I spent a lot of time and money for this project, and it is a travesty to see bootleggers stealing it and selling for themselves...

G'day Ray and welcome to the forums. I agree that it seems that someone has taken an easy way out for this. I suppose the best thing, provided that it is the case that the CD on Ebay is a copy of your work, is for the word to be spread around the Nation's collectors that the product on offer should not be acquired.

There's a few options to halt the distribution of the CD though they are all expensive unfortunately and even though it is certainly possible to claim material damages the expenses to achieve this are up front.

One way to annoy the bloke at least would be to lodge a claim with Ebay that the CD on offer breaches copyright. It's not a certainty but they may co-operate.

One way to annoy the bloke at least would be to lodge a claim with Ebay that the CD on offer breaches copyright.

Yes, if I were in Ray's shoes I would certainly submit a complaint about that seller.

Ray, is it true that the executable binary has not been
updated since Windows 3.1 as suggested in this thread,
causing compatibility issues?

If so, maybe I could earn myself a copy. I'm a programmer of multiple platforms including mobile:
http://www.freewebs.com/defxev/electronics.htm
iOS (iPad, etc.) would be a good way to secure it,
though perhaps not the best way to market it,
considering the majority of the generation likely aren't fussed over them.
In any case, bringing the Windows cataloger thing up to date,
or rewriting that part doesn't sound like a difficult task.

The owner is the original CD work can have this advert struck off eBay quite easily, I have done so before on my copyrighted material.
Looks like he is copying a lot of other manuals etc as well.
Peter

Hi Guys,
thanks for input, I have reported the copied discs to ebay 13 times, and as to date nothing has been done and the listings continue. I am afraid the only option is to get the legal fraternity on the case. I know it won't pay, but at least a step forward in doing it just for the principle. Efforts to reprogram disc may be the next step, however the media is already out there.
I will keep you posted and see what happens

Regards
Ray

I have reported the copied discs to ebay 13 times, and as to date nothing has been done and the listings continue.

I'm surprised that eBay hasn't acted.

I am afraid the only option is to get the legal fraternity on the case.

Yep, lawyers don't come cheap but sometimes you need to bring in the artillery. I'm guessing their advice would go something like this:

First step is a firmly-worded cease and desist letter from your lawyers ... if you can get the guy's address details for service of same. If he carries on after that then a letter of demand. Next stop after that is court.

Hopefully he'll take the hint after step 1.

(This all assumes that you can prove he's using your material.)

Ray is correct about owning the format of the material on his CD, and has the right to prevent unauthorised copying and resale.

A scanned page has the same copyright status as a photograph. You don't have to own the mountain to own the photo of the mountain.

But anyone else can make their own photo of the mountain, or scan of the original material. I've done a few at the public library.

If Brad is undertaking a fresh on-line version, perhaps members would be willing to contribute from their own collections. Even hand-drawn schematics of rare items could be of great value. There's not much to be gained from sitting on private collections without sharing them.

** I had the impression that AORSM was privately published but had some endorsement from an industry association or Broadcasting Control Board or the like, which helped getting cooperation from rival manufacturers and supported standardisation, quality and safety in service standards. What else would "Official" mean? Maybe I was bluffed.

Maven

If as Monochrome suggests, there are errors in some schematics that are found,
it's important that there's a central place for those errors/corrections to be also logged.

In my short time in this, I'm sure I've found one, and I have mentioned it here going back a little bit.
The thread is called "Schematic vs Radio".
Since posting that, I've seen more of the same radio,
and it's the radio that appears to be consistent, and the schematic incorrect,
even though the radio works both ways.

There are also cases where values of some components
are omitted, and some people that have experience with a
particular radio could add useful information to an existing schematic.

It might not be a good idea making permanent changes to original documents,
someone in these times could also make an error,
but it would be good to have accompanying notes
stored in the same place as the documents.

There's not much to be gained from sitting on private collections without sharing them.

I agree. It has been a source of fairly mild frustration for many years that when people ask for copies of circuit diagrams they ask for them to be e-mailed directly to them instead of being provided for publication here (or even on another website) where all radio collectors have direct access to them.

I won't use this as a time to take possession of any moral high ground - there's no point in it. However the more we help as many of us as possible, the less expensive it is for us.

This has provided me with some motivation to have a go at it but yes, it will take a long time as I want to pay attention to presentation of the content as much as the supply of it.

As one of those people "sitting on a private collection", I have already made an effort to share this information. See post #12 in thread http://vintage-radio.com.au/default.asp?f=1&th=660 The offer is still open!

I completely agree with Brad's sentiments in the above post. Scanning and putting all this information online is a huge job for one person and I've been at it for 3 years on the scanning side only. It needs to be a collaborative approach with lots of contributors or it will progress very slowly with lots of wasted effort when people scan material which has already been scanned.
Some framework of formatting and presentation needs to be decided on for anything to get going. This is one of several reasons why I have held back on the widespread sharing of what I have scanned. No decision has been made on how to present the data on these forums and I didn't want to pressure Brad about constantly uploading circuits or complete service manuals. Some sort of process needs to be considered to also prevent people "leeching" the files on a large scale with the purpose of compiling service data DVD's for sale elsewhere. I've spent a LOT of time scanning manuals with the intention that the data is to be used as a public service. What I don't want to see is some greedy person downloading all the scans and trying to make a quick profit from any people gullible enough to buy them.
Personally I have a dislike for low quality files especially scans done in 1 bit greyscale (i.e. Black or White). PDF's are another dislike, they can be very annoying to work with at times despite the advantages they have.

The AORSM's and JR manuals are a fantastic resource but the information they contain is a cut and paste of the original manufacturers data. This means it is already a second generation copy and often at a reduced size of the original. My preference is to use the original manufacturers data where available and only resort to the AORSM and JR books as a last resort when the originals cannot be found.

Another hesitation on sharing scanned material is due to copyright law. My own opinion of these laws is irrelevant. However, I still must consider the legal implications of sharing scanned original material. Philips (Holland) has already stated a policy of allowing people to share service information for products that are no longer supported by the company. They do however prohibit the sale of copies of such material. This would need to be confirmed with the Australian branch of Philips but I'm sure the policy of head office applies locally. Philips, having taken over many local brands (and thus copyrights), would probably amount to around 30-40% of all service data. AWA would be another large group, and EMI (HMV) which was taken over locally by NEC, the last of the big companies. Most of the smaller brands died out over 50 years ago so copyright on their service data has probably expired.

I've just checked the publishers comments in the AORSM and JR books. In both cases they acknowledge the help of the manufacturers with the supply of information.

AORSM Vol.13 p5
"In every case the information published is supplied by the actual manufacturers. The publishers, however, cannot accept responsibility for any error or omission which inadvertently be made."

and

"OUR THANKS - Publication of the Australian Official Radio Service Manual is made possible by the generous co-operation of manufacturers who have kindly, and in many cases at considerable trouble, made available to us the essential data and circuits of their receivers. To these manufacturers we extend our grateful thanks."

The JR manuals are similar in that as far as I have seen, all their information is sourced from the manufacturers data.

From JR 1967 LJ-TV Vol. 1
"The publishers wish to acknowledge the assistance and interest displayed by all manufacturers in the publication of this manual."

Both the Strand Press and Westley Contractors are Pty. Ltd. companies with Westley operating until at least 1978. Surely a company records search at the relevant government agency should provide the names of the company directors / owners?

Some sort of process needs to be considered to also prevent people "leeching" the files on a large scale with the purpose of compiling service data DVD's for sale elsewhere.

You could apply a watermark to the images as part of the scanning process. It's not 100% secure but would require a pirate to erase it from every page, leaving evidence of that in the process. Probably something a pirate would not be bothered doing.

See post#11 regarding Strand Press.

Some sort of process needs to be considered to also prevent people "leeching" the files on a large scale with the purpose of compiling service data DVD's for sale elsewhere.

I'd be adding a footer on each page that mentions that the file came from this website plus adding a discrete logo at a random spot on each page before converting to PDF. Whilst it is possible to rip PDFs these days it'd be a hell of a lot of work for someone to delete these to hide the source. It'd also be pointless as any files offered here would be free of charge thus negating the advantage of buying a disc with the lot.

One other thing guys: I've just been through this thread and a few others and have noticed that some of you are adding blank lines to the end of your posts. I've been editing them out when I see them as it looks yukkie and wastes space on the database. Could those doing this please give me a hand and not do it?

It'd also be pointless as any files offered here would be free of charge thus negating the advantage of buying a disc with the lot.

You'd be surprised at how many people get caught out paying for something that is available for free!
I do like your idea of watermarking or adding a comment of where the source file was from. A time consuming process though on top of the need to scan and clean up the images etc.

Brad, do you want people to email circuits too you directly to host on the site in future? Also, do you have a clear idea of how you want to host the files or is this something you want to discuss amongst the forum users?

There's already a central folder for circuit diagrams on the site and 1TB of disc space (soon to be 3TB when the site shifts to the new server). There's a few diagrams in there which are linked directly to forum posts though as yet no page specifically set up to link to these files.

My plan is to get all the content needed first and then develop the access system which will be fairly simple - a choice of the year of manufacture followed by alphabetical order or just alphabetical order and the file name would have make, model, year.

Work is keeping me on my toes at the moment but this is something I can get on when time permits.

To build and maintain a relational database for this material would be ideal, but a huge task. Brad's ToDo List is already quite long.

The simplest approach is to take advantage of an existing index document and provide each schematic file with a unique filename keyed to that existing searchable index.

I'm thinking of the AORSM index table prepared for the HRSA with the name "Australian Radio Models". It is a text file and with a simple text search you can track down any unit by name, date, model, manufacturer, or indeed by any valve name (the valves are listed).

That table has no specific index column, but the model numbers are the nearest thing to a unique identifier, so could be used as a key to schematic files.

There would be a need to extend that table, using the same format, for any models that are not in the final AORSM collection of 1956.

I only have that index in pdf. It could be processed back into a text table or into html for online searching, and the model numbers could be hyperlinked to schematics as they became available. It's too good a resource to pass up.

Maven