The Manual Museum - Telescopes and Mounts

[DobDobDob]

The Manual Museum is an awesome "FREE" resource that is collecting, formatting and storing manuals in PDF format and giving them away for free, check out the site at: http://manualmuseum.com/

We can all help by sending copies of different telescopes and mounts, in PDF format to info@manualmuseum.com scan each page using PDF format, that way it will come out looking exactly the same as your real world copy. This will help put these valuable and especially older manuals that are no longer in print, available to hobbyists of not only today but especially the future.

Let's get behind this worthwhile venture, before it’s too late and they are lost forever. Even send the latest manuals, because it’s funny how quickly what was in vogue yesterday is soon today’s fish and chips wrapper. :thumbsup:

[Omaroo]

Copyright infringement might be an interesting topic to follow on from here...

Be careful of sending anything that might put you in harms way of a copyright or intellectual property lawyer. I'm not sure I'd be sending anything. Nice idea - but I'm not sure that the companies who write them share that ideology. Not sure how you actually determine that any one manual you might come across is technicall out of print - and even if it is - is it still protected by the country of origins' laws?

[DobDobDob]

Yes thanks for your concern and good advice, however it does not breach Australian laws which permit the sharing of information for education and hobbyist and does not have a corporate intent. :P

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. News and informational articles presented herein are for the non-profit purposes of comment, education and news reporting. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in the Commonwealth of Australian Copyright Act 1968.

[TrevorW]

Send it anonomously

[DobDobDob]

LOL good one TrevorW, you will no doubt run a vast empire someday. It's actually quite legal providing you don't make a profit out of it and that you do it in the interests of education, the Act has Fair Usage exceptions to cover this and at the end of the day, companies that went out of business say 60 years ago are hardly going to worry about it anyway.

For example, in radios I have some 1940 vintage radios were I was lucky enough to be able to source the schematic and in some cases a 'sort of' users manual. I intend to try and fix them up, and the fact that I was fortunate enough to acquire the paperwork is an absolute godsend. I got these from the net and it is so important that someone took the time to actually reproduce it on the net, otherwise the radio would be useless.

I think that real honest people know the difference between a site that provides information for genuine educational and hobbyist reasons and one that is blatantly trying to make money and encroaches on the copyright owners ability to earn income.

Instruction manuals are given freely with the purchase of the device and are not sold (in the main) anyway, so there is precious little income that you are duding anyone out of, plus most of the companies don't exist these days anyway.

So given the fact that you can lawfully do this, plus the fact that it is morally right and good and doesn't hurt anyone, there is no need to go underground. If any legitimate company objected to you doing their job for them, you could argue it in court or simply delete it from your inventory. :P

[Omaroo]

Yep - that's all great and all Ron.. but they are still copyright protected. The fact that they are given away with purchase does NOT mean that they aren't interested in protecting their original work. This is an incredibly naive assumption. You can't make a judgement call on how a company may "feel" about what you do with their material - it's their copyrighted, protected material - period. In the UK for instance, copyright protects written work, including technical manuals and sales literature - of any kind - for 70 years beyond the death of the writer or cessation of the owner/company.

Be careful. Unless you've been involved in IPO-related work and understand its consequences you could end up in deep water. This website won't tell you that.



Rubbish and ...rubbish. Sorry. The law doesn't take the "vibe" into account.



All yours old bean.... :lol: A great way to lose your house AND shirt.

The distinction between “fair use” and infringement is unclear and not easily defined - it is certainly not automatically granted as you think you can believe. There are no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Also, acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.

[Dennis]

Just some personal experience. I note that my Canon 40D user manual in pdf format does not allow me to select text and copy it to the clip board. Sometimes this is nice to do if you are responding to a query from another user. I find this a little frustrating as I’m not a fast typist and I don’t really want to do a screen capture and then OCR the page to select the text.

I just assumed that this was Canon protecting its material from unauthorized copying?

Cheers

Dennis

[DJDD]

A friend is the Copyright Officer for a university and advises on Fair Use for educational purposes. Fair use for educational purposes does not mean an entire document.

[Omaroo]

Absolutely correct - you cannot scan a document in whole and then assume that you have the right to share it carte blanch. You may "quote" relevant sections which are pertinent to your study, but that's all.

[Terry B]

This is usually becaus it is a scanned document (ie a picture of the individual page) rather than a typset document that has been saved as a pdf.

[DobDobDob]

Thanks for all the input, I believe that the Manual Museum is acting within the letter of the law, any company that objects to a critque or review of their material can request in writing that we withdraw them from our system and we will consider their request.

[Omaroo]

Not in this case Terry.

The Canon 40D manual is a secure document. It is typeset - not a scanned image file or bitmap, but locked. You can still select text from it but can't copy it to your clipboard, or export it as raw text or any other rich text format. The following image is a screendump of the security settings attributed to the PDF.

You'll see it is not something you want to question Canon over. They mean it to be secure. The ONLY allowance ("Content Copying for Accessibility") is designed such that "assitive" technologies, such a Braille print converter, can output the document. It is designed NOT to be copied in any way. Send the entire document to a facility such as the one Ron mentions here likely to be in breach of copyright as the writer intended.

Ron - "Aussie People" in Pendle Hill are the registered owners of the domain name - can I ask if you are affiliated? The following suggests that you may be:

[DobDobDob]

Hi Chris, perhaps you or your legal advisor might like to read the Act, it a good long read, set aside a day or two: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca1968133/

best wishes ;)

[Omaroo]

From a document you've mentioned on the website Ron:



This is open to interpretation, and whilst it is by no means implying that this website acts in breach of implied copyright law - I'd just like to advise participants and contributors that just because the website assures them that it's OK to distribute and store copywritten material via their service, in whole, and in it's original form (presumably) they should be aware that interpretation of copyright law may be enacted upon by different owners in different ways. Some may not see this scanning of their printed material as a problem - others may. I'm just not sure that you will be able to bat off those who object with a "we'll consider" answer.



Is requesting people to scan (and therefore copy) entire paper manuals a breach? hmm... As stated, storing a manual that is already in a locked PDF format is different to scanning one. Canon would probably come after me for scanning their work, not you, for doing so. I'd just like to see that people understand the law in this regard by reading it for themselves rather than taking it for granted that all is simply kosher. I'm sure you'd have to agree.

On the flip side of my argument, I'm just looking t the instruction manual for my George Foreman Grilling Machine - as an example. It doesn't even contain a copyright notice of any kind. Even still - is it protected by copyright?

Personally? I think it's neat idea. It fills a great niche - as long as the legals are undisputed world wide and people can be absolutely and unequivocally assured that their participation is not going to end up with them in court over something they didn't understand or realise. I wish you luck with it - I think it's a ripper idea.

[DobDobDob]

Thank you Chris, we are fully aware of the exception guidelines and have them clearly written on our home page as well as in other areas. The amount of reproduction has never been in dispute, we have the lawful right, as you point out to pass on those said amounts for the purposes specified, you are correct, and we are also correct - let's have a coffee.

Thanks again :P

[Omaroo]

LOL! No probs.

[DobDobDob]

Er.....perhaps that should be cool refreshing beverage :whistle:

[stephenb]

So, just to confirm that http://manualmuseum.com/ is your creation, Ron? It is a mammoth effort, similar to another website I have been on, which is a database of plans and mechanical drawings of cars, boats, ships, trains etc.

[DobDobDob]

No, I'm just one of the team, there are several people involved. I am mainly in the area of the website part and searching, it's a genuine group effort :P

I'm interested in the history parts of it, I guess everyone knows I'm a history nut.

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Ron

I just came accross your post on manuals. How do you access them.
I am a collector of a specific type of manual (most of which copyright expired years ago). I collect and scan Meccano manuals. I have not got the full set but I have a representative collection of just about everything from 1906. I also have quite a few service manuals for TV's VCR's TV cameras etc.

Barry

[koputai]

Got a link for that one Stephen?

Cheers,
Jason.

[DobDobDob]

Hi Barry, I hope you are well since the last time I visited you. I'll write to you off line seeing I know you and we can discuss your collection at length, I don't really want to turn this thread into a copyright debate or to dwell on non-astronomical themes. I'll drop you an e-mail shortly :P

[stephenb]

Jason, would you believe I have lost it, but I will ask a friend who has the link and post asap.

Barry, I have a lot of Meccano magazines scanned as jpg's. Interested?

[DobDobDob]

I would love to have a copy also, are you able to e-mail them to info@manualmuseum.com If possible, send in blocks or chunks, so as not to totally clog the inbox, however it will take a fair size :P

[Barrykgerdes]

Thanks for the offer. I already have a full set on DVD.
Barry

[erick]

Copyright is an unregistered intellectual property right. Once you have created something, you have the copyright in it, even a squiggle in the sand! People or organisations may add the copyright symbol and a notice to identify themselves and to assert their copyright in the item to anyone that sees it. Copyright law is designed to give you the ability to stop others if they are copying your work to their economic advantage and/or your economic disadvantage.

Like any other intellectual property right, a copyright owner can sell or give away the copyright to someone else, but, interestingly the "author" maintains certain moral rights to the work which could restrict the new copyright owner unless the prior copyright owner also waives those moral rights.

But you don't want to know about the stuff I have to deal with for a living! :D :sadeyes:

[Omaroo]

Sorry Eric - the question was rhetorical - of course the law still applies.

I know what you mean with dealing with it for a living. As an IT development manager I see more lawyers than I do code cutters these days.

[xelasnave]

Very interesting:).
Great work Ron:thumbsup: is there a copyright manual???
It is easier to ask for forgiveness than to seek permission and the lawyers will only go you if you appear to have money and I offer to remove any of it before they try to tag you and hide it for you.

Ron is a wonderful man it would be an unfortunate choice for anyone to do him harm when he is so decent...

All the best Ron I will pop in maybe next week for a chat and get those things for the scope.

alex:):):)

[DobDobDob]

Thank you all, especially Alex, you are too kind. You are however correct, anyone suing me would be very sadly dissapointed, in fact they may actually have to support me first to get anything out of me. It's true, the only thing of worth I own in the entire universe is my mind, and well, to be quite frank, that's not worth a great deal ;)

Can't wait to see you again soon Alex, so we can do a bit of cage fighting :P please bringg your protective vest :eyepop:

[DobDobDob]

I would like to thank the IIS member who sent through a very nice contribution to the Manual Museum, the manuals are greatly appreciated, thank you very much. :thumbsup:

[TrevorW]

I've started a new group

FACKIT

"Freedom Against Copyright Kill Intellectual Twaddle"

and frankly FACKIT will support anyone sending a manual in

as far as we are concerned as long as no one benefits $$$ then whats the harm

[DobDobDob]

Trevor, regardless of right or wrong, you are certainly a wordsmith :lol::lol::lol: on ya mate, it seems that W.A. finest are certainly not afraid to say what they think :thumbsup:

[stephenb]

The site I was referring to is: www.the-blueprints.com (http://www.the-blueprints.com/ns-200905-top/)

I have no association with it, but it has assisted my in the past with plans for models.

[DobDobDob]

Ahhhhh excellent website, thank you for the lead, they are not too dissimilar to us, and I have written off to them with a view to shared linking. Thanks again. :thumbsup: