very doubtful, and certainly not what the law was intended to mean. now if they had a legal team like that of many high tech companies, they might get a supporting ruling, or more likely the usual agreement that nothing was infringed and no one involved would infringe in the future, and a large legal bill. at least that seems to be the result most of the time when large companies sue over alleged patent infringement.=20 your' tax dollars at work keeping attorneys employed, along with judges that don't understand the technical issues they are ruling on, not that a judge with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering would be easy to find... Wouter van Ooijen wrote: >=20 > > I've wondered this for a while. Tek released all the old manuals a > > while back, they are freely copyable now. I know that you are allowe= d > > to charge a 'nominal fee' for copies (and, of course, > > whatever you want > > for the original physical artifact), but I don't think that you can b= e > > prevented from giving away copies of copies that you paid for. Some > > PDFs I've bought calim this, but I can't see a legal reason for this. > > Anyone have more info on this? >=20 > The digitizing of the original paperwork could be considered a derived > work. They could claim copyright to that derivation. Whether this will > hold in court *might* depend on whether they did anything more than jus= t > putting the sheets on a scanner. ------ --=20 =93Cowardice asks the question: is it safe? Expediency asks the question: is it politic? Vanity asks the question: is it popular? But conscience asks the question: is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular- but one must take it simply because it is right.=94 : Martin Luther King Jr. 1929-1968 _______________________________________________ http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist