[ForSale-Swap] Heathkit & Viking manuals...

[Crabtreejr at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/12/06 5:20:05 AM Central Daylight Time, 
StephenTetorka at cs.com writes:
> ....are original.
> 
> Good question was asked: does copywrite protection pertain to non-existant 
> companies?
> 
> Anyone know??
> 
> Regards,
> Steve
> WA2TAK

First, a disclaimer.  I am not an attorney, and you use anything that follows 
at your own risk.

There are two fundamental questions here:
1.  Does a partcular work, in this case a manual, still have copyright 
protection?
2.  Who owns the rights to reproduce a work protected by copyright? 

1.  If a work was copyright protected, and is still copyright protected, 
depends upon many things.  Most important are the original date of publication, 
and whether or not a notice of copyright was included.  You will find a useful 
chart at:
    http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm
and you can then see which case applies.

Looking at the two Heathkit manuals which I have to hand, Heath Company did 
include a notice of copyright on both of them.

2.  If a work is still copyright, then somebody somewhere owns those rights.  
It can be difficult to find out exactly who, particularly if a publisher or 
company has ceased trading.  There are also difficulties if a parts of a 
company have been sold.

Even then, I believe that the owner is under no obligation to make available 
a copy of the work, or give permission to somebody else to do so.  What you do 
then is upto you.  In the 1976 Copyright Act there is a section dealing with 
"fair use".  See:
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Copyright_Act_of_1976
I will not comment further on this.

It appears that Heathkit have been through many changes of ownership.  See:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathkit
and who owns the rights to the manuls is not clear.  IIRC there was an outfit 
with the name Heath of Heathkit in Florida who used to advertise manuals in 
QST.  Heathkit Educational Systems have a web site at:
       http://www.heathkit.com/

E.F. Johnson still exist.  See:
        http://www.efjohnson.com/
They have been through many changes of ownership.  They could probably tell 
you who still owns the rights to the amateur radio manuals.

I was told that Agilent had placed all of  their manuals which were published 
prior to certain date in the public domain.  I have no further details.

HTH and 73

John  KC0GGH