Bernie Hutchins, Electronotes, Copyrights

[Sean Costello]

John Blacet wrote:

> Copyright notices no longer are required, as everything is ASSUMED to be
> copyrighted automatically! 

Everything, that is, published after some point in 1979.  A large
portion of Electronotes falls before this date, and has no explicit
copyright.
 
> The best option is to redraw the schematics and use them to your hearts
> content. Mr Hutchins has no copyright on the actual circuit
> configuration.

Although I think that Mr. Hutchins actually went after someone on this
list for a completely redrawn schematic.

> I can certainly see the point that Mr Hutchins has spent a lot of time
> researching the Electronotes material and has some rights to make a few
> $$ off their distribution. From the list however, I gather that it is
> quite difficult to actually buy them!

The ability to buy Electronotes has been erratic.  Some people who have
bought sets recently have complained about shipping times of several
months.  I made two purchases, and had immediate service on one, and
slightly over a month on the other (granted, he had just moved before
the second purchase).

Personally, I would think that the ideal solution with the
non-copyrighted material is to keep it on a webpage, but to be sure to
attribute the author, as well as all relevant bibliographic info, and
add a link to each illustration to a page that has information on how to
buy Electronotes. Tom Henry has such a page on his site.

I can't understand why Mr. Hutchins has such a vendetta against the
members of this list.  He had to go to quite some lengths to find those
images on Romeo's site (they weren't even "posted" in the sense that you
could access them by any standard links). I am sure that most of the
sets of Electronotes that have been sold in the past four years have
been to members of this list. I had never heard of Electronotes before
joining this list, and I'm sure that most of the younger list members
are in the same boat.  Let's face it, there aren't many people out
there, besides the members of this list, that give a $#!+ about these
schematics, or about any of this stuff.

Sean Costello