[sdiy] OTA book on eBay

[Rainer Buchty]

>What I'd like to see (at least for Music) is a modification of 
>copyright law... that says something like if the copyright holder does 
>not make the product available for purchase, then the public would get 
>a licence to make a limited number of copies.

I'd like to see a similar law for proprietary schematics and datasheets, 
for that matter. And dumps of used EPROMs, PALs etc.

>When someone takes a product that they bought one copy of, then 
>reproduces it for profit on E-bay, that is just wrong.

Well, the question is, where good will ends and profit starts. It's not 
like e.g. Mark Glinsky is giving away his copies for just the postage 
plus copy shop costs, but he charges an (IMO) fair fee -- his time at 
the copy machine should be valued also.

Now, that guy on eBay sold a copy of an unavailable *book* for $20. 
Given the fact that a book is more to copy than a set of schematics, is 
$20 already greedy?

>I have received some material, and have sent some material. The 
>material I received was sent at no cost to me (or profit to them) and 
>what I sent was as no cost to them (or profit to me).

Agreed. I was overwhelmed by the support I received when hacking the 
Ensoniq machines, and it never occured to me that I should turn that 
support into money.

Instead, I published everything I got on the web -- free for all.

Rainer