Is it legal to copy old installation instructions to give to people?

[Smig]

Just wondering if there are copyright issues...

I have an old installation manual that I think would be helpfull to people, but before I offer to share it I was wondering if it legal?

Thanks
Shaun

 

[rickdb1boat]

Re: Is it legal to copy old installation instructions to give to people?

I doubt that the copyright police will come get you for sharing some older material....Are you talking about posting this material on the Web?

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Is it legal to copy old installation instructions to give to people?

man there are people all over Ebay scanning old manuals, and downloading to CD's. poor quality. there not in jail YET.

 

[Smig]

Re: Is it legal to copy old installation instructions to give to people?

I have an installation manual for a mercury tilt & trim add on kit. There are always questions about how to add one on, so I thought it might be helpfull to people. It not only shows how to install it, but it also identifies all of the parts and pieces, including bolt sizes.

I was thinking I could just send it to people, I wasn't planning on trying to sell it. Iboats helped me through the process, so I though it might be a good way to give back to the community - iboats doesn't have a files area do they?

 

[swist]

Re: Is it legal to copy old installation instructions to give to people?

If it has a copyright on it, which it almost certainly does, it is strictly speaking not legal to copy it.

However, the likelyhood of you being prosecuted is pretty much zero. The "spirit" of the copyright law is to prevent the original author from losing revenue on their publication. This hardly applies here, and the "letter" of the law is pretty much unenforcible these days.

 

[Smig]

Re: Is it legal to copy old installation instructions to give to people?

Interesting point regarding the copyright notice - believe it or not, there isn't one:^. I guess since they are installation instructions, no one bothered??

In fact, now that I look closer, I don't even see Mercury's name on any of the instructions. I did scan the label from one of the parts packages (that was sold separately at the time) and that is the only Mercury logo!!

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Is it legal to copy old installation instructions to give to people?

you can offer to email it to anyone who responds to your offer. i do this for some people waiting for their service manuals. scan a page and send it to just them. back when the search function and engine faq was down, a lot of us sent links, and stuff we had downloaded.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Is it legal to copy old installation instructions to give to people?

smig , nice job. saw it on the other post.

 

[LORDY611]

Re: Is it legal to copy old installation instructions to give to people?

I just bought on on ebay on CD. The photos were crap. It was a poor scan of a factory manual and hard to use. In my opinion, there is no way the person selling these got permission from the factory to sell for $20 each.

 

[ricksrster]

Re: Is it legal to copy old installation instructions to give to people?

I also bought one of those CD's off ebay. I don't think it was factory as the information in it was too general and some inaccuracies. Allot of ofi nformation left out. I think it was a copy of an after market manual.