Marty, of course you aren’t a thief if you have paid for the plans. You can do with them what you like and give them to whoever you want.
However intellectual property law is perfectly clear. Yes, you can copy the 701 design but if you do it, you can’t call the resulting aircraft a 701. A 701 has a factory registered serial number. You could call it a CH701 replica or suchlike but it isn’t genuine without its own factory serial number.
‘’To put it another way, the recipe for red wine has been known for hundreds of years, but try making your own and labelling it “Penfold Grange” and see what happens to you if you try to sell it. It’s OK to drink it at home as “Penfold Grange” but not to pass it off in public as the genuine article. Yes, people even try.
‘’I’ve seen this happen with yachts - quite expensive ones, copied from xeroxed plans. As soon as it becomes public that the boat is a rip off of someone else’s design, no matter how good a copy, it’s immediately an orphan - no insurance and it’s worthless. I have seen this happen with my own eyes. A guy bought a yacht that he was told was an “XYZ 35”. He had a few problems and changes he wanted to fix, he called the designer and they had no record of the craft construction. They cut him loose on the spot. He couldn’t get insurance, couldn’t keep it in a marina and the last I saw was when it was stripped and the hull burnt.
‘’To put it another way, if you build from xeroxed plans, the result is no different in law from a fake Louis Vuitton handbag and if the owner of the IP objects, it could be seized. As far as airworthiness, AD’s etc. are concerned, the owner is on their own legally because the designer has absolutely no duty of care to them whatsoever.
I kid you not about Ferraris, Lamborghinis and other exoticars. There is a huge industry in building fakes. If you want to buy a second hand one you need to check with the factory to ensure it’s history matches what you’ve been told and you need to have the original service books.
‘Copyright lasts for at least 15 years after the death of the designer.