Usefull copyright material on line 2

[KENAT]

I just came across virtually all the ASME Y14 series stds posted on line. Also the global DRM.

Now I'm pretty sure this isn't' meant to be freely available to anyone with an internet connection for no charge.

I already forwarded a link to the site to ASME if they want to take action.

Also, as much as I'd like to I'm resisting the urge to save or print a copy of it (at least the ones I don't more or less legitimately have).

I'm also resisting the urge to share the website with others that may find it useful.

Am I just being too darn ethical for my own good here? Most here normally take the high road - at least on this forum, am I for once living up to this?

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[Ron]

I am a small business owner. One of my costs of doing business is the purchase of codes and standards. I BUY the ones I need. I am also a published author. I derive income from some of my published items. When those items are ill-gotten, I lose money. That takes away from the income I have for my family. My time is valuable to me and to my family. When I waste my time to prepare something that is then stolen by whatever means on the internet, then I have been wronged. It is the same with standards producing organizations such as ASTM, ACI, ICC and others.

Yes, codes and standards can be expensive to purchase. I don't always buy the most recent standard because frankly, I just can't afford to buy every one of them; however, when I reference a standard, I will state the one I am referencing (that is paid for and legitimate). I do the same with software. All software used on my computers is legitimately purchased and has appropriate authorization. I expect that of those who read my drivel and pay for it...it would be disengenuous of me to do otherwise for others.

 

[CostasV]

Copyright can be violated in a, technically speaking, legal way, by receiving or sending a small (which is legal) part of the whole copyrighted work. That is what torrent sites do.

As far as I know, the problem torrent-vs-copyright is not resolved yet, at least in Europe.

 

[rowingengineer]

Pat is right I shouldn't have suggested that downloading a standard free is somehow forgivable on a public forum. Seems I have a bit of the devil in me, time to go burn that DVD.

On the commercial level there are companies that down load standards for free. It is this crazy situation that someone how came about due to the uni’s access to all standards for a small fee per year. So you can log on and download and print the standards if you are a member of the uni, which a lot of employed people are these days.

Ron,
I am sure it is all good drivel.


An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field

 

[KENAT]

Well it wasn't intended as back patting, more to spark a discussion on the general topic.

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[jgailla]

As a civil engineer, we reference ASTM standards frequently in specifications.
My last employer, a fairly large (5,000 person) firm, refused to purchase the standards for our use.
Consequently, it was sometimes difficult to check construction phase submittals. Although I never sealed any specs at that company, it would have made me nervous to be sealing something that referred to a standard I had never read.

 

[HgTX]

I'd report the site, but I think I could find it within my soul, in the meantime, to take a look at the illegal copy to see if that's what I wanted to buy.

Hg

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[moltenmetal]

Copyright can definitely work against the public good, but so can piracy.

Let's take as an example the system of scientific journal publication. Scientists, mostly academics and other people whose salaries are paid principally by the taxpayer, generate new knowledge and research and then write a paper. They submit it to their peers, also paid from the public purse, who act as reviewers and referees. The work is then published, and the copyright goes to whom? The PUBLISHING COMPANY! Who subscribes to the journals? Principally libraries, funded from the public purse! If an academic requires copies of their own published work to facilitate teaching, the public has to pay the publishing company for the reprints. The net result is a flow of money from the public purse to the publishing company, in return for more restrictive access to the information which the public has already paid for! It's a system which made sense in the days when the physical journal volumes in a library were essential because they were the only game in town, but in the internet age such a system makes no sense.

I agree that standards such as building codes, the ASME pipe and pressure vessel codes, ASTM materials standards etc., which have the force of law because they protect the public safety, should be paid for out of the public purse. Otherwise, only the ethical pay for them, while access to information necessary for public protection is less widely dispersed than it could or should be.

While the public purse does NOT pay for the publishing of these standards, their copyright needs to be respected. If it isn't, the organizations which fund their ongoing maintenance and development will be deprived of the funds they need to ensure that this critical work is done. This, despite the fact that a large fraction of the work of actually developing these standards is done by volunteers...

 

[btrueblood]

"Well it wasn't intended as back patting, more to spark a discussion on the general topic. "

Kenat, rereading what I posted, I almost feel like I should redflag it. Hopefully everyone will read it knowing the author had tongue firmly in cheek, and the intended sentiment was more along the lines of "good on ya". I too don't like paying for standards that seem to get revised for trivial reasons, but that discussion has been held elsewhere, and the overwhelming opinion of smarter people than me is that the revisions are generally not trivial.

 

[KENAT]

C'mon btrue, takes more than that to get to me. (like an inept HR dept...)

Though re-reading my OP I could saw it might come across as gratuitous back patting.

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