On Dec 28, 2008, at 8:04 PM, dwight elvey wrote: It's apparent that you aren't a lawyer. I'm not one either, but a little common sense goes a long way here. I won't touch your claim that you have a "right" to the manual. That's not the issue, even if I think you don't have the rights you think you do. The issue is that only the "intellectual property owner" has the "right to copy" and distribute the manual: hence the term "copyright". Data Professionals is completely within their "rights" to ask that distribution of their intellectual property on the Internet cease and desist. Those posting the manuals don't have the "rights" to distribute them in any form. Whether this is "correct" in the moral sense is certainly subject to debate. But under the law, the manuals are under copyright, and we don't have the right to copy and distribute other people's manuals without explicit permission to do so. Common sense says if you didn't write it, you don't have the rights to copy and distribute it, and any action along those lines is likely violating somebody's copyright. Running off a photocopy of a few pages for a friend or to include in a research document might be "justifiable infringement" (called "fair use"). Duplicating the works /en masse/ on a website is not permissible under any circumstances, unless permission to do so has been obtained. Doing otherwise is a dangerous game, specifically because of circumstances like this. The manuals' copyright is held by somebody, even if it's a megacorp who purchased the assets at auction from a bankruptcy sale. Note I'm not arguing the moral and/or ethical sides of this, purely the legal ones.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20081215/0106043118.shtml