Wiring diagram copyrights

[alfacybersite <acs@domain.elided>]

In #646 Richard Welty takes, in my opinion, a conservative yet realistic
view of what is most likely Alfa / Fiat copyrighted material. He ends
with, " I think you need to resolve the copyright/licensing issues
first. i'll presume that Cardisc already did this once, so it can't be
that difficult. of course, it might also be the case that they didn't
resolve it, and simply haven't gotten onto Fiat's radar screen yet, but
more than likely, they did the necessary groundwork."

******
Must admit I have both principals and a rather casual attitude regarding
copyrights. Should one plan on reproducing, for sale, an entire article,
book or manual, one should at least write the publisher and either ask
permission or state the intention, ending with, "Should I not hear from
you in 30 days, I'll assume you do not object." Legal? Not a clue, but
doubt it.

Let's say you want to reprint something published say 30 years ago. The
publisher has either gone out of business or been bought up and
contacting the author is fruitless. I'd reprint, but document my
attempts to contact the various people.

In the case of wiring diagrams from older Alfas, if I could call my
local Alfa dealer or contact Alfa / Fiat over the Internet and purchase
a copy, that's what I should do. However, believe it's a given any
contacts would fall on deaf ears. Therefore I'd take the attitude, you
snooze you lose. I'd say it is then fair game for someone to reproduce
and even sell.

Now take Cardisc. How legal they are is up to them, but many Windows
people would not have the information they provide unless they had 'made
the effort'. Can a company give permission to reproduce information that
they didn't 'create' in the first place? I'd guess only if they (Cardisc
for instance) paid a 'reasonable' licensing fee and now believe their
'equity' is being diminished. (Hey, that almost sounded lawyerish didn't
it...probably except to the lawyers in the crowd).

Not sure how many this would satisfy, but feel if one gives credit to
the source, at least one is acknowledging 'who made it possible'.

An example is a photo I recently borrowed / ripped off for my website.
It's of my client's '69 Spider which appeared in a recent book. I give
credit to the author and the photographer and give the name of the book.
It occurred to me to contact the author first, but was / am sure I would
then need to contact the photographer, the publisher, the publisher's
lawyers, and who knows who all. I'll certainly remove if asked to do so.

Biba
Irwindale, CA USA
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