Re: Apple II Reference Manual ("Red Book")

[CUTblakeney@home.com (Jeff Blakeney)]

On 14 Apr 2000 19:58:44 +0200, pausch@saafNOSPAM.se (Paul Schlyter)
wrote:

>So it's a matter of what you give the highest priority: should as
>many people as possible who want to learn about the Apple II get
>access to that information?  Or should those who are furtunate enough
>to own a Red Book be able to sell it at the highest possible price?

>I have one of those Red Books myself, and I had no idea these books
>nowadays sell at such prices.  For me it's perfectly OK if the
>contents of this Red Book is scanned and distributed on the Internet
>-- I think it's more important that anyone who wants to get at the
>content of this book can get it than that I may be able to sell my
>copy for a higher amount of money than I expected.

It doesn't matter whether you are okay with distributing it.  It is a
copyrighted work and it is illegal for it to be distributed against
the wishes of the copyright holder.  They own it and if they don't
want it scanned and available to everyone on the internet then it
works to a resellers advantage and the detriment of the average user.

If they decide to release their copyright then the resellers suffer
and the users benefit.

But only the copyright holder has the RIGHT to allow people to COPY
their work outside of the fair use clause.

>You could compare this to a public library: at the Royal Library here
>in Stockholm I am able to look at many old and rare books.  I'm not
>allowed to borrow them home (they're too valuable for that), but I
>can order copies of any pages I want in any of these books, and all
>I'll have to pay is the cost of producing the copies.  If this
>service would be cancelled, it's possible that these books might get
>still more expensive in the market of old, rare books among
>antiquarian book sellers.  Do you think this service should be
>cancelled, or continued?

Those books are either not copyrighted or their copyright has expired.
In these cases you can copy all the pages you want to your hearts
content.  There is also the fair use clauses that allows you to make
copies of portions of a book for your own PERSONAL use.

The copyright on the Red Book will not expire until after 2030 if the
copyright holder doesn't release it before the copyright expires.

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