May 15th 05, 01:20 PM
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Hate to be a wet blanket
Well you are
"Phil Nelson" wrote in message
...
Hate to be a wet blanket, but how do you know that half of the stuff on
BAMA is not pirated and should never have been posted there in the first
place?
Not all old schematics & manuals are in the public domain. For instance,
SAMS Technical Publishing, http://www.samswebsite.com/photofacts.html , is
still alive and well, and they have an understandable interest in keeping
people from distributing free, unauthorized copies of their Photofacts to
the world.
Just because you buy a copy of something, scan it, and upload to the
Internet, doesn't mean that it is "yours" to give away to the world.
If I scan the latest Tom Clancy novel and post his book on the Internet, I
am violating his copyright, pure and simple.
The only exceptions would be if :
[A] I have Tom Clancy's permission to distribute free copies of his latest
novel on the Internet,
or,
[b] I can prove in a court of law that Tom's copyright has expired or been
abandoned for some reason.
If I don't have [A] or [b] on my side, then Tom kicks my butt and closes
me down.
That said, I'm a supporter & lover of sites such as BAMA and
www.nostalgiaair.org , which supply valuable information to people around
the world. I have used these sites, and pointed fellow collectors to them.
But I don't download or upload anything that I think is not authorized.
So, be careful about getting too outraged because somebody might be making
an unauthorized copy of your uploaded copy which might also be
unauthorized. You never owned the copyright in the first place.
Here are some links with more information about copyright:
http://www.whatiscopyright.org/
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copyright.html
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
And, the ultimate authority:
http://www.copyright.gov/
Regards,
Phil Nelson
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