Re: just recieved manuals
I'm certainly no expert on this, and I do live in a country with different copywright laws, but I think the answer is still the same. That there's no need to reference any copywright protection to gain it. That is to say, copywright protection is automatic unless it's explicitly denied by a "public domain" statement.<br /><br />What interests me is the grandfathering laws. Up here it appears that copywright protection extends 50 years past the death of the author, or if the author is unknown (as in the case of a service manual?) 50 years from the publication date. Which means service manuals up to '54 have no copy protection up here. As I understand your laws, that same 1954 manual won't enter your public domain until 2049.<br /><br />But again let me say I'm no expert in these matters and I could be entirely wrong!
<br /><br />What is illegal is making copies of the printed (or recorded) material to avoid buying it. Interestingly, it is legal to make copies out of a library reference copy for "research".<br /><br />This has become a very sensitive subject with the recent suits brought by publishers of music that is being pirated on the net. People are going to jail and paying huge fines for that.<br /><br />It is virtually certain that anyone printing manuals for sale has copyright or license from the copyright owner.<br /><br />BTW "copyright" comes from "right to copy", not from "write to copy".
