Uploading PDFs of railroad modeling magazines (scans) - inappropriate?

One of my web clients is a contractor... they build houses AND maintain rights to their floor plans! So you had better think twice about letting yours go.

Now we are REALLY having fun! : )

dlm

Uh, that's not a "copyright" at all: it's either a patent or a trade secret, and the same rules do not apply.

-Pete

True, but somewhere in this discussion, references were made to patents as well. I guess I was just combining different parts of the thread to show that it wasn't really as simple as some suggest that it might be.

dlm

Not even sure about that one... I don't know how much something would have to change before the courts would consider it to be "different." I'm reasonably sure that changing one word in a poem would not make it different, changing one note in a song would not make it different and I'd suspect that changing one ingredient in something like Coca Cola wouldn't make it different enough either. But that is pure speculation...

dlm

I'm definitely intending to keep the floor I've paid for - the building company is welcome to the intellectual rights to its concepts _after_ that point. (as in 'what do I care?')

Regards, Greg.P.

Did you change just one word of someone's poem or did you independently write almost the same poem?

If your bottling company wanted to make a competitive 'Cola' and developed it's own independant formula which just happened to (almost) match Coca Cola's would you be guilty of anything? OTOH if you managed to obtain Coca Cola's formula and changed some small part of it, you would be guilty of (plagarisim ;-) but the competitive effect would be the same.

Regards, Greg.P.

I'm sorry, my parents have prior art on *my* genes, so no, you *can't* patent anything you get from me.

mark

If we can't patent anything we get from you, can we at least get a shot for it? I'll have whiskey, thanks.

It is neither a patent nor a trade secret, it is a recipe. Recipes cannot be copyrighted.

That would make it what is called a trade secret.

Greg.P.

Oh for goodness' sake! The Coke formula -or recipe- *IS* a trade secret; and it's probably the best-known one out there!

-Pete

One word... royalties! : )

dlm

Whiskey? Are we talking single malt here, in which case, this approaches religion.

mark "nothing from the islands, please"

What? Not even Highland Park??

I've a friend who swears by the Bowmore. At a con once, there was a single malt tasting. I took one small sip, and wandered around for 15 min to find him, and told him to enjoy. I do *not* like iodine; I'll take peat, thank you.

mark "now, the MacAllen, or Knockando...."

Well, Bowmore IS made on Islay, right next door to Laphroaig - although I don't find it near so iodinic as Leapfrog or Lagavulin. HP, though, is from Orkney, and I just find good peaty and malty flavors in it - albeit strongly so compared to many Highland malts.

He is arguing the fallacy of the current perpetual copyright under the guise of 'intellectual property' owned by 'immortal' corporations. It is a perversion of the original concept of copyright for the creators lifetime plus a stated time period in the US and Canada.

Again only if the copyright is perpetual Wolf.

Want to bet? That's what John Moore though too.

Drug companies do this all the time. When a drug patent is about to expire the companies can and do make a small change that does not affect the action of the drug and patent as 'new' to stave off generic manufacturers.

(Late-breaking followup, yes, I know.)

My *impression* is that it does not matter whether or not the owner of the copyright would *lose* any money if you provided these documents for third parties to use.

In many cases, they do not *offer* back issues of their old magazines -- any more than the record companies still offer various old recordings on *any* medium (let alone on cassette or vinyl).

All that seems to matter is that they own the rights.

So, if 'twere me, I would not the argument that I would *not* cut into their sales of back issues sway me -- for your own safety's sake, don't do this.