not draw them (Cleveland Models, for example).
• Some have obtained plans they copy and sell virtually as they were drawn, either with permission of the designer or copyright holder or without it.

Fran Piaskiewicz (who holds the copyright release to sell Harold deBolt's plans) tells of a guy who "returned" plans he had just purchased, asking for an exchange. Fran recognized the plans as pirated and sent the guy an explanation with a request to be reimbursed for postage. He has never heard back from him. Now we've added "discourtesy" to "illegal" and "unethical."

Most sellers I know are not giving up their day jobs. They provide a valuable service to fellow modelers by rescuing many plans that were otherwise lost and making them available at a reasonable cost. A large percentage of sellers do make an effort to get proper permission when the plan designer or owner of the rights is still alive. Even those identified by some respondents as "pirates" sell plans that, for the most part, are not controversial.

Many magazines print tiny plans for small models, then sell full-sized copies, as opposed to the Golden Age model magazines that printed full-sized "build-on" plans in each issue. Some magazines, like Aeromodeller, still provide fold-out plans. Two persons said they resent the practice of printing small plans because it discourages beginners.

I think many would applaud someone who enlarged a magazine presentation and "illegally" passed it around, even though it would deprive the magazine of income. Quite often, plans appearing in magazines are the property of the creator and technically, to take plans from a magazine or newsletter, enlarge them, and sell them is piracy—even if you give the plans away!

#### The Average Modeler More than 80% of those who wrote in said they would not buy a plan they knew was pirated.

Pete Kerezman sums up the dominant attitude: "...basically, it's wrong to steal, and both the seller and the buyer are diminished by participating in such activity."

Many respondents noted, however, that the F/F Scale movement would have been seriously impeded had there not been so many plans (many pirated) available via small dealers and newsletters. Quite a few said they had no way of knowing if a plan was "legally copied" or not, which is an excellent point.

One modeler protested that the legal owner of one line of plans that he did not create, but owned the copyright for, was charging too much for them, which made that firm the real pirate (another person used the term "highway robbery" in this regard). Another suggested that anyone who makes a living at selling plans should be required to list the names of the designers whose plans are in his catalog so that royalties could be paid. Several respondents suggested a trade association for plans dealers.

Designers have different reactions. Some are offended, some annoyed, some indifferent, some flattered, some hurt. I find it impossible to dictate one reaction.

There is a legal remedy if the copyright is clear, but the cost and time factors make it impractical for all but the largest infractions. Some designers told me they prefer to give permission to a dealer to sell a plan rather than go to the trouble of enforcing their rights. Others told me they were paid an initial fee for plans and consequently felt they had been compensated. One modeler said he would buy pirated plans only if that was the sole way to get them.

Newsletters

Most newsletters rely on "borrowing" old plans that are often passed from person to person. Being a harried volunteer newsletter editor myself, I have published hundreds of plans and three-views I had no permission for, though never (as far as I know) any that were for sale by anyone holding the rights to them. Original plans should perhaps be marked, "No commercial use may be made of this drawing without the author's permission."

A number of plans sold by at least one dealer have been taken directly from newsletters. Those allowing their plans to be published for no payment are generally doing so to get people to build—they usually don't copyright the plans and are flattered to get exposure in other newsletters. However, some object to having their work sold without getting credit or being asked for permission.

I think most newsletter editors believe that they are doing a service to modelers and that they are not making any money on the plans.

Have sellers or creators lost income because of newsletter plans? One modeler cites a case of an illegally copied compact disc that was distributed to several people. The copy actually created a market for the performer's music, resulting in purchases of her CDs and attendance at her concerts by people who might never have even known of the artist before! It was legally and ethically wrong, but it benefited all concerned.

Dick Hawes, editor of the Winding Stogue, draws the line at publishing plans from kits still in production, even if the design appeared in the 1930s.

Where Do We Go From Here?

A few people suggested that columnists publish names of "pirates." I don't think that would benefit the hobby. I know many people involved in the plans business, and even pirates are performing a service to the hobby by keeping old plans available (I suspect that only about 1% of plans sold fall into the "illegal" category).

There are a few more plans that have been done by living designers for which permission should have been obtained. The majority of plans are not available from any other source, so the designers either are dead or have no malice toward persons who make a minimal profit from work they were probably paid for long ago.

Roland Friedstad, who does computerized plan business for the magazines, including reductions and copies, intends to do an extensive list of plans and three-views, marking those subject to active copyrights and listing sources from which they could be purchased. This is a massive undertaking (his library of plans and three-views exceeds 30,000), but it would answer many modelers' concerns—I think Roland should go ahead with this worthy project, perhaps with a grant from AMA.

Bob Clemens suggests that copyrighted plans be clearly marked with the copyright logo and year of copyright or renewal. I think dealers could stamp their plans with "Public Domain," identify the date it was copyrighted or renewed, or stamp with "Permission to reprint from: [owner and date]" without adding too much to the cost. Buyers would feel confident that they would not be participating in an activity that should weigh on their conscience.

It would be nice to have an "embargoed" plans list, as Dick Hawes puts it, in newsletters and columns to warn modelers what plans (namely material under copyright) not to purchase from other-than-authorized sources. Many feel that it would also be nice to credit the designers of plans that are out of copyright and to ask their permission when possible. Courtesy never hurts.

Modelers are overwhelmingly against purchasing pirated plans, and they acknowledge that it hurts the creators more than the hobby. Purchasers need to assure themselves that they are buying from a reputable dealer who can assure that the plans are not under someone else's active copyright.

Many felt that it was morally okay to copy plans without permission if they weren't sold. Others thought that copyright laws gave undeserved rights to people who were taking other people's work and just changing a portion of it.

What Can Be Done?

From a practical standpoint, the legal system is not going to give an aggrieved plans copyright holder much help, other than perhaps making a "cease and desist" order more forceful. Most of the culprits' names mentioned are not bad people, but I think they will be much more careful in the future knowing that there is a movement to make buyers more aware.

Ethically, modelers should make more of an effort to find out if the plans they purchase are being sold illegally—a list of copyrighted plans would help. Also, giving away illegally copied plans needs to be thought of as a matter of degree, not of kind. It is so easy to do, and is considered so minor a crime, that many plans will continue to be passed around this way—right or wrong.

Practical suggestions:

• Newsletter editors should identify plans with statements such as "Copyright 1996 (or whenever), Joe Blow," "All rights reserved," "No commercial use shall be made of this plan," "Printed with permission," or "Other newsletters feel free to copy!"
• Magazines such as Model Aviation might identify the legal status of all plans they publish. If it says not to sell or give away copies, there is a better chance of it remaining unsullied.
• Dealers could stamp plans as "Public Domain," include copyright or renewal dates, or provide a "permission to reprint" notice.
• A centralized list (or database) of copyrighted plans and authorized sources would help buyers and reduce inadvertent piracy.

Let your conscience be your guide!

Bill Warner 1370 Monarch Ave Porterville, CA 93257

Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.