On Tue, 3 Jun 1997, Bill Whitson wrote:
> 1. The company which marketed the product is out of business and it's
> assets were not purchased by another company.
> 2. A contact for the original company cannot be located.
> 3. The out of production product is no longer sold as a new product.
> 4. There is no reasonable expectation that posting such materials
> could affect the profits of an existing entity.
> 5. There is no reasonable expactation that such materials could be
> sold for profit.
> 6. The original source and copyright are noted specifically.
In the case of the HX-20 manuals, for example, the last time I checked
Epson was still corporately breathing. The rights to CP/M at last report
were transferred from Novell (purchaser of Digital Research) to Caldera,
the Linux company that also has the rights to DR-DOS. The fun part is,
all of the _patents_ older than ?1980? have expired -- you can copy any of
the hardware you want, as long as it isn't based on copyrighted schematics
or contain ROMs with copyrighted code. But copyrights now last at least
75 years (unless our beloved governments extend it still farther, a
subject of occasional debate with a crippling effect on the Gutenberg
Project.
> Also, there will be a statement that we have not received permission for
> use but that this use is not for profit and serves only to aid in the
> preservation of old equipment. There will also be a statement that the
> materials will be removed immediately at the request of a legitimate
> representative of the original publisher.
With that statement, asses should be adequately covered by the "Fair Use"
provisions of the copyright laws provided the other steps have been taken.
--
Ward Griffiths
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within
the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." --Claire Wolfe
Received on Tue Jun 03 1997 - 15:08:16 BST