[Yale]

Good point, George -- the "for hire" difference. I can't count the number of instruction manuals I wrote during 30 years as a technical writer. But I was an employee of a company, so the copyrights for all those books belonged to the company, not to me. But you created your plans on your own time, so the copyrights belong to you.

And, just as with any other kind of property, you could sell or give them to somebody else. That's a famous story about mystery writer Agatha Christie, whose good friend gave birth to a baby son just as Agatha finished a new play. As a gesture of friendship, she made a baby gift of all rights to the play. And the play turned out to be "The Mousetrap," the most often-produced play of all time, earning tons of royalty money. The baby never had to work a day in his life.