From: Ken Scharf on Wed, Feb 15 2006 9:49 pm

Roy Lewallen wrote:
Skipp wrote:

Hello there,
I'm looking for you old tired stack of 73 and Ham Radio Magazines just
to read at my pleasure. I'll be scanning some of the better articles
into pdf files and making them available to others for free. Many of
you have already seen the www.radiowrench.com/sonic web page. . . .

Have you obtained permission from the copyright owners to do this?

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

I think the ARRL now has the rights to Ham Radio and you can buy
CD's from them.

Not quite. Communications Technology, Inc. (parent to Ham Radio
Magazine) was sold to CQ in 1990. CQ scanned and produced the
3-volume set of CDs containing all 22 years of HR's articles.
ARRL resells a lot of products. That doesn't mean they "own"
the copyright. ARRL resells a lot of RSGB publications but
doesn't own the copyrights of the Radio Society of Great Britain.

I don't know who has the rights to 73, but I suspect
Wayne never gave that up. Pop'tronics was part of Gensback up to a few
years ago (maybe he only got the right to the NAME and not the original
magazine contents.) Of the other electronics magazines which are
long out of bussiness .... who knows?

Copyrights are valid from the first publication until 50 years
after the death of the copyright holder. [death of a corporation
presumably is the same as total quitting of it] "Publication" is
almost any form of media that is visible to the "public," and
that includes anything written on the Internet as an example.

One doesn't have to "file papers" to establish a copyright
although that is most convenient if some civil court dispute
comes to trial. Copyright suits are almost always held in
a civil court, not a criminal court; the federal government
can bring suit in a federal court for flagrant violations of
the copyright law.

The "copyright law" is in Title 17, United States Code. One of
the big revisions of United States copyright law was Public Law
94-553, 17 October 1976. In the USA, Congress maintains the
Copyright Office. Congress has a rather large website which
includes much information on copyrights (you can search under
"copyright law" to get the URL...nice FAQ on copyrights there).

Depending on the terms of a "work" sold to a publisher, the
publisher usually has first rights (as in copyrights) to that
work. The author may, depending on the contract (the monetary
compensation) may have the right to publish/distribute that
work AFTER the first-rights holder has published it. In my
case, I can repro and distribute any article that I authored
in HR as I wish...the conditions of my compensation contract.
I cannot do the same with any article I edited for them; such
is not considered "original work."

In short, you just can't willy-nilly repro any work from a
private/civilian-business publisher without their permission.
You CAN repro any work done by the United States government;
the US government is forbidden by law to hold copyrights.
Note: The US government CAN hold a patent, but patents are
a different category and handled by a different agency.

A grey area is the "fair use" part of the copyright law. A
"fair use" item is PART of the original work which can be used
by itself as a reference or partial reproduction in a news
article or textbook. Almost all textbooks contain such items
and it is politely customary to refer to the original if that
is done.



former Associate Editor at Ham Radio and sometime contributor