Heathkit Manual Copyright Challenged

This website has a rather extensive collection of freely downloadable Heathkit manuals. They openly challenge Data Professionals' intellectual ownership of many Heathkit manuals.


"We have received a number of emails from a Don Peterson of Data Professionals
(7172 Regional Street, PMB 268, Dublin, CA 94568) claiming to be the owner of copyrights on these Heathkit manuals. But so far Mr. Peterson seems unable to substantiate this alleged copyright ownership.

"Therefore Tubular Electronics will continue making these manuals available for download until such time as a verified copyright owner asks to have them removed. Please be reminded that falsely claiming ownership of a copyright is fraud, and such attempts will be reported to the proper authorities.

"I hope the availability of these manual scans has been useful. It is our intention to continue to provide more of this material to our readers. ..."

http://tubularelectronics.com/

 

It's an interesting question.

This information, if it's correct, seems to be relevant. http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm

It depends on a few things like when the material was first published and whether or not it has copywright notice.

 

I found diagrams, but not full manuals, will keep looking.

TOM K8ERV Montrose Colo

 

Data Professionals purchased certain copyrights of manuals from Heath several years before Heath went bankrupt and reportedly has the documentation conveying the copyright ownership. The list of the exact copyrights conveyed to Peterson is what has to be actually listed and therein lie problems. Copyrights not appearing as sold to Data Professionals would remain the property of other interests. Peterson has agreed to let schematics and similar data to be published without prior approval.

Checking the original Heath manuals that I have, I find copyright notices on all of the manuals. As such, there are copyrights which can be legally conveyed to others. The fact that Heath eventually went bankrupt has no bearing on copyrights going into "public domain" since copyrights are assets and assets will be liquidated in favor of other interests.

The rise of the Internet has caused, by far, the most violations of copyright law both within the United States and internationally. Way too many people actually believe that, when something is made available on the Internet, the copyright of that material passes into public domain. Such is absolutely false. Then, "throw in" the fact that there are a number of countries which are signatory to the Berne Convention which absolutely refuse to adhere to the provision of those international regulations. The result is that there are literally thousands of copyright violations every day around the world. It is the very nature of the Internet that allows such copyright violations to go unpunished.

Glen, K9STH

 

I won't publicly divulge the URL of the website I'm aware of that has MANY more HK manuals online -- Mr. Peterson will have to do his own detective work.

 

But if the URL is not divulged, how will anyone know about it in order to use it?

Before this alleged copyright transfer came up, someone sent me a CD containing most, if not the complete library, of HK manuals. I have used it only once, to download and print out the manual for a HK capacitor checker I pulled out of a dumpster. Don't use much Heathkit gear here.

Usually, about 60 to 80% of the pages in a HK manual consists of assembly instructions, which would be all but useless to the owner of an already built unit. The useful pages are the schematics, parts list, operating and troubleshooting instructions.

 

Copyright protection is a nice concept that doesn't seem to work in reality.

© 2012 KC8VWM...

 

I dunno, it does pretty well overall. IMHO its the underpinning of a working free market economy; copyright, trademark and patent protections. Otherwise there's not much incentive to create, invent or be unique. Being of value, it is often threatened and takes some effort to defend, but the law is on the side of the owners.

 

Don't you mean it takes a lot of money to defend?

 

I'd love to have a copy of an HW-7 manual including the assembly instructions. The one I have has had so many mods that I'd like to unbuild it (that's the easy part!) and put it back together just like I dreamed of doing 40 years ago.

Rob
NV5E