Copyright isn't automatic. The intent to claim copyrights has to be declared. Yes it could be removed, possibly exonerating a third party that can claim to be acting in good faith, but removing the claim doesn't nullify it.

In any case the copyright covers only the document itself, not the information itself. There would be no ethical bar to drawing up a new set of prints to the exact specs, but changing for example the placement of dimension lines, or paraphrasing footnotes.

Did anyone bother to read my post?

-Kurt

Just email/call the companies that sent the drawings and explain that you don't want to do business with them due to price BUT that you want to use their drawings.
If they say no, don't use them. If they say yes, well, thereyago!

I did, as I'm sure many others did. You raise a good point, and it's possible he's only looking to soothe his own conscience, or he might legitimately be looking for advice in what he feels is a gray area.

But like in the old Clairol ads only his hairdresser knows for sure.

IMO- only a reasonably ethical personal would have posted. An unethical one would have simply sent the plans off. The reality is that it as a fine point. Where is the line about using information that fell into your lap? If Randy Cohen still had his The Ethicist column in the NY Times Magazine I would have forwarded the question.

Copyright notice is not required by law. They can still sue you and win. See https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/fa...ns.html#notice

And now he's just shared plans from a reputable frame maker with the Chinese factories...

Why don't you ask the company how much they want for you to use their blue prints? There's your answer.

If you are using plans freely supplied to make your own bike then there is no issue, IMHO... but if you are having frames made to sell them then that is unethical.

For instance - I can, for my own pleasure, record myself singing AC/DC's "Back in Black" and noone will care, but if I start selling the tapes without permission... a little man in a schoolboy uniform will hop through my door and kick my ass.

Incorrect. It's automatic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...yright_notices

Clearly, removing it doesn't nullify it. That's why the absence of the symbol doesn't mean anything.

Yes.

There certainly would be an ethical bar to doing this. There might not be a legal bar to this sort of copy. And it might infringe on the patent (if it exists).

It is ethically "theft of services". You pay for designs. You don't steal them.

No, it's more like asking somebody to demo as a wedding singer and recording and using their performance without their permission.

Nothing was stolen - the design was sent from the owner.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

You couldn't be any more wrong.

"Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created..." - https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.pdf (US Copyright Office publication)

You folks are finding problem where none exist. I'm not speaking of being shabby, but of legal or ethical issues involved.

The prints were sent to him with no expectation or claim of confidentiality. The implied copyright would bar him from commercializing them, but not from sharing or even forwarding the original to a third party. From the copyright standpoint that would be equivalent to sharing a book. The information that might be gleaned from reading the print isn't a trade secret, since anyone could simply find a frame and take some measurements.

If the company that sent the print intended to protect any trade secrets they had a simple remedy - don't mail a print. But they did and he can use it as he sees fit. That doesn't make him a nice guy but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

If it is a print of a stock frame, he should cut off the name, and send a copy along saying it's a print drawn up for a custom frame. The Chinese factory would have no reason to think that it was anything special and wouldn't be especially inclined to copy it for a production model, thereby offering some insulation to the original maker.

As a practical matter it's impossible for a manufacturer to totally insulate himself against being copied. Even patents aren't bulletproof protection. Designs are copied all the time, so what we're talking about when it comes down to it is a piece of paper, sent with no claim of privacy or conditions on it's use, and as such he can use it as he sees fit, subject to his own sense of propriety.

"Shabby" equals "unethical".

And it's clearly "shabby"!

He would not be a "nice guy" because he's doing something unethical. He's taking the "personal profit" from effort of somebody without compensation in return.

That would be not giving appropriate credit. That's unethical too!

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The reason the legal issues are relevant are because if it's illegal, it's likely unethical too.

================

Professional engineers would not consider any of this nonsense "ethical".

https://www.nspe.org/Ethics/CodeofEthics/index.html

Reminder to self: never do business with the rationalizing, unethical reprobate which calls himself "FB."

Bike geometry is not rocket science. Nearly every brands posts their geometry so it can be read, online. You can't steal geometry.

If it's so easy, then he doesn't need the plans. Note that we aren't just talking about a few numbers off of a brief geometry table.

Just because it isn't "rocket science" doesn't mean it's ethical to use these plans to have some other company build the bike.

No one with any ethics describes an ethical act as "shabby" or "not being a nice guy". The fact that the act in question is being described in those kind of terms makes it clear that it isn't ethical!

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He's not the only one with sketchy ethics!

+1.

Making a copy of something you see or are given is not unethical unless you are representing it as your own work (plagiarism) or using it for profit.

Would it be unethical to jot down a sketch of the details from the print and send that to a builder? Or use the specs of a bike published on a website?
Does this rule also apply to graphic design? If I see a manufactured bike with a paint job I really like, then can I not bring a photo to a painter and pay him to recreate it? If not, why not.

Edit:
PS: I regularly study the dimensions and tubing specs on high end bikes, and I hope to someday pick a configuration I like and have a custom frame made... will this also be unethical?

A major factor in the ethics involved depends on what the builder expected when he sent the prints, and what the OP was thinking when he requested them. From the original post, they were sent voluntarily, so there's no theft of tangible property or services. Copyright law doesn't apply because the OP isn't commercializing the print. Plagerism doesn't apply because the OP isn't taking credit for work not his own.

The US factory did send out the print in hopes, short of expectation (from the tone of the original post), of an order and had the OP simply not purchased the frame for any reason, no one would be speaking of an ethics violation of any kind. Samples and/or quotes and specs are sent out thousands of times every day in hopes of getting business, but there's no legal, or moral obligation to buy.

So any talk of loss, theft, or copyright infringement is irrelevant up to that point, and what the original poster does with the prints afterward won't cause further loss to the company. Certainly he can't claim it as his own, and he can't reproduce it and sell the copies, but he is within his rights, having acquired them fairly, to use them to his advantage, and have a frame built for his own use.

It would be different if he had made a promise to buy a frame, or put them to the effort of drawing up plans specifically for him, or even if he requested them knowing in advance that he had no intention to buy, and instead use them to copy. But that isn't what happened (according to the OP).The OP's intent is what determines the ethics of the situation, more than issues of copyright.

It's obvious that the OP is a degenerate scumbag bottom-feeder of the lowest order.

The dead giveaway is the fact that he posted here.

History has shown that scurrilous bad-actors about to commit despicable and disgusting acts invariably precede the act with a total-disclosure confession on Bikeforums.

OP is obviously a spiritually sick individual who should be incarcerated to protect society.

When are you coming back to Texas?
They removed your photo from the post office.

How many do you have to get for the 700 price?

Just one = $700 total cost delivered.

The universe is self correcting. If you do something wrong, it comes back to you one way or another.