[sebhc] Archive question regarding cross-posting

[Barry Watzman]

I'm inclined to take the view, with regard to copyright, to "just do it",
and if anyone complains, take it down after the fact.  Some of this material
has Intel, Motorola, National Semiconductor and AMD material in it --
datasheets for CPUs, math coprocessors, UARTs, video chips, etc. -- and it's
been up for years already, and no one has complained.  I can't imagine
anyone "pressing" a copyright action for damages providing, that if asked,
the material in question was removed.

As to the Heath stuff, what a mess.  Heath and Zenith Data Systems were
separate legal corporate entities, both owned by ZEC (Zenith
Electronics)(and VEC was yet a 3rd legal entity).  Then ZDS was sold to
Group Bull, a French company, without Heath, while ZEC went bankrupt and
their assets were mostly bought by LG (Lucky Goldstar, Korea), Group Bull
sold ZDS to Packard Bell, which was then acquired by NEC, and somehow
Heathkit survived, although not as the company that we knew, and I have no
idea what the legal ownership or structure of today's Heathkit looks like.
As to the copyrights, as late as 1980 or so, some Heathkit stuff was not
copyrighted at all (which I actually worked to correct -- wish I hadn't !!),
and Heath, ZDS, ZEC and VEC all had various copyright interests (often joint
and overlapping) in these documents, but at this point, trying to sort all
of that out would be a real mess, and I seriously doubt if anyone, anywhere
has any interest in, for example, the H-8 assembly manual (or even the Z-100
manuals).

There's tons of "copyrighted" material on the web, including much stuff from
companies that no longer exist (Altair, Imsai, Processor Tech, etc.), but
also lots of stuff from firms that do, including (as mentioned) antique
documents from Intel, AMD, Western Digital, National Semiconductor, Cromemco
(which does still exist), Motorola and even, occasionally Microsoft.  I'm
not aware of any cases at all, not even one, in which anyone has gone after
anyone for posting old but nominally copyrighted documentation.  However,
there's no way I'd post Microsoft CODE (or even documentation), but even
then, I suspect that all that would happen (for 20-year old CP/M software)
would be a letter from their attorneys demanding that it be removed.  Which,
of course, anyone would be a fool not to comply with.

Barry Watzman
Watzman at neo.rr.com


-----Original Message-----
From: sebhc at sebhc.org [mailto:sebhc at sebhc.org] On Behalf Of Jack Rubin
Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2004 5:08 PM
To: sebhc at sebhc.org
Subject: RE: [sebhc] Archive question regarding cross-posting

I encourage cross-posting material in the public domain but some items
may be released specifically to SEBHC. This may be the case with Peter
Shkabara's software and documentation. The HUG material and HDOS itself
have been released to the public domain. As for Heath documentation,
nobody, including those at the current Heathkit organization, seem to
know who owns the copyright. You (Barry) might be in the best position
of any of us to answer that question!

I also lack explicit permission to republish the Magnolia material.
Concern about copyright - both protection and liability - was the
driving force behind creating a closed archive in the first place. 

Let me also remind list members to only upload material that is known to
be in the public domain.

And, as always, thank you all for your interest and contributions.

Jack





> -----Original Message-----
> From: sebhc at sebhc.org [mailto:sebhc at sebhc.org] On Behalf Of 
> Barry Watzman
> Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2004 1:46 PM
> To: sebhc at sebhc.org
> Subject: [sebhc] Archive question
> 
> 
> Does anyone have a problem with material (documents, 
> primarily) from the archive being cross posted on Howard Harte's site:
> 
> http://www.hartetechnologies.com/manuals/
> 
> It's my opinion that as web sites come and go, and as, 
> unfortunately, we ourselves "go", the only way to insure the 
> long-term survival of this material is to get it as widely 
> distributed in as many forms and places as possible.  But I 
> won't cross-post it if people object.
> 
> Barry Watzman
> Watzman at neo.rr.com
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Delivered by the SEBHC Mailing List
> 

--
Delivered by the SEBHC Mailing List


--
Delivered by the SEBHC Mailing List