Copyright on HP service manuals

try

Take a look at Agilent's web site. If I remember correctly, they put a bunch of the stuff out in the public domain or something very close to that. Last time I was rummaging around on their site, I saw the notice and was impressed enough to remember it.

Bob

Lots of people sell cd's of old HP and Tek manuals on ebay. And you can buy an original 5370B manual lots of places.

That's a great counter, incidentally. I have 3 or 4 of them, a lot older than '95 I think. It has 25 ps single-shot resolution, and the jitter typically runs around 30 rms, a lot less than the new SRS clone. The CPU is a an ancient nmos depletion-load 6800, and it'll process about 2000 shots per second; the firmware must be heavy-duty clever.

John

HP is enforcing their copyright over manuals, even for old unsupported equipment. Look at this:

...Stepan

I see the BoatAnchor Manual Archive public-service site has complied,

removing masses of valuable documentation for ancient hp instruments from public availability.

That letter from Agilent's counsel is going to bring a massive response from me as director of a Harvard University research laboratory, directed to the relevant authorities at Agilent to get the policy changed. It's dramatically counter-productive to their own business interests, and it's manifestly unfair to the owners of old HP / Agilent equipment who for one reason or another no longer have an operating or service manual, and who cannot get one from Agilent. For Agilent to close them off from a solution to their problem is to render their bought and paid-for equipment useless. It also means Agilent is capriciously denying the implied warranty of merchantability for their older products; the product can hardly do what it is supposed to do if the owner doesn't know what button to push, or how to interpret the panel reading. And it means Agilent is denying the owners' right to his own self-help in repairing something he purchased fair and square. Moreover, it takes a big step toward removing from the public weal the value of old instruments, no longer manufactured, which in many cases are not replaced by newer instruments performing the same function.

--
 Thanks,
    - Win

I read in sci.electronics.design that Winfield Hill wrote (in ) about 'Copyright on HP service manuals', on Fri, 22 Apr 2005:

The crux is whether indeed Agilent have been habitually refusing, or will refuse, to supply. The letter by itself is unobjectionable; someone else should not be selling (or even providing free) a copyrighted work.

All the above is totally pertinent IFFI Agilent refuse to supply.

--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
There are two sides to every question, except
'What is a Moebius strip?'
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

Well said!

Does Agilent actually make money selling these old manuals? No? They probably have always lost money selling manuals. Accordingly, they should be glad that somebody else wants to do it for them!

Also, their copyright might be hard to enforce if they no longer sell the manuals themselves. No loss of market; no harm; nothing to sue for.

Maybe you could start a petition from all HP enthusiasts.

I can see HP's point in that if someone puts poor-quality scans of their manuals up, some people might think it reflects HP quality in documentation. I'd argue anyone smart enough to need and buy HP kit would not blame HP/Ag.

HP made a good name for good kit that did a good job and price took second place. They were an American icon, like Harley Davison or Maglite or Leatherman.

Then some pointy haired bunch threw away the old name, diversified into new areas, and promptly turned a steady business into instability.

Hmph.

Perhaps one could ask HP to provide the better versions, maybe donate mint condition manuals for scanning or even original files.

On one hand they pressure people to buy new products by doing so, but as a customer I'd be put off buying kit from a company that was so petty as to begrudge manuals to a old customers.

Making manuals free in electronic form reduces the waste of paper and office space, which helps everyone.

["Followup-To:" header set to sci.electronics.design.] On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 09:15:15 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote in Msg.

That's sooo idiotic. Companies that don't want to host old stuff on their websites any more should be *thankful* if others did so. They should offer their stuff for free for anybody who would want to distribute it. Free marketing.

--Daniel

Shakespeare was correct ;-)

But I've had a bias against hp equipment for at least 30 years... a whole lot of it was crap or became crap within one year. When I ran the Phoenix Analog Design Center for GenRad I forbade the purchase of hp 'scopes.

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

GenRad. No kidding? I hadn't run into a GenRad guy for many years. Back in '76, during college break, I interviewed for a temp. technician position at GenRad in Concord, MA. The particular dept. developed bed-of-nails-type board testers, the brains of which were PDP (8? 10? 11?) mini's. I was impressed by the engineers, *very* intrigued by the work, and was quite keen to get the job but ... some to-be college senior got it.

I wound up at Data Terminal Systems (point-of-sale terminals) in Maynard (home of DEC, coincidently). Them thar new fangled cash registers used the PPS-4 chip set. Very sexy. Much mo' better than a mini. :-)

Yep. I was with OmniComp (a start-up), acquired by GenRad, from

1977-1987.

Startled the hell out of me to have them start sending a monthly pension payment when I turned 65... I didn't even know I was entitled ;-)

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

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office

I'd like to be a bit of a contrarian here for once.

The instrument manual the OP is seeking is available from several sources. It's a little pricey, but is still a good value, and only a small fraction of the price of a reconditioned HP 5370B.

Much of the value of an instrument is contained in its usability and serviceability. A lot of the effort that goes into making a good instrument _should_ be spent on the operating and service manuals. To my experience, HP/Agilent has _always_ produced easily readable, logically written manuals that are eminently helpful in using the instrument.

An important point that's being neglected here is that these manuals are intellectual property which has been copyrighted to make sure the fruits of that work goes to the owners. This forum has many well-respected engineers who depend, at least in part, on the residual value of the intellectual property they have created in order to make a living, through patents, non-disclosure agreements, and copyrights, allowing them to sell the same art to more than one customer. I don't believe they would be happy if the owners of the fruits of their labor decided to bypass those patents and non-disclosure agreements in order to swipe some of that value for themselves.

If a certain universally respected textbook of Electronics Engineering went out of print (may that day never arrive) but was still under copyright (under current law there will be many years to go), a teacher who owned one text wouldn't have the right to make copies and sell them to students. Copyright laws still apply. And whether that certain universally respected textbook of Electronics Engineering was out of print or not wouldn't have anything to do with implied warranties of merchantability. The book would still have the same value.

Some thought should be given to the perceived value of making a really excellent manual to the manufacturer as well. I'm sure one of the reasons the engineers at HP were allowed by the bean counters to spend so much time making top quality manuals was the expected return for selling copies of those manuals after the sale. I've seen CDs for sale which have scans of HP/Agilent instruments which are currently supported or even in production, as well as the obsolete ones. If the rules are changed to permit copying of manuals, the MBAs will have another idiotic justification to cut the labor hours spent on making the manual. I want and need good documentation when I specify an instrument, so I can get the quality results I want and get the full value of the meter. If everyone is making poor quality, minimalist manuals (and those manufacturers know who they are -- so do we), none of the instrument buyers are going to be happy.

Look at it this way. Let's assume the authors of that universally respected textbook of Electronics Engineering knew that within several years of publishing the 2nd edition, everyone would be using Xeroxes of their text. Would they have taken the time to make the second edition as great as it is? Or support it in s.e.d.? Would it have remained in print as long as it has? And would they have enough motivation to publish a 3rd edition (please -- just give me 30 seconds to cut the check!).

Agilent has a webpage which recommends a number of resellers of manuals, several of which have the one the OP is talking about. At some time, Agilent may also be willing to look at selling the documentation for obsolete and unsupported instruments in electronic form, once good digital protection is available which prevents unauthorized copying. When that happens, A of E will undoubtedly also be in digital form, too. But either way, the intellectual property belongs to the author, and should be respected whether the authors are respected professors or a corporation.

Sorry for the loss of self-control. I've got my asbestos suit on -- let the flames begin.

Chris

HP 'scopes were the pits, but I liked their multimeters (the 3456A in particular), pulse generators, and logic analyzers (Tek/HP 50-50 split here). I don't remember seeing an HP 'scope in any lab around. Come to think of it my EMI spectrum analyzer (does that count as a 'scope?) was HP. I went HP there because the Tek didn't go nearly high enough.

--
  Keith

...

...

In other words, they could write Agilent and ask, "May we have permission to offer these manuals on our site, as long as we give credit?"

Cheers! Rich

I read in sci.electronics.design that Chris wrote (in ) about 'Copyright on HP service manuals', on Fri, 22 Apr 2005:

Absolutely NOT!!! There is no objection whatsoever to legitimate defence of copyright.

What is NOT acceptable is to use copyright to deny ALL access to legacy data.

IIRC, the Sherlock Holmes stories are still just in copyright. Would it be reasonable for the estate of the author to assert the right to prohibit the use of the words 'Sherlock Holmes' in any context?

--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
There are two sides to every question, except
'What is a Moebius strip?'
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

--
_If_ Agilent was closing them off from a solution, perhaps you'd have
a point.  However, I understand that Agilent has licensed the
reproduction and sale of manuals and makes reference to those vendors
in their (Agilent's) web site, so that's hardly what I'd call "closing
them off from a solution".

wrote

the

defence

legacy

it

Hi, Mr. Woodgate. Very respectfully, excessively long copyright protection is a problem, particularly the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in the States, which extended copyrights to 75 to 95 years in the case of corporate copyrights, or 70 years after the death of the author. That was another act of blatant pandering by Congress, and it pushes right up against the copyright clause in Article I, Sec.

8 of the Constitution:

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"

75 to 95 years isn't a "limited time" by my reading.

Since I got burned many years ago, I've never purchased a used instrument without docs included or available from another source. And in the last ten years, I've almost always been able to find the instrument manuals I need from one legal source or another. I admit that the price of a manual has affected my decision to buy or not once or twice (the OP's manual costs $75 USD from one vendor), but I don't see Agilent as actively prohibiting anyone from getting the information. If they were doing that, they would be trying to buy up the manuals and take them off the market.

Agilent obviously has an interest in drumming up sales, and if I were them, I wouldn't be making too much of an effort to get potential customers to scrounge and repair something I sold 25 years ago. The real problem, of course, is that the manuals are not free in the age of the internets. Well, so it goes.

I guess I'm picky about this stuff. When I get responsibility for an instrument, I'll see that we get the docs. All manuals have to be filed and signed out. And it really isn't much of a problem to me. I guess my priorities are different, because I'm willing to pay for my pleasures. Just a cost of doing business. ;-)

Good luck Chris

HP should certainly retain the copyright so that (for example) a portion of one of their manuals couldn't be reproduced in the manual of a competing product. But HP should be willing to let people distribute HP manuals in complete unaltered form, because HP benefits thereby.