<html><head><style type='text/css'>p { margin: 0; }</style></head><body><div style='font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000'>Del, Wim and all, Actually, we are now getting into that can of worms in copyright law known as the "fair use exception".  Small excerpts may be quoted from copyrighted works without permission under certain circumstances under the "fair use" doctrine as when writing a revue of the work or (and this is a bit more vague) "for educational purposes" - as, for example, when trying to demonstrate a principle of copyright law to a group of piano technicians. What constitutes a "small excerpt" is a gray area, and it is always a good idea to ask permission and attribute the quote to the copyright holder, if possible - but quoting a sentence or two from a copyrighted work in the context of a discussion for educational purposes would most likely be covered by the "fair use" exception. Entire works, or significant excerpts of works (like entire chapters), however, are not so covered. In between? That's why lawyers get rich... Israel Stein On:Mar 03/28/11 7:41 AM  "Delwin D Fandrich" <del@fandrichpiano.com> wrote: >I don’t know about you, Wim, but I took my reference from a publication of the U.S. Copyright Office. As such it is in the Public Domain and can be freely copied and distributed by anyone for any reason. Same with publications such as The Wood Handbook (published by the Forest Products Lab. From time to time private publishers produce versions of The Wood Handbook under some name or other quite legally because it original is in the public domain.  >Copyright protection has nothing to do with whether you sell a copy of copyrighted material or freely give it away. On my classroom printouts, for example, I note that they are copyrighted. For a variety of reasons I don’t want them distributed to people who do not attend the actual class in which they were freely given away. It is a violation of copyright law for someone to copy one of those handouts and freely give it away. I know it is done from time to time but I hope the person doing it knows it is a reflection on their ethics as they do it. Same with articles I write whether they are published in the Journal or on my website where they could be freely read by anyone. Copyright has to do with distribution, not simply with selling or profiting. Why else do you think the Internet distributors of music—if you can call it that—were in trouble for making it possible for people to freely download and freely distribute copyrighted material from their websites? >You can buy a copyrighted book and give it away. You cannot buy a copyrighted book, make copies of it and give those away. Well, you can, but you’ll be violating copyright law if you do. >ddf Delwin D FandrichPiano Design & Fabrication6939 Foothill Court SW, Olympia, Washington 98512 USAPhone  360.515.0119 — Cell  360.388.6525<a href="mailto:del@fandrichpiano.com" target="_blank">del@fandrichpiano.com </a>— <a href="mailto:ddfandrich@gmail.com" target="_blank">ddfandrich@gmail.com</a> From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf Of tnrwim@aol.com Sent: Monday, March 28, 2011 4:36 AM To: pianotech@ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Steinway parts list <div>As a follow up, the fact that both Del and I copied and pasted direct quotes from books written about copyright law, is not a violation of copyright laws, because all we are doing is sharing this information with others. We are not selling the information, nor are we claiming these statements to be ours. </div></div></body></html>