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If A Woodworking Plan Is Online, Does That Mean It's In The Public Domain? 

For you to understand the definitive answer to this question, it is extremely important to comprehend that meaning behind the term, "Public Domain".

Public domain contains that work which is not claimed to be anybody’s intellectual property. The work under public domain can be used and copied by anyone, since it is not protected under any law and no one secures its copyrights. To make it easier for understanding, we may carefully say that Public domain refers to that information which is available for anyone to utilize.

So, if a Woodworking Plan is online, does that mean it is in the pubic domain? The answer is NOT necessarily. So many websites offer information to its visitors on payments. This is done to protect their copyrights. A lot of woodworking plans that are available online are secured, only for those users who pay before accessing the information. Although wood working plans are supposed to be copied and printed by users, that doesn’t make them a public domain if copyrights are smartly reserved. Websites asking for the payment, before a visitor can access the working plan ensure that the paying visitor would protect the information him/herself. Many websites make sure to copyright their material and protect it from getting copied by other websites, by adding a copyright notice to each of their web pages.

In conclusion, as a user of an online woodworking plan, we must realize the importance of knowing whether the plan we are accessing is under public domain or not. If not, then it’s our duty as a user and buyer of that plan, to protect it from getting copied or stolen.