I have refrained from contributing to this thread because I have been afraid of going overboard.
There have been a lot of good point made (like you need me to tell you that!).
Once you put something out on the internet that is freely downloadable, people will download it. If they can make money somehow by using it, some will do so. Whether or not there is anything the person who uploaded the resource can do about that is unclear tome, but ti seems probable that in pretty much all cases it is not worth the money that would have to be spent to do so.
I did want to point out, though, wrt to Dennis' concerns about posting rare documents, that Adobe DOES have a facility for limiting access to PDF files by password. If one wished to distribute and control access to a PDF, one can distribute the document and supply the password to those who are to be granted access to the document.
Yes, there is the danger of the password eventually getting out into the public domain, and I don't have a good answer for how to protect against that. And, yes, it is possible that someone who has been granted access may pass the document along with the password to others, and I don't know how to get around that either.
DaveD
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On 4/3/2018 11:19 AM, Dennis Tillman W7PF wrote:
Hi SnapDiode,
You definitely hit a nerve. 17 years ago I began keeping lists of various Tek products I had so I didn't buy something I already owned. That was how my list of TM500/TM5000 plugins got started. It quickly expanded to include unusual, rare, one of a kind, other manufacturers, or odd ball TM500/TM5000 plugins that I saw anywhere. The list grew to a point that David DiGiacomo contacted me and offered to host a copy (Thank you David!) on his web site: www.davmar.com
Other web sites found the list useful and copied it verbatim which was fine with me since my name was plainly visible at the top so it was clear I was the author.
Then one day years ago I discovered there was an EXACT copy of my list with someone else's name at the top. This P#$*@K was taking credit for my work. He is somewhere in England. I tried contacting him at his email address which was also there in the list he purloined but of course he never replied.
Even now as I write this it makes my blood boil that someone would do this. After that it took years for me to trust someone again with other lists of Tek equipment I was maintaining. That is the damage that can come from theft of intellectual property such as your 1S1 manual and my list. Kurt Rosenfeld, the creator of TekWiki, finally restored my trust because he is doing something so important and so professional that he deserves all of our support. I have given him other lists of Tek plugins, application notes, etc. that I have accumulated. But I have still more that I am conflicted about sharing.
I have some extremely rare 7000 manuals that were very expensive and, as far as I know, they are the only ones in existence. If I make them available for scanning how do I get my investment back? Part of me sees this as selfish, but my wife works hard to support us and she wants to know when my passion for Tektronix is going to stop costing her money and contribute to our financial obligations. Every time I go to a swap meet I have to consistently come back with more money than I brought with me. So far that hasn't happened. My wife needs me to do much more than that if I am to carry my share of our living expenses.
Dennis Tillman W7PF
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of snapdiode via Groups.Io
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2018 5:54 PM
Subject: [TekScopes] Your opinion on using other people's work
So about 15 years ago I made a 1S1 manual in Word by scanning the original in three passes, to end up with OCR'd text, B/W diagrams, grayscale pictures, and 11x17 color schematic pages.
I made it into a PDF and it ended up on BAMA.as a free download.
Which is fine, but now I see this on eBay
I can see by the thumbnail this is my PDF.
Is it too much to expect some sort of credit for the work of creating that PDF?
Besides I keep finding typos and graphical oddities in the document.
