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Schematics & Copyrights

11/1/1999 9:00 PM
Jack	Schematics & Copyrights There has been a lot of discussion recently on copyrights and patents, both here and on usenet. Here's a few cents worth: There are 3 basic requirements for copyright protection: (1) The work must be original; (the standard for this is very low) (2) the work must be fixed ("in a tangible medium of expression"); (3) the work must be an expression rather than merely an idea. When you print out your schematic drawing, it is fixed. Because it is a diagram of a mechanical unit and not merely an idea, it is an expression. The copyright holder is granted exlusive rights to distribute, reproduce, display or prepare derivative works. A derivative work incorporates a portion of the copyrighted work in some form and is substantially similar to the original. Re-creating or re-drawing a copyrighted schematic is a derivative use and therefore requires the permission of the copyright holder of the original image. You cannot get around a copyright merely by redrawing a manufacturers published schematic - that would be like re-typing a Steven King novel, setting it in a different typeface and calling it your own. It won't fly. BUT if you trace a circuit and draw the schematic, even though it comes out identical to a published manufacturer's schematic, then US law considers your drawing sufficiently original, so long as you can prove you did not copy the previous drawing. [Marshall A. Leaffer, Understanding Copyright Law 33 (2d ed. 1995)] Caveat emptor. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited by law. Get professional help if you can afford it. -JACK

11/1/1999 9:00 PM

Jack

Schematics & Copyrights

There has been a lot of discussion recently on copyrights and patents, both here and on usenet. Here's a few cents worth:

There are 3 basic requirements for copyright protection:

(1) The work must be original; (the standard for this is very low)
(2) the work must be fixed ("in a tangible medium of
expression");
(3) the work must be an expression rather than merely an idea.

When you print out your schematic drawing, it is fixed. Because it is a diagram of a mechanical unit and not merely an idea, it is an expression.

The copyright holder is granted exlusive rights to distribute, reproduce, display or prepare derivative works.
A derivative work incorporates a portion of the copyrighted work in some form and is substantially similar to the original.

Re-creating or re-drawing a copyrighted schematic is a derivative use and therefore requires the permission of the copyright holder of the original image. You cannot get around a copyright merely by redrawing a manufacturers published schematic - that would be like re-typing a Steven King novel, setting it in a different typeface and calling it your own. It won't fly.

BUT if you trace a circuit and draw the schematic, even though it comes out identical to a published manufacturer's schematic, then US law considers your drawing sufficiently original, so long as you can prove you did not copy the previous drawing. [Marshall A. Leaffer, Understanding Copyright Law 33 (2d ed. 1995)]

Caveat emptor. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited by law. Get professional help if you can afford it.

-JACK

11/1/1999 10:33 PM
BWilliamson	Thanks Jack--I'm going to save this post bw

11/2/1999 8:02 AM
Steve A.	Jack: Thanks for your post! BTW I had heard it suggested that someone does not have to actually apply for a copyright to be protected by the copyright laws. Any comments on that? Steve Ahola

11/2/1999 1:19 PM

Jack

quote:
"BTW I had heard it suggested that someone does not have to actually apply for a copyright to be protected by the copyright laws"

Copyright is automatically bestowed on a work once it is "fixed in any tangible medium of expression". However, it would be necessary to formally file for a copyright before legal action could be taken against someone infringing on the work.

Works published before 1/1/1978 without a copyright notice are public domain as is anything created before 1923. Works published without notice between 1-1-78 and 3-1-89 retain copyright only if registration was made within 5 years of their creation.

"Intent to infringe is not needed to find copyright infringement." - U.S. District Court. If you post a schematic that was drawn by someone else, and they merely copied a manufacturer's drawing, then you could also be guilty of infringement.

Title 17, U.S.C., Section 102(b) sez: "in no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work."

This is a little difficult to understand but one U.S. Court described it thusly: "The use of the art is a totally different thing from a publication of the book explaining it. The copyright of a book on book-keeping cannot secure the exclusive right to make, sell, and use account-books prepared upon the plan set forth in such book."

In other words, books of blank forms will not be covered by copyright, no matter how unique they might be, and even if they follow the design from a copyright-protected book. (but you see copyrights on blank accounting books all the time; which are likely invalid)

A defense against copyright infringement is often "fair use". Section 107 of the US Code says "the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."

Section 107 also lists 4 factors for consideration in determining fair use.

The entire (fun reading) copyright section of the US Code is online at http://www.bitlaw.com/source/17usc/index.html

regards, Jack

11/2/1999 5:39 PM
John Stokes	Jack, wow! I'm impressed! You really look like you've done your homework on this. Now back to the whole reason this was brought up. Specifically, the posting of "Dumble" schematics on a web page. Since these schematics were most likely obtained by tracing out the circuit looking at the innards of the amp in question, then it would seem like there is no copyright infringement. Has anyone ever seen a Dumble schematic provided by Dumble??? Hence, if Dumble has never provided a schematic to anyone, then there would then be nothing to copy, no?? By default then, the "schematcs" were then only obtainable by reverse engineering. Moreover, if the circuits themselves are not patented, is there any way Dumble could stop someone from commercially building clones of his amps, based on schematics obtained by reverse engineering?

11/2/1999 5:39 PM

John Stokes

Jack, wow! I'm impressed! You really look like you've done your homework on this. Now back to the whole reason this was brought up. Specifically, the posting of "Dumble" schematics on a web page. Since these schematics were most likely obtained by tracing out the circuit looking at the innards of the amp in question, then it would seem like there is no copyright infringement. Has anyone ever seen a Dumble schematic provided by Dumble??? Hence, if Dumble has never provided a schematic to anyone, then there would then be nothing to copy, no?? By default then, the "schematcs" were then only obtainable by reverse engineering.

Moreover, if the circuits themselves are not patented, is there any way Dumble could stop someone from commercially building clones of his amps, based on schematics obtained by reverse engineering?

11/2/1999 6:25 PM
SpeedRacer	It would seem from his POV that he has protected himself via the "secrecy" agreement.. you can't open the amp to RE it if you are bound by a contract which states you won't open it.. I think that's how he planned on avoiding the whole nebulous (and expensive) patent law stuff. Regardless of how the schematic was created (copied, traced out, etc) you had to crack the amp open and violate the contract to do it. Simple yet effective, if it holds up. (just trying to understand perhaps where he's coming from, not comment on the current situation)

11/2/1999 6:25 PM

SpeedRacer

It would seem from his POV that he has protected himself via the "secrecy" agreement.. you can't open the amp to RE it if you are bound by a contract which states you won't open it.. I think that's how he planned on avoiding the whole nebulous (and expensive) patent law stuff. Regardless of how the schematic was created (copied, traced out, etc) you had to crack the amp open and violate the contract to do it. Simple yet effective, if it holds up.
(just trying to understand perhaps where he's coming from, not comment on the current situation)

11/2/1999 7:33 PM
John Stokes	Joe, agreed, the secrecy clause in the purchase contract would prohibit RE-ing the thing. However, it appears that it has been done regardless, since I do not believe that Howard provides schematics to his customers or to any service techs. Now, if (in a hypothetical example) Steve obtains these schematics from a third party, who in turn may have received them from someone else (who knows), then why couldn't Steve post them? Clearly, Steve himself hasn't violated the purchase agreement, since he didn't do the RE work. Perhaps the amp was on it's third (or fourth) owner. I too looked at Gil's site and read Howard's documents. It looked to me that you (the original purchaser) had to agree not to sell it to anyone who you thought might RE it, but I did not notice that you were obligated to pass onto the purchaser the secrecy agreement. Hence, if that were the case, the second owner would then be free to resell the thing to anyone. If that is true, then the third owner (or fourth owner) could open it up without violating any contractual requirements. Hence, schematics obtained without violating any copyrights, which Steve should be free to post. One might also question the "reasonableness" of any purchase agreements, particularly if an item was on it's third or fourth owner. If they had paid for it and own it 100%, how could someone they have not done business with directly (Howard) keep them from doing whatever they want with the thing? I know of one real example (shall remain nameless) where a Dumble owner took his amp to a local tech for re-tubing and bias (didn't want to hassle with shipping it back to Howard and dealing with delays, expense, hassle, etc.), and gave the local tech specific directions that he was not to look inside any more than absolutely necessary to re-bias, and under no circumstances was he to try to RE the thing. The tech did it anyway, against the specific instructions of the owner. Somehow the owner found out and that ended the relationship with that tech, but that's beside the point. That would be one possible source for Dumble schematics. Despite the fact that they were obtained in violation of the agreement. So who would be responsible? The owner tried to shortcut getting the amp serviced, but did so in good faith that the tech would follow his instructions. The instructions were verbal so there was no formal written contract broken between the tech and owner. Yet the owner did not intend to violate his contract with Howard either. Still, the tech got thie RE information and himself was not under contract with Howard. Whew, messy!!! Now, if that tech gave the schematics to anyone, why couldn't he post them??? Mind you, I'm not condoning contract violations or anything unethical, but it happens. If someone else does it, and makes information freely available to you, why can't you take advantage of it?

11/2/1999 7:33 PM

John Stokes

Joe, agreed, the secrecy clause in the purchase contract would prohibit RE-ing the thing. However, it appears that it has been done regardless, since I do not believe that Howard provides schematics to his customers or to any service techs.

Now, if (in a hypothetical example) Steve obtains these schematics from a third party, who in turn may have received them from someone else (who knows), then why couldn't Steve post them? Clearly, Steve himself hasn't violated the purchase agreement, since he didn't do the RE work. Perhaps the amp was on it's third (or fourth) owner. I too looked at Gil's site and read Howard's documents. It looked to me that you (the original purchaser) had to agree not to sell it to anyone who you thought might RE it, but I did not notice that you were obligated to pass onto the purchaser the secrecy agreement. Hence, if that were the case, the second owner would then be free to resell the thing to anyone. If that is true, then the third owner (or fourth owner) could open it up without violating any contractual requirements. Hence, schematics obtained without violating any copyrights, which Steve should be free to post.

One might also question the "reasonableness" of any purchase agreements, particularly if an item was on it's third or fourth owner. If they had paid for it and own it 100%, how could someone they have not done business with directly (Howard) keep them from doing whatever they want with the thing?

I know of one real example (shall remain nameless) where a Dumble owner took his amp to a local tech for re-tubing and bias (didn't want to hassle with shipping it back to Howard and dealing with delays, expense, hassle, etc.), and gave the local tech specific directions that he was not to look inside any more than absolutely necessary to re-bias, and under no circumstances was he to try to RE the thing. The tech did it anyway, against the specific instructions of the owner. Somehow the owner found out and that ended the relationship with that tech, but that's beside the point. That would be one possible source for Dumble schematics. Despite the fact that they were obtained in violation of the agreement. So who would be responsible? The owner tried to shortcut getting the amp serviced, but did so in good faith that the tech would follow his instructions. The instructions were verbal so there was no formal written contract broken between the tech and owner. Yet the owner did not intend to violate his contract with Howard either. Still, the tech got thie RE information and himself was not under contract with Howard. Whew, messy!!! Now, if that tech gave the schematics to anyone, why couldn't he post them??? Mind you, I'm not condoning contract violations or anything unethical, but it happens. If someone else does it, and makes information freely available to you, why can't you take advantage of it?

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