First, I would strongly suggest searching the archives of this list for the word copyright. Preferably when you have a whole day to kill. This topic has been beaten to death on this list, re-animated, beaten again. and again.
This is a very complex issue with huge grey areas. But a few things to consider: 1) You pretty much have to be able to answer the "prior art" question in the area you are considering - i.e. "has anyone else EVER created that same model". Remember - copyright is about the design/plan/diagram/instructions. Not about the end result. You copyright a book. You patent a printing press. 2) Even with prior art - if someone can make two or three minor variations but still have the same functionality, they can very likely defeat your copyright/patent whatever. 3) If you will not be harmed financially by their using your design it becomes much more difficult to go after violators in court. Not impossible...but the bar is a lot higher. Example: I am an author or origami books. You take my design and use it commercially. I can very possibly argue that your action reduced sales of my "How to make super cool useful origami things" book. but...If I am a designer who publishes my designs on the internet for free, where is the harm (in a legal sense)? Between #2 and #3...not sure there is much you can do. Remember, even in technology such as programming, if I copy and paste your code I have violated copyright or even patents. But if I rewrite your code line by line, so it is visually different but functionally the same, you are in a word, hosed. There have been suits for tens of millions of Dollars over that, and they seem to be decided by a coin flip. But if you publish your code for free, people are going to take it and use it and nothing you can do will stop them. You may actually have a tougher time protecting something "useful" with no financial damage than something "artistic" with no financial damage. To answer your last question below asking if anyone has every tried to protect their work, again see the archives. Major flame wars over this topic. As usual, the people at the two extremes are all wrong (in my humble opinion). Those two extremes are of course "Once you publish it I have a right to do anything I want with it and you can't stop me" and "If I designed it you can not do ANYTHING with it no matter how small without my written permission". Pretty broad range between those two, and 95% of people are somewhere in the middle. Seems like designers need more protection then they are getting now, but too much and it stifles creativity etc. John Scully Neoorigami said: So to be clear, no other creator of a useful origami model has ever asked before if their model is protected be copyright law, nor has he or she tried to register the model as his or her creation in a copyright office?
