Sickening profiteering
 

More and more frequently I see ebay sellers committing what can only be described as theft IMHO. I refer to those selling aircraft plans on disc over and over again (probably plenty in other areas as well). Surely there must be a law against this kind of plagiarism? It's blatant and shameful as the designers selling their plans legitimately will see no commission for certain! I suppose only the owners of the design can take action and I guess they can't police the web for every crook selling their plans ... makes me angry though, and there seems little ebay is willing to do to stop it.

Here's an example

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/21-AIRCRAFT-AE...QQcmdZViewItem

SS :mad:

the same could be said, about thievies making and selling music or dvd films
its illegal, plain and simple, if there was no market, there would be no sellers,
the shame is, a big % of people think its a bargain, and buy, without really considering the implication

There is a lot of questionable stuff on ebay. quality- and legal-wise.

Occassionally it is handy; for example some people sell "used" ATP CD maintenance manuals. One might moan about the breach of copyright but these things are exceedingly useful to have.

Unfortunately, the line between somebody busting a price fixing cartel, someone busting a monopolistic practice, and someone selling a blatent ripoff with a copyright breach thrown in, is very thin.

I can think of more than one website which is putting out highly useful weather data which the UK Met Office contributes to under its treaty and other obligations but which the UKMO makes available only for a sizeable fee, and they would dearly love to shut down all these other channels which undermine their revenue. Same with P2P networks carrying current CAA charts that run on GPS receivers; quite an aid to flight safety if you ask me.

Aviation safety is nothing to do with making money, which is why the copyright holders don't like it.

Not referring to any person here in particular, but it's easy to get into a pot and kettle situation with this.

Exactly, Sure i can name one or 2 places to download the entire Oxford PPL CBT course worth nearly €500 for free! I personally paid full price for the whole lot and have no regrets in doing so.
In such a minority industry such as PPL Training, if that sort of thing became common place as it is within other industrys, it could easily spell the end of CBT training.

Personally, I think you'd have to be utterly crazy and suicidal to buy bootlegged aircraft plans on ebay or elsewhere. Can the seller guarantee that all the safety critical amendments and mandatory mods have been embodied? Can they f--k! Most likely they don't even know or care of such things, their significance and their consequences. I read on another forum recently, someone asking whether it was a good idea to buy laser eye surgery via ebay. FFS - some people!

On the other hand, I have been able to get a complete pdf workshop manual for my classic car from one such seller. It did bother me because it is abuse of copyright, but this manual is no longer available by any legitimate means. It is extremely handy to be able to print of the relevant page and take it down to the garage when doing a bit of maintenance. Fortunately it is not quite the same as building an autogyro from plans bought from a stranger and bootlegger who know nothing about aero engineering or regulation.

Software developers in particular have made a rod for their own back if you ask me. If the prices were more sensible and they bundled in paper user manuals or something else that a bootlegger can't easily reproduce then you would buy a legit copy and say hey I am happy paying a little more for the real thing cos I know it has this and that and I get free support. But nope, MS and others gave up years ago producing anything useful for its customers and have been steadily cranking up the prices so its no wonder that so many people are downloading dodgy copies.

Thanks Paris,

I tried once before when someone was selling VP2 plans but never heard back from ebay.

SS

It's ever so easy to report someone to e-bay - I just did it. Their rules say quite clearly that you cannot sell "potentially infringing items" where copyright etc applies, but they won't know about aircraft plans unless someone tells them!