schule Posted January 2, 2015 Report Share Posted January 2, 2015 This site is a great resource to share ideas and experiences. Hope it stays so, but I just read a thread thread this morning about flying above gross weight which was reinvigorated by a person looking for a copy of a Mooney Parts Catalog and Maintenance Manual and it got me thinking about another "technical" or is it "actual" violation of law which may expose this entire site or the culpable individuals to a law suit. I doubt Mooney would actually do it since this site is one of their best advertising streams, but I would say they have all rights to do so to anyone sharing their digital data without permission. Selling an original Mooney bound book or a Mooney thumb-drive bought from the company would be like going to a used book store, but anything else is possibly theft of intellectual property. Did Mooney as corporation give such permission carte blanche to this site? The thumb-drive data I have shows a copyright. Those looking for Mooney Pubs could just call them and have them sent. Service & Parts (830) 792-2901 or email technicalsupport@mooney.com. They tend to be very responsive. It is possible that I am missing a key piece of information on this and I am not a lawyer......I just want to make sure if the data he needs it is not a violation of Copyright Law. Kinda like the Napster thing was. Thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N601RX Posted January 2, 2015 Report Share Posted January 2, 2015 Piper's lawyers have actually threatened websites with legal action over this exact issue. There are also often 3rd parties involved such as with lycoming where they have granted a 3rd party exclusive rights to be the sole distributor of their service info. I don't see any copyright statements on any of the Mooney manuals I have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schule Posted January 2, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2015 All of the digital media I have from Mooney for the vintage models and K have it. Some of the older paper copies might not, but they are not so easy to trade on-line. The company is now starting to resume normal operations and this is one of their income streams.......... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cruiser Posted January 2, 2015 Report Share Posted January 2, 2015 It has become common practice and it is very easy to place a copyright symbol and claim copyright on anything that is exposed to the public. Of course original works are valid items for copyright protection.  Copyright can be abused too, such a microfilm company copyright claim on their film containing images of 100 year old newspapers.  Normally, copyright violation involves a loss to the copyright owner such as a software developer or a photographer loosing income from illegal copies of their work.  It is completely legal to resell a copyright item you rightfully obtained such as used books or software purchased from the rightful owner.  Normally minor violations of copyright are not pursued in the legal system because the prosecution is too costly and the monetary loss is too small for the owner to recover any benefit.  © 2015 Cruiser Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N601RX Posted January 2, 2015 Report Share Posted January 2, 2015 The electronic copies I have are appear to be scanned from paper manuals and don't have any copyright statements on them. They are the current version of the manuals. The copyright statements may have been added later when Mooney started supplying them digitally. If these were originally published in the 70's and 80's without any copyright claim then they likely fall into the public domain now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fantom Posted January 2, 2015 Report Share Posted January 2, 2015 Oh crap, we're all going to jail We and Mooney have better things to invest our time on IMO. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N33GG Posted January 2, 2015 Report Share Posted January 2, 2015 I spent too much of my life in court defending and prosecuting intellectual property rights of all kinds ( I am not an attorney...was plaintiff or defendant btw). Short attorney answer would probably be, it depends. My non-attorney answer is, that copyright statement doesn't mean a thing, until the owner decides to take the time and money to enforce it. Then what it means, depends entirely on how big, how wealthy, and how pissed off that owner is. I choose to tread lightly in the legal minefield. YMMV FWIW 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midlifeflyer Posted January 2, 2015 Report Share Posted January 2, 2015 The electronic copies I have are appear to be scanned from paper manuals and don't have any copyright statements on them. They are the current version of the manuals. The copyright statements may have been added later when Mooney started supplying them digitally. If these were originally published in the 70's and 80's without any copyright claim then they likely fall into the public domain now. Â N6719N is correct. Copyright protection in the US doesn't require the "copyright statement". It exists automatically through the act of ownership. The primary purpose of the notice is to create a presumption of intentional infringement. IOW, can't say, "I didn't know it was copyrighted." But it doesn't prevent one from being successfully sued or prosecuted for infringement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N601RX Posted January 2, 2015 Report Share Posted January 2, 2015 N6719N is correct. Copyright protection in the US doesn't require the "copyright statement". It exists automatically through the act of ownership. The primary purpose of the notice is to create a presumption of intentional infringement. IOW, can't say, "I didn't know it was copyrighted." But it doesn't prevent one from being successfully sued or prosecuted for infringement. Mark, Is this true for all material or just material published after a certain date? I was under the impression anything published before some date back in the 80's fell into the public domain if not copyrighted? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobertGary1 Posted January 3, 2015 Report Share Posted January 3, 2015 At one point the MSC's were giving away Mooney logo thumb drives with parts diagrams and maint manual. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schule Posted January 3, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2015 The official Mooney logo thumb-drive is where I have seen the copyright. It is not on the aircraft assigned POH. I will check the service.parts manual when I get to the hangar. It is on page one when you open it up according the instructions written in the batch file. The thumb-drive is a product sold by Mooney and it appears to me they have reserved all rights as the owner of an original work. I don't see an MSC, or anyone with physical possession, of a thumb-drive/manual bound by Mooney to be any different than a book owner giving a copy away. But if you make a derivative copy from that data and give it to someone else, you might be in violation of law. The newer K model thumb-drive is more like .pdf quality and the older vintage model thumb-drive is mostly scanned copies like from a micro-fish viewer. Back in the day I would guess printing processes/information sharing were not so easy as they are today so control by the original owner was less difficult. Again, I am not a lawyer/cop/Mooney employee, however, if you were to do this in an academic work you would be expelled. We have to careful balancing frugal with cheap bastard. Frugal is smart........but cheap bastards steal candy from babies, kick cute little puppy dogs, and push old ladies out of their way for personal gain. I have made my choice to not tread on Mooney, as I kinda like the products they have brought to market. It can make a dent in the wallet, but I choose to fly an airplane and those are part of the costs IMHO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yetti Posted January 3, 2015 Report Share Posted January 3, 2015 Mark, Is this true for all material or just material published after a certain date? I was under the impression anything published before some date back in the 80's fell into the public domain if not copyrighted? I went through this without an attorney.  If you put a picture you took on the internet you own the copyright. Does not need a C or statement at the end of the page.  I had a guy take a picture off a page then write an article. I pointed him to the part of the Federal Code after he responded with it is fair game.  He then took the picture down.  From a Mooney stand point, since the FARs require you to fly with the Operators Manual as part of the Aircraft Specification 2A3, then does the FAR over ride the copyright law?   It would seem that the manual is part of the plane you own, just like the fuel pump.  Lawyers are going to Lawyer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midlifeflyer Posted January 3, 2015 Report Share Posted January 3, 2015 Mark, Is this true for all material or just material published after a certain date? I was under the impression anything published before some date back in the 80's fell into the public domain if not copyrighted?  US copyrights ultimately expire but it's unnecessarily complex and depends on whether the work was created before or after 1/1/1978. There is also the issue of how and whether it's extended by such things as republication or modification. If you are interested, the US Copyright Office has a decent if confusing explanation brochure, Duration of Copyright (although even after reading it, you don't get the full picture). But the creation of copyright rights based on the act of creation has pretty much been the rule for a long time.  Kind of similar to the way trademarks work. Registering a trademark doesn't create a trademark. Using a trademark creates it. When trademark is registered federally, you are registering something that is already a trademark. Same with copyrights - you register something that is already copyrighted in order to get the benefit of some extra protections. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midlifeflyer Posted January 3, 2015 Report Share Posted January 3, 2015 From a Mooney stand point, since the FARs require you to fly with the Operators Manual as part of the Aircraft Specification 2A3, then does the FAR over ride the copyright law?   It would seem that the manual is part of the plane you own, just like the fuel pump.  Lawyers are going to Lawyer. The manual is part of the plane you own. It's also a book that can be bought, sold and given away. What you can't do (in theory anyway) is make a copies of the book and buy, sell, or give that away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobertGary1 Posted January 3, 2015 Report Share Posted January 3, 2015 Nothing in the FAR says the AFM or POH must be free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midlifeflyer Posted January 3, 2015 Report Share Posted January 3, 2015 Nothing in the FAR says the AFM or POH must be free. Heck, not much in aviation is Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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