I’m sorry to cause such consternation!

I maintain these sites on a shoestring, using free and open source capabilities where possible, and I’m afraid that under these circumstances you get what you pay for. (If you pay for things you may not get them either – but that’s a different matter).

The .TK domain allows people to register domain names for free, which is why I use it. Registering multiple domain names can start to become costly… Unfortunately, this free domain service therefore attracts a host of dodgy characters apart from myself, and is constantly having arguments with the ICANN authorities about its failure to remove criminals, hackers and other assorted undesirables (such as model boat enthusiasts?). One such argument seems to have come to a head a few weeks ago, resulting in the entire domain being shut down for some weeks.

The sites are now addressable again, but of course there can be no firm guarantees that something similar will not happen again. Incidentally, while they were down some interest was expressed by another vintage R/C web site in mirroring my ones – I’d be happy if anyone wanted to do that, and it would certainly add resilience….

Below is a picture of a slightly enlarged Triton. Yet to get wet but hoping it will be soon.

Also the Russian Missile Boat from the 50 + range. Tim

I haven’t been able to get any information out of the .TK registrar, beyond the statement that my Domain Names will be closed at the end of this month.
So I’ve finally had to bite the bullet and buy some new names. At the end of this month, http://eezebilt.tk/, http://marinecraft.tk/, http://oldboats.tk/ and http://www.taycol.tk/ will presumably cease to function, and we will go onto the new names, which are:

http://eezebilt.uk/
http://marinecraft.uk/
http://oldboats.uk/
http://www.taycol.uk/

The new sites are available now, so if you hold these as links, now is a good time to change them. Ignore the banner warning I have put up – that’s just a reminder, and will go away once the old site names die. Let me know if anything goes wrong…

Pause. Takes deep breath….

ALL design work of this kind has copyright attached to it for a longish period, no matter whether the owner realises this or not, or is even alive. Copyright is in effect a statement about the ownership of the intellectual property (IP) rights.

The Keil Kraft plans on my EeZeBilt site are copyrighted to Amerang, who have kindly given me permission to present them on the web for free download.

The data on my Marinecraft and Taycol websites are believed to be ‘orphans’. This is a term used for IP which has no clear owner and is in danger of being lost. But they still have a (virtual) copyright. If, for instance, the Marinecraft plans suddenly became valuable there would no doubt be claimed owners, a series of court cases, and a decision on either the valid owner, or a statement that they were in the public domain (70 years after the death of the creator).

For items such as these I follow the EU Orphan Works Directive in conducting a diligent search for the owner and maintaining a download record for fair compensation, but I have not as yet registered with the EUIPO Orphan Works Database. This is partly because I am not sure who the UK national competent authority for old model boat plans would be. If any issue arises, I will probably register and let the EU sort it out – which I expect would last beyond my lifetime! Where I do find an owner (for instance Hobbico for Sterling plans) I obtain written permission to distribute. Occasionally, as with Mid-West, they refuse this permission, so I do not distribute. I also do not distribute plans for boats which are currently being marketed, such as the Aerokits range.

The sites, as explained in the initial pages, are primarily a place to save old boat plans from being completely lost. I believe that placing them on the Web, and hence allowing multiple copies to exist, is the most cost-effective way for a single hobbyist to ensure this. If they are still being commercially marketed, or available from companies’ archives like Dumas, they are not lost, so they are not included. There is no monetarisation involved here – I pay all the costs and do not incorporate any advertising. So I intentionally make no profit from distribution. I have refused offers of financial assistance in order to remain completely independent. Though it would be nice if someone would consider mirroring the sites in order to provide resilience…

The ‘EeZeBilt 50+’ plans are mainly my own work, so I retain copyright. These are released under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-SA license, which is one of several public copyright licenses produced by the Creative Commons organisation. This allows recipients free use to share, copy, and adapt a work, provided you give the creator credit (BY), do not use it for commercial purposes (NC), and share any modified versions under the exact same license (SA). If you would like to contribute, your work would be released under that copyright license.

I keep half an eye on various outlets such as eBay. If I became aware that my plans being sold there I would contact eBay, provide proof of ownership, and ask for the seller to be removed for breach of sales terms. If I found the original KK plans from my site for sale I would contact Amerang, who would no doubt do the same thing. Though note that there is only one of me, and I have many other things to do!

I assume that either you or Model Boats magazine retain copyright on your plans, and that if you found them being sold in breach of your copyright you would do something similar. Note that is is quite reasonable to sell an original copy of a plan. What you must not do is sell photocopies.

…. Where does that leave Vintage Model Boat plans in Canada who offer a mixture of plans currently available from Sarik and those which are no longer listed or otherwise have been deemed to be damaged beyond repair and written off. …..

The Film/DVD people have politically made some aspects of copyright breach into a criminal activity for their own economic reasons, but the principle was always a civil matter. It is about stopping people benefitting by copying other people’s work, and is an actionable civil wrong (a tort) that allows creators to seek legal remedies for the unauthorized use of their intellectual property.

This means it’s an argument you can use in a civil court, where YOU have to bring the prosecution. It’s not a criminal case where the state and the police do the heavy lifting on your behalf.  So, unless a lot of money is involved, it’s rarely worth bringing a court case. If little money is involved, the penalty is likely to be that the court will only order the copyright breach to stop in any case. If you really want to stop such distribution, you would be better off contacting the web service providers, who usually have rules about not publishing copyrighted material without permission, and can shut a site down. Though this may become a cat and mouse game…

What made me unhappy was the fate of many of the early plans as the modelling hobby shrank. These were either junked when a small company closed down, or held to be part of the company assets and therefore valued by the liquidators. Because they were valued, they were never considered for public release, so they were horded until the cost of storage became excessive, upon which they were junked as before.

Public release, under a Creative Commons license, would have meant that they would have been copied widely, could have been archived for free by toy museums, and would have been less likely to be irretrievably lost.

I’m impressed by your story of the Bardic Ferry. I recently found a very rare plan – the Marinecraft Silver Dawn – and have put it up on the Marinecraft site at http://marinecraft.uk/Mlarge.html

I doubt whether anyone will have seen that before – I suspect that it’s the only one in existence…

Thanks for that response, I’m not sure it’s a hot topic these days 🙂

Just a shame the free plans in Model Boats for the last 6 years are no longer available except within the published magazine, these and the featured designs used to keep the old plans range alive, which it currently isn’t. As the commercial interests of each company has no financial beniffit , It would be nice if Kelsey gave the recent designs to Sarik for the sake of the hobby ? I’m sure this will never happen I have discussed this with Lindsey recently.

Regards  Ray

At the end of the day it’s all about money, I am surprised this forum still operates with all it’s shortcomings as it’s used by so few folk these days , it will be interesting what happens to the mag if the remaining retail outlets close as warned in the current issue by the editor 🙁

Regards  Ray

I think the publishers are only interested in the magazine. There is no subsequent monetary value to them from the free plans which is understandable from their point of view but doesn’t do much to preserve them for posterity although third parties might add them to their pirated portfolios which is better than nothing.

Kelsey never wanted the Mortons Forums as Kelsey don’t do Forums, but it was part of the takeover agreement. So the existing three Forums remain ‘as is’ with no further development or improvement envisaged. The only changes have been to plaster more adverts into the remaining space.

Sad but true I think.

The main alternative Forum is Model Boat Mayhem but this relies on outdated software and, while currently functional, will never be migrated to a more modern platform. It therefore has a limited lifespan with all the useful data it contains.

Facebook and other social media is touted as an alternative but social media does not provide the structured database resource offered by traditional forums.

At the end of the day, all the valuable data held on forums or social media is vulnerable to somebody just flicking a switch and consigning it all to oblivion. Facebook is a bit of a timeline and old posts just disappear into the background never to be seen again.

You might have spent a lot of time and effort in posting a useful build blog on a Forum only to find it wiped out in the blink of an eye.

If you can get your material published in hard copy format such as in the magazine (while it exists), there is a much greater chance of it surviving long term.

Colin

Hi Dodgy,

Do all the free download pdf’s of old design’s have no copyright attached to them ??

For info, I have just received permission from Hobbies (of Dereham) to publish their old plans, so if anyone has anything from that source that they think others might be interested in. send it over to [email protected]…