I've read the copyright and decorum threads here since I started with the O-List nearly 20 years ago (God, I'm old!), but I've never gotten a grip on the protocol and legality of using the models of passed paperfolders (not necessarily the diagrams; those are a separate copyright issue IIRC).
I know some laws vary by nationality, but there seems to be a general consensus, at least in our community, that we should voluntarily do certain things in order to get permission to use a model. Or risk, I assume, the censure of the origami community? Lawsuits from the estate? Does it matter whose models are used? I'd suppose that selling Yoshizawa butterflies at a museum gift shop without permission would garner more ire than, say, selling Robert Harbin Angelfish on Etsy. Philosophically, once a person has died, and having no direction specified to next of kin regarding the usage of models and designs, should the discretion, usage, and ownership (ethically) pass to the next of kin or legal inheritor of the estate? If by some horrifying twist of fate, the legacy of Dave Brill is legally granted to his long-estranged and unknown son, Rob Hudson, should Hudson now have the right to stick googly eyes on the Brill tree fairies and sell them for a nickel a piece at a gaudy flea market? To return to a little more structure, let me use an example. I want to sell Ligiya Montoya parrots as earrings and include instructions that I drew with some paper so the buyers could make their own pair. Ligiya Montoya is deceased. Should I worry about copyright law on ancient models, and further, how that law works in her native country, Argentina? Or internationally? I *may* be in violation ,but legal consequences are remote. Will the "community" censure me? If I skip the law and try to contact her family or estate for permission, whom am I satisfying? Those who consider that once a designer has passed, their work should now be available to be used, would be okay with it. Those who believe the rights to intellectual property persist and are inheritable would be upset if I didn't bother, or inquired, was rejected, and did what I wanted to anyway. Who are the moral authorities here? How would the O-List react? How would the organizations and origami luminaries in a position to influence perception of folders react?
