Permission to quote from general aerospace references like Niu, Bruhn, Roark, MIL Handbook & etc 2

[aerostress82]

Hello all,
Does anyone have any exact information about needing a permission to quote "general" aerospace references like Niu, Bruhn, Roark, MIL Handbook (& other similar aerospace textbooks/references)?

1) a. If you need this kind of permission, where/who would these need to be addressed to?
b. Do you have to pay to the original publisher of these books then?

If the pricing applies to these permissions;
2) a. What would the range of the prices be? (if you had any experience with this kind of work - ie, compiling a short/long stress analysis manual - pdf/Mathcad/Excel VBA)
b. How would the pricing be implemented? (Per equation/Per figure/Per chapter)


Thank you for taking time to respond. I sincerely appreciate the input. All the Best..

Spaceship!!


Aerospace Engineer, M.Sc. / Aircraft Stress Engineer with 7 years of experience
(United States)

 

[VEBill]

Most quotations (of reasonable size) for reference purposes would be considered to be 'Fair Use'. Obviously not wholesale copying of large sections. Look up 'Fair Use' for specific guidance.

Copying figures likely needs permission.

MIL Handbooks are typically government publications, and they're often very generous in permitted uses.

(Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.)

 

[rb1957]

if you buy the text (or the spec) you can quote it.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[IRstuff]

Military specifications and handbooks, in their original form are not copyrighted:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/105

Specifications and handbooks that might have been transferred to a third party, even if they are 100% identical to the original documents, ARE copyrighted by the third party.

As for third party documents, even if you pay for the document, you have not paid to, nor are allowed to, quote or copy material without prior permission:

http://www.sae.org/about/intelproperty/faqs.htm

The latter applies to documents created by individuals, as well as organizations. So, Roark's is copyrighted by McMillan, at the very minimum.

TTFN
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
homework forum: //

http://www.engineering.com/AskForum/aff/32.aspx

faq731-376 forum1529

 

[aerostress82]

Thank you both for your explanations guys.

rb1957; For Bruhn & Niu, once I buy those documents, would I be able to quote anything, sir? By "anything", I mean the formulas & figures for the panel & stiffener analysis on "a stiffener+panel structure".
(What I'm thinking is non-commercial currently. But if I were to compile a commercial stress manual of some structure for my company, would the company need to buy these books too? -considering I already bought them)


IRstuff; Regarding Roark, is this the company to ask permission from to quote formulas & figures only?

http://www.mcmillan.ca/aerospace-and-defense

Have you ever done this? Even if it is non-commercial, do they need this permission still?
Or if it were to be commercial later, would they charge "per usage amount" or is it just a "one time permission to be granted for any use of this reference"?


Spaceship!!


Aerospace Engineer, M.Sc. / Aircraft Stress Engineer with 7 years of experience
(United States)

 

[IRstuff]

I've not tried to do anything like that yet. I suspect that so long as proper and prominent attribution is presented, they will grant permission and not necessarily charge anything. Tons of textbooks use graphs and figures from other books, so it's a pretty common occurrence.

I don't think that owning the books gives you any right to arbitrarily quote without attribution or without permission.

TTFN
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
homework forum: //

http://www.engineering.com/AskForum/aff/32.aspx

faq731-376 forum1529

 

[monkeydog]

A quick look at "Lindeburg", Roarks and Marks copyright page states (paraphrased) you cannot reproduce in the contents in any way without prior written permission - all boilerplate verbiage.

I believe what you can do is state "Per Roarks 6th Edition, Table 3, Case 2a, the Transverse Shear is 123.4 units."

 

[rb1957]

yes, the book is available as a source. once you buy the book you can use it as a reference .... quote from it, attribute it (ie pg xx, ref yy). Roark's coppyright is something I've never read, and it seems surprising to buy a reference book and not be allowed to quote it ... I guess you could use monkeydog's expression ... "in accordance with ref xx (Roark) table yy, case zz, using the following data ... P = aa lbs, t = bb", etc then stress = ss psi .... but it does sound odd.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[IRstuff]

Not sure why that would be "odd." unless it's a matter of semantics. There's nothing that enjoins you from "quoting" verbally anything from a book. However, "reproduction" is prohibited; "quoting" from "Space Mission Analysis and Design,"

No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying. recording. or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.

This is substantially similar to every single copyright notice I've ever read in any book. Unless the author or publisher explicitly grants free license to copy, you are not legally able to reproduce the contents of a book unless it's past its copyright, which is typically the life of its author plus 50 or 100 yrs.

From another textbook:

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including uploading, downloading, printing, decompiling, recording or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012, (212) 850-6011, fax (212) 850-6008, E-Mail: PERMREQ @ WILEY.COM.

Interestingly, if your book is in Braille, you can reproduce the Braille version ad naseum.

TTFN
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
homework forum: //

http://www.engineering.com/AskForum/aff/32.aspx

faq731-376 forum1529

 

[rb1957]

i guess I've never read a copyright notice before. I don't think it stops you using the material as a reference, I think the intention is to stop you copying the material into your own book. I have always seen calcs written up essentially quoting the source, giving the equation for stress, and saying "as per" the source and giving only the result. that to me would be "odd".

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[IRstuff]

There's some leeway in "fair use," which has had ups and downs in the courts, but personal use falls under "fair use." But the OP alluded to possible commercialization, which is not "fair use."

TTFN
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
homework forum: //

http://www.engineering.com/AskForum/aff/32.aspx

faq731-376 forum1529

 

[rb1957]

ok, i read the OP as saying he wanted to quote reference material (as in a calc) ... so it's back to the OP ... is this for calcs you're doing, or are you writing your own text (that you intend to sell) ?

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[IRstuff]

(What I'm thinking is non-commercial currently. But if I were to compile a commercial stress manual of some structure for my company, would the company need to buy these books too? -considering I already bought them)

Even the non-commercial, internal mass distribution would probably not stand the "fair use" test. That's assuming the usage gets challenged, which it might not. On the other hand the Lemuelson Foundation famously sued for patent infringement against any deep-pocketed company that used bar-code readers, even though they didn't bother with the makers of the bar code readers, because they were small potatoes.

TTFN
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
homework forum: //

http://www.engineering.com/AskForum/aff/32.aspx

faq731-376 forum1529

 

[aerostress82]

In 15-20 years, when I'm at a level to do so, I would like to write my own text with my own words. Something like Flabel's Practical Stress Book.
Or if I'm given a task to write a guideline for a stress analysis for a middle/big sized aerospace company in the next 5-25 years (probably being positioned in the structural methodology team), again yes - I would be using my own words. But this part would be covered by the company as they would already have the rights to use any Bruhn / Niu / Roark or other data.

A big company wouldn't use any kind of what I've written as they would be aware of the ethics & laws on copyright issues. So if it came to that, what I would be writing "commercially" would again be just for educational purposes for beginners.




I think this discussion has lots of open ends. Let me sum up;
[ul]
[li]Let's say, I'm compiling a beginner level stress manual quoting only "formulas" and some "graphs" from Bruhn and Niu (or even maybe Roark).[/li]
[li]I'm writing my own text for discussion/explanation sections of the manual.[/li]
[li]I'm using my own "assumed" material data for sample problems.[/li]
[/ul]


Case a:
I'm using this document to train "new stress team members" that join my team in my company.
And, we are not using this document for any commercial stress analysis calculations. New members are just learning from this.

Case b:
I loved the stress manual I wrote and continued writing in time and turned it into a book.
Mentioning "All rights belong to the references that are mentioned at the REFERENCES section of the book; and this book is only for educational purposes for new stress engineer candidates", I want to sell this book on Amazon.


Does "Case b" need permissions as well, as it is for educational purposes only? (textbook)
Does "Case a" need any permission at all? It is non-commercial and will be used for training purposes only. (training manual for new members - no commercial usage)
When needed, I guess I would check the permissions with the publisher? (for Niu / Bruhn / Roark / Wagner / Bannantine or others?..)

(Also, how is Roark related to McMillan? Can you send me a webpage that mentions this? Couldn't find it) (Roark's publisher is McGraw-Hill - so I guess I would contact them if I were to use their formulas commercially)





Spaceship!!


Aerospace Engineer, M.Sc. / Aircraft Stress Engineer with 7 years of experience
(United States)

 

[MintJulep]

Both your "case a" and "case b" are commercial uses.

Internal company training is a commercial activity. Companies train employees so that they can do things to make money.

Merely owning a copy of a book gives you exactly zero right to copy large portions of the book.

To gain permission you write to the copyright holder, explaining what you want to copy and why. They will either say "go ahead", or "no", or ask for some licence fee based on the use, or most likely not reply at all.

 

[IRstuff]

It does not matter what your intent was, or is. You might get a pass if you are part of a college and you are an educator, but otherwise, both require permission.

re: Roark, yes, sorry, McGraw-Hill; I must have conflated it with something else.

As for case a, just consider that if you didn't have the copyright holder's permission, you might actually order a bunch of textbooks for your students, so you are attempting to circumvent the outlay by violating the copyright.

TTFN
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
homework forum: //

http://www.engineering.com/AskForum/aff/32.aspx

faq731-376 forum1529

 

[aerostress82]

"most likely not reply at all" ==> This sounds totally messed up. They won't even reply because I'm not doing anything significant at all? They could charge percentage of the fee from the sale of the book - which would be a good commercial agreement for them as well.

"circumvent the outlay by violating the copyright" ==> Airbus, Boeing and all other major aerospace companies use these data somehow. And creating a manual for stress analysis is merely showing a direction of how to analyze a sample structure. When you have to go understand the theory lying beneath those "simple" calculations, you still need to go and check those reference books of Bruhn, Niu & others.




One last point I want to make before finishing my final post on this topic is:
As you know,
You can derive buckling coefficients in any FEA software by using the general plate buckling formula (which is derived in Elastic Stability course). If you automate your analyses via parametric Nastran analysis files and run these analysis, you will get those K (buckling coefficient) curves for anything you need with a good mesh.

Also, all other Euler column buckling, other buckling, flexural instability and similar calculations are subject of "Elastic Stability" and "Elasticity" courses. They come from the boundary conditions assigned to beam & plates, and with every different boundary condition, new constants are found for different cases. (Clamped, Simply Supported, Simply Supported on 3 edges and Clamped at 1 edge)

So, if there is no other way of referencing these curves, you probably might as well use the phrase "the general ...... equation" and one may go and check this equation from any reference he/she wants. I guess this is the final step that can be taken at the end of everything if the commissions would be too high for such simple "beginner's document".

I don't think anyone can copyright these coefficients and formulas. As long as they come from theory, and coefficients can be confirmed via Elasticity/Elastic Stability/Strength/Aircraft Structures, I guess there would be no objection to such usage.

Thank you for all the input though. I sincerely appreciate it. I just wish, someone with this kind of experience were here in this forum too. All the Best!




-----------------------------------------------------
Spaceship!!


Aerospace Engineer, M.Sc. / Aircraft Stress Engineer with 7 years of experience
(United States)

 

[IRstuff]

Just because people do something does not implicitly make it correct. Lots of people BitTorrent, which is quite illegal when used on copyrighted material. In both cases, it may simply be that they're betting that no one will challenge their usage and haul them off to court. As a purely educational activity, you could probably get by, and at worst, get a small fine if it came to that. Once you decide to make it a commercial product, you'd better get your ducks in line.

You can certainly read up on copyright here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States

and here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

see also:

http://intellectual-property.lawyers.com/ask-a-lawyer/can-a-math-equation-be-copyrighted-754759.html

note "On this basis, it is rare that a math equation fits within the bounds of copyrightable subject matter in the US." However, "rare" does not mean "never." Moreover, the test is "creativity," which implies that someone that comes up with, say, an empirical equation, might argue that such an equation is not a "fact," and required "creativity" to create.

TTFN
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
homework forum: //

http://www.engineering.com/AskForum/aff/32.aspx

faq731-376 forum1529

 

[MintJulep]

You really need to better clarify what exactly you want to do.

Making a citation is never a copyright violation. "Following the method of Spotts "Design of Machine Elements" 6th Edition, Chapter 5, section 10 the required torque is 235 in. lb."

Quoting a source is not a problem. "As noted by Spotts, 'bolts that connect heavy parts operate under conditions of constant elongation. In high-temperature service the initial tension will diminish unit, after a sufficiently long time, the joint will no longer be tight.' To prevent this problem our design ensures that the initial elongation is greater than the amount of potental relaxation."

Laying out a calculation following an example in a text is no problem. It's good form to include a citation "Following the method of Spotts "Design of Machine Elements" 6th Edition, Chapter 5, section 10"

Copying a chart or graph used in a calculation so that the calculation document can stand-alone is most likely within reasonable "fair use".

Creating an internal "training" document consisting of a cover statement to the effect of "Do calculations this way:" and then copying an entire chapter from a text is a clear violation of copyright.

 

[aerostress82]

If it is to become commercial, I'll definitely do a very detailed research.
And there is no creativity in these data/equations - just "pure theory". You can see a sample here (from MIT Open CourseWare):

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mechanic...-2013/course-notes/MIT2_080JF13_Lecture11.pdf

Hope this wraps it up now. Thanks again!


And Thanks too MintJulep. That was actually what I had been asking for. Laying out a calculation of my own - formulas based on theories - and just considering the chapters from Bruhn and Niu to support the formulas/graphs used "that can be calculated by anyone". Your final post totally hit the spot! I was thinking I was clear from the beginning, but yes, I understand what your point is too from all your posts here. Much appreciated gentlemen!!


------------------
Spaceship!!


Aerospace Engineer, M.Sc. / Aircraft Stress Engineer with 7 years of experience
(United States)