Copyright on HP service manuals

Try using a proxy.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

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And that's a fact because...?

I can get to it from Canada (!!!). Nice screening - NOT! No wonder we had Sept 11 happen. Oh the shame....

Stepan

--
Joe Leikhim K4SAT
"The RFI-EMI-GUY"

The Lost Deep Thoughts                        By: Jack Handey
     Before a mad scientist goes mad, there's probably a time
when he's only partially mad.  And this is the time when he's
going to throw his best parties.

Sonny Bono got the law changed before he ate a tree.

--
GW

What? It happened because of Canadians using the internet?

I disagree, we're not talking about manuals that can still be purchased from HP / Agilent. (And by this I mean real manuals, not microfiche dups that can't be used at the workbench.) We're talking about the real shortage of manuals for old instruments, where more manuals than instruments have been thrown away or lost.

--
 Thanks,
    - Win

I read in sci.electronics.design that Winfield Hill wrote (in ) about 'Copyright on HP service manuals', on Mon, 25 Apr 2005:

If HP/Agilent still have these manuals but withhold all access to them, then I think a good lawyer would find ample grounds for dissuading them from that practice. It might be difficult to challenge them if they offered them for USD200 each, but perhaps not impossible.

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Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
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http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

that's

DVDs.

Hey, life's a compromise. If you want the convenience, then you have to pay for it. So pay for a couple more 250GB HDDs, and quit complaining.

Right. That's how I understood it. The issue is NOT how to get things free (or cheap) that are for sale by their rightful copyright owner. The issue is how to deal with things that the actual owner no longer bothers to sell.

And in that kind of situation, copyright law is quite lenient when copies are made for "private study or research" rather than resale. It is perfectly legal for you to copy, for your own use, any HP manual you can get your hands on. Paying other people to do the copying is a gray area.

But the underlying principle is that if HP wanted to make money off these things, HP would offer them for sale, and HP doesn't, so HP isn't losing anything.

Winfield Hill wrote:

I think I've already taken up too much of your time here. If someone told me I could have several minutes of Mr. Hill's time to talk about electronics, I'd be absolutely delighted. But instrument manuals would be just about the last thing in the world I'd like to talk about.

If you would indulge me anyway, I might add a few personal observations:

• Just for my own curiosity, I looked at the Yahoo hp_instrument user group mentioned near the beginning of this thread, and read every post for this month. It was kind of interesting how many posts this month involved manual .pdfs and obtaining other non-legitimate copies of HP manuals. So I read all the posts for the HP model numbers for every HP instrument, scope, and add-on card where there would have been a manual. And you know what? Every HP product mentioned in this month's posts (a few dozen items) has the _real_ OP/SV manuals available from the same single manual reseller recommended by HP on their website -- ManualsPlus. I didn't even have to look around. But they were selling for a price, of course.

• Over the years, I've been in several jobs where I've been the only one who cared about instrument manual document control, and ended up maintaining the system myself in one case. Engineers would draw and quarter (on your side) or tar and feather (on our side) someone from another department who treated other company- or University-owned engineering IP like prints or purchased software with the same disdain almost all engineers have for instrument manuals. At best, they will squirrel them away in their own desk or lab bench so they don't have to go to the bother of signing them out or returning them. Usually they'll ignore and lose them or throw them out as clutter. I guess my personal opinion on this subject is kind of rare.

• Older instruments are generally a better value, as well as usually being easier to use and less expensive to maintain. I try to specify used/reconditioned instruments wherever possible, because I feel they're generally a good deal for my employer or customer. I always buy used for myself, because that way I can afford a better instrument. I've specified several "orphan" (manufacturer no longer provides service or parts, including the manuals) HP instruments, and bought one myself for my own use. Years back, I got burned by buying a tricky instrument from another manufacturer, then blowing a project deadline partly because I couldn't buy, beg, borrow or steal the manual, didn't use the instrument properly and was getting bad data. Since then, I make sure not to buy a used instrument without the manual. And while manual availability has affected which used instrument I chose, I've never had to buy a new instrument because I couldn't find a used one that would do the job and that had a manual available from somewhere.

• Let's say that I walked into a job where I was required to use a piece of existing equipment for which I had to have the manual. Let's also say I made a good faith effort to find the manual, and couldn't get a legal one. Would I start scrounging around for a .pdf or other non-legitimate copy? Sure, I would. I'm not a zealot about this. Just like everyone else, I've got to do the job, get it done on time, and if there's no other way, I guess I'd have to clip the coin. But there's almost always a legal way to do it as things are set up now, especially for orphan HP instruments. But it _does_ cost money.

• I would also concede it's likely there are many more orphaned HP instruments out there than there are manuals. What would happen if more engineers took the copyright law seriously as it relates to instrument manuals? Well, first off, I suppose existing inventory on manuals would go down and prices might go up a bit. Not as much as you might think, because as prices go up, new instruments and other used instruments with manuals become more attractive options. As demand increased, suppliers would institute waiting lists, and since they would be guaranteed fast turnaround, they would loosen their restrictions on purchasing individual manuals, and pay more for them (currently most of these manual resellers are miserly, and will only buy manuals by the bale and "pay" by the ton ;-). Possibly owners of manuals without instruments would register their copies with resellers in case someone wanted them. More manuals would crawl out of the woodwork as useless paper turns into potential cash. Manuals might be rented, or offered on consignment. Engineers might even form a co-op to rent or to minimize brokers' fees (the markup on these manuals is extravagant). And eventually a new balance would be achieved. The new price of the manuals would more accurately reflect their real value. I don't think the price would be that much more than it is now, though. And at that point, if manuals were still printed on unobtainium, we would all have a legitimate beef against Agilent and the other manufacturers, and I think they might then be more inclined to offer either "book-on-demand" or high-quality Xeroxed copies of their old manuals for a price a little higher than the asking price for used manuals. And engineers would start getting more serious about spending the time and effort to maintain document control on these newly valuable books.

Sorry to bend your ear, but it's kind of a "hot button" issue for me. I've not found it hard to comply with the law as it now stands. I just pay for my pleasures, which is my perogative and one of the joys of the business world. Original manuals for nearly all orphaned HP equipment do exist out there, and paying for them is a legitimate cost. Of course the copyright law is messed up, especially in the States. 75 to

95 years is too long for a corporation to own a copyright on anything. But out of direct respect for the law, and indirectly out of respect for the creator of the book, I'll try to buy the manual if it's legally available.

Thanks again for your time.

TAANSTAAFL Chris

A few observations:

1. Copyright is supposed to help an author receive just compensation for his/her/its work.

1. Although much work obviously went into the manuals for non-supported equipment, Agilent is no longer receiving significant compensation for them - as far as I know.

2. So Agilent is correct as far as the letter of the law, but may not really be correct as far as the intention of the law. But the letter is the ruling rule.

1. Tektronix has publically released all copyrights on all their manuals for equipment which they no longer support. (ONLY the equipment they no longer support.) This has been a great boon for hobbists, students, and probably some academic institutions. Maybe even some of the many small start-up companies that find 25-30 year old Tek scopes still are useful.

2. Both Agilent and Tektronix are completely within their legal rights. But Tektronix has opted to be generous to the user community of their older machines. This is a community of hobbyists, students, academic institutions, and so on. The same community that Apple found it cost effective to donate large numbers of computers to.

Release of copyright may cost Tek a few sales of newer machines, but gains them a lot of respect. The value of the public relations almost certainly is many times the small loss of potential sales.

I'm sorry to read that Agilent is not so forward thinking. Sounds like they took their cue from Disney suing day-care centers for using "Donald Duck" (r) (c) (tm) (etc.) in wall murals.

Ahh, well, the modern corporate mind.

-Howard

Hear, Hear!

Indeed.

--
 Thanks,
    - Win

The man who apparently convinced Tektronix to release their manuals to the public domain, David Hopkins, has left a message on yahoo groups offering the help of his experience...

Note also, that for HP to release these manuals to the public domain, would be an act of charity towards third-world and developing nations, where used test equipment can be of great service. I hope that someone with inside knowledge of Agilent management can take this forward...

Stepan

I asked Agilent as was refused permission to put copies on the web.

BUT they said they can grant me permission to distribute (charging if I wish) copies of manuals for obsolete equipment on CD or paper - but not the web.

I was sent a short half-page letter, asked to fill it in, sign it, send it back and are awaiting confirmation of permission by email.

So it is not as bad as it seems.

So anyone selling CDs on eBay can do it legally if they ask permission first - I doubt many do.

Did they say if you could list the files you have on a website so you can sell or trade CDROMs?

--
Former professional electron wrangler.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

I don't think you'd have a problem with HP allowing you to have the manual for your equipment maintenance. Publishing it on the web is rather a stretch though.

b.

Well, how nice for you that you function in a world where $75 for a manual is small change! There are lots of us hobbyists out here who like to experiment with electronics but who might find that to be their "mad" money for a month. Somehow, as one of them, I'm not convinced by your "all us well-off businessmen should be good t each other" argument.

This kind of stuff is part of a trend that's been going on, to my amazement, for a couple of decades now. It might be summed up as "Business is more important than anything. The market is God. Whatever's good for either is great, and the devil take the rest!" Under this regime each new enormity perpetrated by some business, like this one by Aligent (or the copyright extension that business got away with a while ago) first causes a bit of squirming on the part of the victims, but then other virtuous souls remind them of the three divine maxims set out above, and everyone then naturally knuckles under.

How did a once-free, and in fact instinctively rebellious, people come to this?

Leonard

--
"Everything that rises must converge"
--Flannery O'Connor

The last "new" price for a 5370B was over $30K, hardly hobbyist turf. A decent used one can cost from a few hundred dollars (ebay, as-is) to a couple of thousand (guaranteed, calibrated from a broker.) $75 ain't bad in this context.

Once free? What you are complaining about is precisely freedom. If you don't like Agilent equipment, or their policies towards their intellectual property, buy something else, or build your own. If you don't like paying somebody for their book or their music, write your own.

John