18 Nov
1999
18 Nov
'99
12:50 p.m.
Maybe not public domain, but I don't think, for
example, Commodore (or
whoever owns them now) would mind posting the schematics for the C64, or if
Tulip owns the C64 portion of Commodore last I heard, Gateway owns the
Amiga.
someone were to scan in the owners manual for a TI/99,
or a VAX 11/750
technical manual. Otherwise, if a company goes belly-up, who owns the
The VAX 11/750 is the perfect example of one that most likely *would* be a
problem. Unless I'm mistaken you can still *buy* the manual, and I'm not
sure but the machines might still be supported. Compaq has pledged support
for VAX for a MINIMUM of 10 more years.
NOTE: a lot of PDP-11 and VAX manuals are still listed as being available
for sale from Compaq, I wouldn't be surprised if they are ALL available.
copyright then? The disclaimer I'm looking to
write acknologes all
copyrights, and would allow the holders to request that I take them down, as
long as they can proove that the copyright is still valid and that they own
it.
Actually most likely they don't have to prove anything. Copyright is
getting very, very ugly. I gather that a lot of stuff that has passed into
the public domain and has been included in Project Gutenberg is likely to
pass back into copyrighted status.
As someone else pointed out the evil entity known as Di$ney is blame for a lot
of this. After all you wouldn't want Mickey Mouse to pass into public
domain would you?
It's all a very sticky mess, you might want to take a look at some of the
info that Project Gutenberg has.
Zane