[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

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.

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.

So given the fact that you can lawfully do this, plus the fact that it is morally right

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

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.

All yours old bean.... 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.