"Ed Sirett" wrote in message
news
The other day it occurred to me that in the semi-legal world of ebay
someone would sooner or later be putting out PDFs of BSI publications.

Lo and behold there is an outfit that will send you a PDF for £5 or will
print and post it to you for £15.

Sooner or later they may be in trouble.

Probably sooner, rather than later. BSI take breaches of their copyright
very seriously. Producing a new or revised Standard is hugely expensive and
they are very protective of their income sources.

Because I think this is the right move for gas safety and other
construction related matters. I intend to purchase a few of these
(starting with BS5440 - the standard for flues to domestic gas
appliances below 70kW) I will then put them on my web site.

That will be a breach of the BSI copyright and, as I have already mentioned,
is likely to attract the attention of their legal department. Buying an
illegal copy to produce your copy from does not remove the original
copyright owner's rights.

This seems a more open way than happens at present.
Gas colleges and test centres have these 'Bibles' chained to the desks!
And with a retail price of £140 it's not surprising.

Is that the BSI member or non-member price? I don't have the catalogue to
hand. In most cases, members pay half the non-member prices so membership
usually more than pays for itself for any but the most casual user.

If ordinary people can read for themselves what the rights and wrongs
of a matter this has got to be better than hearing snippets from
BG and CORGI 'priests'.

You can do that down my local Public Library.

Colin Bignell