Apparently Heath has sold the rights to its legacy
equipment, including manual copyrights. All of the
Heathkit equipment manuals are pulled from BAMA
and from several other web resources! This sucks.


Pete

For a company that was built on, very often, selling poorly-designed crap to
people they have their nerve.

This will make the photocopied manual industry explode with attendant price
increases. Sadly it will diminish the value of
the decent pieces of equipment they manufactured many years in the past when
they were not so mean-spirited and greedy.

I must say a leopard doesn't change its spots. Last time I was in Home Depot
I saw the Heath line of garage door openers and home products and it all
appeared to be low-end Chinese made versions of the items made by quality
companies.

I also was amused at some kit company advertising in qst magazine this
month. It's advertisement is a near identical copy of the one Heath use to
run in the 1960s with its , David Nurse, sitting in the same pose and using
the exact phraseology used then. Is no one original anymore? Hopefully that
is where the similarities of that modern day Heath-wannabe company end.

"SX-25" wrote in message
m...
For a company that was built on, very often, selling poorly-designed crap
to
people they have their nerve.

This will make the photocopied manual industry explode with attendant
price
increases. Sadly it will diminish the value of
the decent pieces of equipment they manufactured many years in the past
when
they were not so mean-spirited and greedy.

I must say a leopard doesn't change its spots. Last time I was in Home
Depot
I saw the Heath line of garage door openers and home products and it all
appeared to be low-end Chinese made versions of the items made by quality
companies.

I also was amused at some kit company advertising in qst magazine this
month. It's advertisement is a near identical copy of the one Heath use to
run in the 1960s with its , David Nurse, sitting in the same pose and
using
the exact phraseology used then. Is no one original anymore? Hopefully
that
is where the similarities of that modern day Heath-wannabe company end.

Well... My SB102 was a poor man's KWM-2. Several pieces were Spartan but
useful. A real good learning experience in building and troubleshooting.
Most of the stuff is too old to be of any serious use except the HF amps.
Nice crackle finish. Best remembered in photos now. I wonder what people
will think of "Vintage MFJ"

I found this:
http://www.vintage-radio.info/heathkit/

snip
Well... My SB102 was a poor man's KWM-2. Several pieces were Spartan but
useful. A real good learning experience in building and troubleshooting.
Most of the stuff is too old to be of any serious use except the HF amps.
Nice crackle finish. Best remembered in photos now. I wonder what people
will think of "Vintage MFJ"

I found this:
http://www.vintage-radio.info/heathkit/


Probably the same thing they currently think of MFJ.

Dale W4OP

Tio Pedro wrote:
Apparently Heath has sold the rights to its legacy
equipment, including manual copyrights. All of the
Heathkit equipment manuals are pulled from BAMA
and from several other web resources! This sucks.


Pete



I wonder when the these copyrights will expire? I assume they will?



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K3HVG wrote:
Tio Pedro wrote:
Apparently Heath has sold the rights to its legacy
equipment, including manual copyrights. All of the
Heathkit equipment manuals are pulled from BAMA
and from several other web resources! This sucks.


Pete


I wonder when the these copyrights will expire? I assume they will?

Not in our lifetimes.

On Mon, 15 Dec 2008, Kenneth P. Stox wrote:

K3HVG wrote:
Tio Pedro wrote:
Apparently Heath has sold the rights to its legacy
equipment, including manual copyrights. All of the
Heathkit equipment manuals are pulled from BAMA
and from several other web resources! This sucks.


Pete


I wonder when the these copyrights will expire? I assume they will?

Not in our lifetimes.

Actually, there seems to have been a period when things could fall out
of copyright. Not the obvious early 1900's, but around fifty years ago.

Jeff Duntemann (who wrote a great article in "73" way back in 1974
about the time he advertised for old electronic junk) wrote about
this on his blog a few months ago,
http://jeff-duntemann.livejournal.com/134918.html

This accounts for that webpage with old technical books on it, they
really do seem to have fallen out of copyright. Jeff mentions books
like Don Stoner's SSB manual that was published by CQ about fifty
years ago, as an example.

Note there is a window when this could happen, and it requires
that nobody renewed the copyright. So it's not automatic.

Michael VE2BVW

On Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:53:08 -0500, Michael Black
wrote:

On Mon, 15 Dec 2008, Kenneth P. Stox wrote:

K3HVG wrote:
Tio Pedro wrote:
Apparently Heath has sold the rights to its legacy
equipment, including manual copyrights. All of the
Heathkit equipment manuals are pulled from BAMA
and from several other web resources! This sucks.


Pete


I wonder when the these copyrights will expire? I assume they will?

Not in our lifetimes.

Actually, there seems to have been a period when things could fall out
of copyright. Not the obvious early 1900's, but around fifty years ago.

Jeff Duntemann (who wrote a great article in "73" way back in 1974
about the time he advertised for old electronic junk) wrote about
this on his blog a few months ago,
http://jeff-duntemann.livejournal.com/134918.html

This accounts for that webpage with old technical books on it, they
really do seem to have fallen out of copyright. Jeff mentions books
like Don Stoner's SSB manual that was published by CQ about fifty
years ago, as an example.

Note there is a window when this could happen, and it requires
that nobody renewed the copyright. So it's not automatic.

Michael VE2BVW

In the US and much of the rest of the world, this extended copyright
is a part of the Mickey Mouse legacy. The 1923 date, not
coincidentally is the year that Mortimer Mouse, Disney's first
ancestor to Mickey was created. When the copyrights and renewals for
Disney on Mickey (his first creation) were about to expire a number of
years ago, the US Congress, heeding pleas by Disney that "we don't
want Mickey Mouse's image to end up in the hands of spoofers,
satirists and pornographers" extended the copyright provisions,
provided that the owners extended the copyright by renewal. Active
companies, such as Disney, maintain teams of intellectual property
lawyers to ensure these are renewed. Inactive companies, such as the
various now defunct publishers of these tech manuals have no one with
a vested interest to look over renewals.

Some of this copyright stuff later got extended into international
treaty. I'm am a symphony orchestra violinist in another life, and
most of the music we play written after 1923 is covered by copyright.
Like tech publishing, this was not always the case and some
interesting things happen.

Several of my orchestras play "Peter and the Wolf" by Russian composer
Prokifiev every year at our kiddies concerts. One orchestra bought its
parts during the time it was not under copyright protection. We can
play "Peter" freely and pay no royalty. My other orchestras have to
rent the music (you can no longer buy the parts) and royalty fees
(rather stiff ones) are built into the rental fees.

They upshot of this is that my orchestras are far more reluctant to
play "modern" music. As community orchestras we have limited budgets.
All the players are volunteers. In order to pay for these royalties,
we usually seek out grants, sponsorships and donations when we wish to
perform modern works, on a case by case basis. We give acknowlegement
in the program (this performance was underwritten by the Amalgamated
Tiddley-Winks Corporation).

Music publishers and the various artistic licensing groups (ASCAP,
BMI) charge a sliding scale of royalty fees based upon the orchestra
budget, size of the venue, auditied average attendence, pro or non-pro
etc. etc.

So we can all thank Mickey. Kudos to those firms which own
copyrights, but are willing to grant permission to select groups to
freely provide some of their radio data to websites dedicated to the
boatanchor crew.

Jon

** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

On Tue, 16 Dec 2008, Jon Teske wrote:

Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 13:33:58 -0500
From: Jon Teske
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.boatanchors
Subject: Heathkit manuals gone from BAMA

On Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:53:08 -0500, Michael Black
wrote:

On Mon, 15 Dec 2008, Kenneth P. Stox wrote:

K3HVG wrote:
Tio Pedro wrote:
Apparently Heath has sold the rights to its legacy
equipment, including manual copyrights. All of the
Heathkit equipment manuals are pulled from BAMA
and from several other web resources! This sucks.


Pete


I wonder when the these copyrights will expire? I assume they will?

Not in our lifetimes.

Actually, there seems to have been a period when things could fall out
of copyright. Not the obvious early 1900's, but around fifty years ago.

Jeff Duntemann (who wrote a great article in "73" way back in 1974
about the time he advertised for old electronic junk) wrote about
this on his blog a few months ago,
http://jeff-duntemann.livejournal.com/134918.html

This accounts for that webpage with old technical books on it, they
really do seem to have fallen out of copyright. Jeff mentions books
like Don Stoner's SSB manual that was published by CQ about fifty
years ago, as an example.

Note there is a window when this could happen, and it requires
that nobody renewed the copyright. So it's not automatic.

Michael VE2BVW

In the US and much of the rest of the world, this extended copyright
is a part of the Mickey Mouse legacy. The 1923 date, not
coincidentally is the year that Mortimer Mouse, Disney's first
ancestor to Mickey was created. When the copyrights and renewals for
Disney on Mickey (his first creation) were about to expire a number of
years ago, the US Congress, heeding pleas by Disney that "we don't
want Mickey Mouse's image to end up in the hands of spoofers,
satirists and pornographers" extended the copyright provisions,
provided that the owners extended the copyright by renewal. Active
companies, such as Disney, maintain teams of intellectual property
lawyers to ensure these are renewed. Inactive companies, such as the
various now defunct publishers of these tech manuals have no one with
a vested interest to look over renewals.

Some of this copyright stuff later got extended into international
treaty. I'm am a symphony orchestra violinist in another life, and
most of the music we play written after 1923 is covered by copyright.
Like tech publishing, this was not always the case and some
interesting things happen.

Several of my orchestras play "Peter and the Wolf" by Russian composer
Prokifiev every year at our kiddies concerts. One orchestra bought its
parts during the time it was not under copyright protection. We can
play "Peter" freely and pay no royalty. My other orchestras have to
rent the music (you can no longer buy the parts) and royalty fees
(rather stiff ones) are built into the rental fees.

They upshot of this is that my orchestras are far more reluctant to
play "modern" music. As community orchestras we have limited budgets.
All the players are volunteers. In order to pay for these royalties,
we usually seek out grants, sponsorships and donations when we wish to
perform modern works, on a case by case basis. We give acknowlegement
in the program (this performance was underwritten by the Amalgamated
Tiddley-Winks Corporation).

Music publishers and the various artistic licensing groups (ASCAP,
BMI) charge a sliding scale of royalty fees based upon the orchestra
budget, size of the venue, auditied average attendence, pro or non-pro
etc. etc.

So we can all thank Mickey. Kudos to those firms which own
copyrights, but are willing to grant permission to select groups to
freely provide some of their radio data to websites dedicated to the
boatanchor crew.

Jon

** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **


There are pros and cons on the copyright question. I also remember that
there was a Supreme Court decision back in early 1900s wrt book publishers
wanting to make it illegal for a person who bought a book to sell that
book on the used market. Good deal for the publishers; they get to sell
more books at full list price and anyone who doesn't want his old book
can't sell it. Maybe could give it away?

In the new modern world of IP theft, what is already happening is that a
variety of crooks just go ahead and reproduce (common in China, maybe
India, too) any IP they feel like and get away with whatever they can
until its time to move and set up shop in a new neighborhood. The articles
I read talk about an illicit market worth -- like -- $trillions per year.

I was at an art museum many years ago and in the exhibit you were not
allowed to take pictures (by a large sign posted near entrance and exit),
but down in the giftshop you could buy any number of any published books,
large/small, cheap/expensive, on that exhibit. Its all about money? Right?

If it gets bad enough, then businesses that depend on IP protection will
go out of business and buyers might be getting defective products. The
music copyright can get into rediculous cracks: I heard that there was
some kind of girl scout meeting or outing where they wanted to sing some
song that was copyrighted but didn't pay or get permission and some
"association" sued their butts over this. I don't remember the details,
but I had a sick feeling in my stomach over this. So, where is society
headed? You have to pay (?) 90% of your net earnings for all manner of
legal advice on what you can do or not do, and the remaining 10% of your
net earnings will go to the inventor/licensor of your patented toilet so
you, as licensee, can pay royalties every time you take a crap?

Patent flooding is the new scam. You patent the living daylights out of
anything you invent. Then, we've got patent troll companies, buying up
patents so they can find a basis to sue someone over some obscure
violation and that is how they make money: settlements. Then there is
another scam: patent club companies. They buy up patents, too, and get
membership fees from client companies and instead of paying royalties, get
free access to licenses as a quid pro quo on the membership fee, and this
is supposed to protect them from lawsuits.

Is it ever going to end? Or, are we, in the future, going to suffer
nervous breakdowns from "legal stress"?

Do you know to whom Heath sold their copyrights?
"Tio Pedro" wrote in message
...
Apparently Heath has sold the rights to its legacy
equipment, including manual copyrights. All of the
Heathkit equipment manuals are pulled from BAMA
and from several other web resources! This sucks.


Pete