On 2019-10-29, Steve Walker wrote:

On 29/10/2019 11:02, Roger Hayter wrote:
Steve Walker wrote:

On 28/10/2019 23:42, Roger Hayter wrote:
Steve Walker wrote:

On 28/10/2019 14:37, Roger Hayter wrote:
newshound wrote:

On 28/10/2019 11:34, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I make a habit of scanning in manuals for nearly everything I own, if I
can't find them online.

Where is a good place to donate them for the next person?

Copyright theft?

I would say that by posting a PDF on the web the owner is placing it in
the public domain. Now of course if you stole chunks of it and edited it
into a new document, and claimed original authorship, that *would* be
copyright theft.

There is no such concept as "placing in the public domain" known to
English law. They can continue to make whatever further conditions
about copying that they wish. Having said that they might not bother
in the circumstances. However, the OP seems particularly to refer to
printed manuals not otherwise available to download.

And while copyright does apply, why would any manufacturer want to
prevent someone making copies available? One comes with each item sold
and they are of no use to anyone without the item. You could almost
consider the item itself a licence to have a copy of the manual.

Someone making copies available will tend to reduce the number of
requests that the manufacturer receives too.

SteveW
Some, especially consumer, manufacturers still try to operate the
traditional model of making a profit out of the sales of repair manuals.
Certainly the car companies still do this. It was not many decades ago
that TV manuals were so profitable that a whole publishing industry grew
up second sourcing repair information. Although the IT industry has no
such tradition I would not be too sure in the case of domestic
appliances.

Car maintenance manuals are perhaps a little different, but most
consumer goods are provided with a manual and people just lose them.

SteveW
Most are supplied with a user manual advising you not to put the
apparatus in the bath or try to lick the electrical connections, and
perhaps a simplified version of how the controls work. Few are
supplies with repair or parts manuals.

If we want to reduce the throwaway mentality, maybe access (online would
do) to a repair manual should be mandatory for many consumer goods?

I think that would be an excellent idea.