Originally Posted by
LarDasse74
Nothing was stolen - the design was sent from the owner.
Incorrect. The
sole purpose to send the design was disclosure (to inform the customer what he was for sale). It wasn't to give the recipient a free bicycle design to use as he wished. The designers recoup the cost of the design effort by selling bicycles not by giving their designs away!
Originally Posted by
LarDasse74
The wedding singer analogy only works if the person providing the design went through some great effort to provide them... which is not the case.
No, "great effort" has no bearing on the ethics. Anyway, this is false. The singer (a professional one) certainly has gone through a great effort to get to be able to sing professionally. An engineer also has went through a "great effort" in being able to design.
Originally Posted by
LarDasse74
I used to work for a company that had their own frames made in Taiwan then assembled bikes the clients... we freely provided parts-spec sheets and frame info, and if someone took that info and made their own bike to match it was not a problem... but if they took the info and made their own bike company with copycat bikes that is unethical.
This is irrelevant unless it happens to be the opinion of the creator of the design in question. That is, just because it wasn't a problem for one person/company doesn't mean it's a problem for everybody.
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It is
clearly unethical because the supplier of the design doesn't want the customer to use the design to have somebody else build the bike.
The fact that the customer is "afraid to ask" makes it clear that the customer realizes it too.