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Posting OLD manuals or Maintenance manuals for heavy Eqpt

BetGamer

Member
Joined
May 28, 2019
Messages
8
Location
Helena, MT
Ok. I would like to know if we have any links to sites, or online-safe places to post old manuals so others will have it available to them?

Last month, I bought a Pettibone 125, model 858, and have had no luck on finding a manual or parts book for it. I did finding something close. I searched for weeks, diligently online, following every lead, every recommendations, every site that pops up, and came up empty handed. I did, however find something close to it, which was a few models off but looked the same as what I have.
I now have a hard-to-find manual for a Pettibone Speedall 250D. I took it to Staples, so, I now have a full copy, and also I got it in PDF form for further distribution. These older books/manuals are not in print, and have not been sold for many years. To my knowledge and Staples as well, these books are not a copy write issue for several reasons. They are safe to copy and place on PDF at minimal cost.

Sadly, this forum does not allow me to load it because the 300+ pages makes the file too big to attach it on here.

Please drop the link of where to post them so folks can post our older, or out of print, manuals for others to benefit. I know a lot of you have some.
Just offering a solution to a larger problem in finding rare manuals.
 

John C.

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2007
Messages
12,865
Location
Northwest
Occupation
Machinery & Equipment Appraiser
What we have seen here are some people that have manuals in PDF form and loaded into a cloud server. Media Fire and Dropbox are the most used that I've seen. The entire file can be uploaded to the server and then down loaded from the server with a link emailed to the person asking for it. The problem with this method is that there is no listing of what might be available. I think there is a thread on here somewhere where people have posted that they have some of these materials available.
Copyrights can still be an issue. As I recall, an author copyright is good for the life of the author plus seventy five years. Companies like John Deere will viciously enforce their copyright on all written materials with a gang of lawyers that have nothing better to do. Because of this, many people with these kinds of materials would rather not put up with the hassles. So far I haven't seen the same vicious approach from other major brands but all it takes is a newbie in a suit with an attitude to change all that.
 

John Canfield

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 27, 2009
Messages
431
Location
Texas
Occupation
Ranching
Copyright laws are still a bit of a mess regarding orphaned works, I think the worst case scenario for a website or forum is the copyright owner comes forward and issues a takedown order. I have a few RV equipment service manuals on my personal website in plain view for years and nobody has said boo about it.

Bottom line, no worries mate.
 

excavator

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2006
Messages
1,445
Location
Pacific North West
What we have seen here are some people that have manuals in PDF form and loaded into a cloud server. Media Fire and Dropbox are the most used that I've seen. The entire file can be uploaded to the server and then down loaded from the server with a link emailed to the person asking for it. The problem with this method is that there is no listing of what might be available. I think there is a thread on here somewhere where people have posted that they have some of these materials available.
Copyrights can still be an issue. As I recall, an author copyright is good for the life of the author plus seventy five years. Companies like John Deere will viciously enforce their copyright on all written materials with a gang of lawyers that have nothing better to do. Because of this, many people with these kinds of materials would rather not put up with the hassles. So far I haven't seen the same vicious approach from other major brands but all it takes is a newbie in a suit with an attitude to change all that.
My local printer told me that as long as I was having it copied for myself, not to sell, there is no problem with copyrighted manuals.
 

John C.

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2007
Messages
12,865
Location
Northwest
Occupation
Machinery & Equipment Appraiser
It's called fair use and most likely people won't care unless it is someone like John Deere who will put lawyers on the people who printed it. The issue here isn't printing off one copy for your own use. It is posting it on the web for anyone to down load at any time. Anyone remember a company called Napster and what happened to them?

I love the idea of a clearing house of service manuals and parts books for any machine ever built. In my opinion though, if the machine is no longer made and the population is small and the manufacturer no longer exists or is at least in a position to profit from sales of those materials, there should be no problem. However that doesn't mean that when you post a file for down load that there will never be any time you are totally out of the range of a phone call or certified mailing telling you to desist and contact an attorney for discussions concerning copyright violation and renumeration.
 

thepumpguysc

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 18, 2010
Messages
7,445
Location
Sunny South Carolina
Occupation
Master Inj.Pump rebuilder
I noticed on another site, Tractor Forum, they have a header at the top of their page that says, "manuals"..
If u click on it, there are SEVERAL diff. manuals for anyone to use.. operator, shop, parts etc.
probably nothing you guys would be interested in but non the less.. they have a header that allows downloads.
 
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