Mark D. Zacharias ) said those last words:
There is no doubt that pirated pdf's are freely circulated in many of
the binary groups as well.

Sure but service manual PDF's are often up to 15-20 meg - too large for
single-part posting to binary groups.

If someone can provide an "always-on" PC with a fast Internet connection,
run a web server on his/her PC, and use a host name from No-IP.com to redirect
to his/her IP address, it is possible to host big files such as service manuals
and schematics.

If I wasn't on 56k dial-up (but more like 33.6k) I would do this.

I am actually doing this, but no chance for 20MB files on a old 8GB hard disk
and a 56k connection.

[]s
--
© Chaos Master. |"These wounds won't seem to heal
My Evanescence HP is at: | This pain is just too real
http://marreka.no-ip.com | There's just too much that time can't erase"
(most often offline... ) | -- Evanescence, "My Immortal"

On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 00:41:54 -0300, Chaos Master
wrote:

Mark D. Zacharias ) said those last words:
There is no doubt that pirated pdf's are freely circulated in many of
the binary groups as well.

Sure but service manual PDF's are often up to 15-20 meg - too large for
single-part posting to binary groups.

If someone can provide an "always-on" PC with a fast Internet connection,
run a web server on his/her PC, and use a host name from No-IP.com to redirect
to his/her IP address, it is possible to host big files such as service manuals
and schematics.

If I wasn't on 56k dial-up (but more like 33.6k) I would do this.

I am actually doing this, but no chance for 20MB files on a old 8GB hard disk
and a 56k connection.

[]s


Many of us are still on dialup.(If it weren't for being able to get
practicle use out of it I wouldn't have that. I logon mostly to obtain
information or software etc... My "web-surfing" days are definitely
over.)
That said I've gotten service info/software from ohters on the web by
snail mail.(Some were kind enough to offer to ship for the cost of
postage of a CD-R.)
Since I've tried to reciprocate whenever possible.
That would be one way of exchanging information most don't want us to
have.

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 04:49:51 -0500, "Mark D. Zacharias"
wrote:

For quite a while Harman Kardon made all their service manuals available for
download by the general public. They eventually stopped, but I'm not sure if
it was the fault of the bean-counters, or the lawyers. They might have been
afraid of making lots of Darwin-Award candidates.

Mark Z.

It's not the "value loss" of sales but of service.
The manufacturer would go after you over loss of repair work.
Which is hypocritical as they'd look the consumer whose trying to get
a repair manual for their own use in the eye and tell you they no
longer have them.
Yet if it's a profitable repair job for them, all of a sudden the
repair manual can be "found" for their needs.
Truth is most of the electronics companies never discard documentation
on any of their products.(I used to use alot of Panasonic
industrial/broadcast gear and developed good "one to one" repore with
one of their service techs. He could always get me service manuals for
anything they'd made, even stuff dating back to the 60's. The had an
archive section in the back of the warehouse where they stored all
manuals.)

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 02:31:28 GMT, "Ricky Eck"
wrote:

Ok, to state this first, I am not an expert in this area, but I would think
the service manuals would be copyrighted in some form. I mean, after all,
the design of the device is protected, why wouldn't the service manuals. I
have looked through some operators manuals and didn't see any copyrights on
them, so maybe there are none for the service manuals? It would be
something that I would proceed on with caution and a lot of research.

Simply put, they don't have to put copyright on each manual. Under
current US copyright law it's their intellectual property and that's
that.
Under the fair trade laws you can reverse engineer a manual and that's
legal as well.
Many have simply used the oem manual as a blueprint and made enough
changes in the diagrams and instructions to avoid copyright
infringement.

I know that if, let's say Sony, found out that their service manuals were
floating around the net, I am sure they would have their lawyers all over
it.

That's for sure, sony can be some of the biggest Aholes you could deal
with.
Rick


"Moose" wrote in message
.. .
Is it legal to make pdf copies of manuals and selling them as
resorations or reprinting them? When does copyright law take effect?

...Moose

On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 22:17:29 -0400, Moose wrote:

Is it legal to make pdf copies of manuals and selling them as
resorations or reprinting them? When does copyright law take effect?

...Moose

Copyright comes into effect the moment you make reproductions.
It's not about whether you make them for profit or for free.
It's about the lost revenue you'd be costing the oem.

On Sat, 12 Jun 2004 23:16:39 -0500, gothika
wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 15:27:24 -0300, Chaos Master
wrote:

Mark D. Zacharias ) caused an illegal operation in module
:
I'm starting to think that P2P won't really work due to the way the nodes
etc work on Kazaa.

I've been investigated a server called Streamload which is fairly ideal but
requires a 4.95 or 5.95 (I forget which) monthly fee.

eMule? BitTorrent? (just guesses).

BitTorrent seems ideal. You just create the .torrent files with the file info
and people download them whenever they want the file.

[]s

Everybody talks Kazaa whenever P2P comes up.
I've found Kazaa to be the worst.(endless viruses,worms etc... not to
mention all the bogus files.)
I know there are scores of P2P services available, some legit and in
the open some not.
I've used Winmix off and on ever since it went online and found it to
be the most productive and safe.(Not one virus/trojan/worm in all the
time I've used it.)
I don't know if it's set up for documents or such, but if so would be
ideal for exchange of manuals.(I'm assuming they'd be in pdf format.)
I've also been trying out edonkey the past few weeks with fair
results. That might be an option as they seem to have a wide variety
of file types available.
I think the main issue of contention as to making this work is getting
some techs to warm up to the idea of sharing their manuals.(most I've
talked to have the attitude that if they had to pay big bucks for a
service manual so should everyone else.)
We all know that these manuals are priced far above anything
resembling a fair market value. Even more so considering that most
small repair shops might not use the manual more than once.
Some in the repair industry feel the overcharging is a good thing,
after all it helps keep many smaller shops from taking repair work on
hardware that they'll have to pay 50 bucks or more up front for a
service manual just to get started on a job.
The high price coupled with the policy not to sell service manuals at
the consumer level also keeps the vast majority of the consumer market
from servicing their own appliances.(please, I don't need to hear from
all in the service industry about how it's too dangerous to allow
consumers to attempt their own repair jobs. Not all consumers are as
incapable as most would believe.)
There ARE thousands of DIY'ers out here that go the distance to learn
how to do the work themselves.( I had the advantage of growing up in a
TV & Radio repair shop as well as having gone through BE & E in my
service days, so I realize I may be a bit of an exception. But have
seen many hobbyist that had many hours of schooling in electronics
courtesy their local votech.)
One way of looking at it could be that if more manuals were swapped it
would force down the price of service manuals for all.
Only those with monopolizing the market in mind could see this as a
bad thing.
I can remember the days when a Sams service pack was available to all
for as little as a buck. Haven't even seen Sams manuals since most of
the hobby shops went out.