Copyright clearance (was Re: Classic Hardware Documentation Project)

From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis_at_mcmanis.com>
Date: Thu Nov 18 17:46:21 1999

Someone (Chris Kennedy) else wrote:
>FWIW, I've been trying to get DG to provide copyright release for
>prints, diagnostic listings, diagnostic binaries and the like for
>Novas and the 16-bit Eclipse line. email, fax and voice messages
>go in, nothing comes out. Similarly with Ball, who once upon a
>time owned Decision Consulatants, who manufatured a very nice
>diablo 33 controller for the Nova bus.

I believe there is a Copyright forfeiture rule you can invoke which
requires a best effort attempt to obtain a right to use a copyright from
its holder with no response. If they actually said "No, you can't do that."
then that is one thing but if they don't respond at all, and you document
that, you can get the court so revert the document to the public domain. I
know of at least one case where this was done with a defunct computer
company. (I believe it was Eagle PC but I'll need to find the reference to
be sure.)

--Chuck
Received on Thu Nov 18 1999 - 17:46:21 GMT