Document Library - New site feature

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by jhulmer

I don't know for sure but I thought that as long as you are not trying to profit off of the material IT was ok to share.

I know that it is ok to disseminate this material for the purposes of education. I would believe that this would qualify as educational purposes.

Hopefully someone more knowledgably could comment.

CF is a commercial business.

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by jhulmer

I don't know for sure but I thought that as long as you are not trying to profit off of the material IT was ok to share.

I know that it is ok to disseminate this material for the purposes of education. I would believe that this would qualify as educational purposes.

Hopefully someone more knowledgably could comment.

Nope. Not true. Nu-uh. The only thing you could possibly be alluding to is likely Fair Use and it is an American thing and strictly limited:

In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner.

Other jurisdictions have other rules about copyright. If you are a total nerd, or just interested there is a great video about the history and development of copyright and where the US diverged from most other countries:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b_5MO04qGg

So ya, copyright might end up being an issue here, but only likely to be an problem if the rights holders start feeling litigious and given the nature of the material that seems a long shot...

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by jhulmer

I don't know for sure but I thought that as long as you are not trying to profit off of the material IT was ok to share.

I know that it is ok to disseminate this material for the purposes of education. I would believe that this would qualify as educational purposes.

Hopefully someone more knowledgably could comment.

I love this idea of a Library, but I really hope CF has done its homework on the copyright issue. Copyright is not just about whether you make money or not. The point of copyright is the owners' get to control how a work is disseminated. Profit questions mostly only become relevant in court settlements (i.e. how big the fine is).

The simplest and best solution is for CF to license the material, just as all actual libraries do. This probably wouldn’t be that hard to do, and likely could be done at little or no cost. The other approach would be to link to existing online manuals — many companies now post these on their own websites. But hosting and disseminating unlicensed documents is a potential legal risk.

[Janet H]

Originally Posted by jhulmer

I tried again and it said that "The maximum upload limit would be exceeded by this file."

Some of these manuals can be large.
I'm trying to upload a Yanmar installation manual for several engine models. Something I think a lot of members would like to have available.

I like this feature it will be a big asset to all.
thank you for setting it up!

How large is the file?

[jhulmer]

35 meg I believe.

[MarkusK]

Good timing. I just downloaded the manual for my VHF marine radio from Uniden's website. Will add it to CF library!

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by MarkusK

Good timing. I just downloaded the manual for my VHF marine radio from Uniden's website. Will add it to CF library!

If material is already available on the web, wouldn't it be redundant to repost it here?

Our C34 website has TONS of C34 and other boating related information. I don't intend to duplicate it here.

Unless the data is unusual and either hard to find or unique, it seems to me to be a waste to repost it.

[Janet H]

Originally Posted by jhulmer

35 meg I believe.

That's a pretty big file. Can you try compressing it a bit?

[belizesailor]

Is there a mechanism on the CF lib to post links?

As posted, there is a lot of good stuff readily available. A list of links by category/vendor would be useful, reduce storage use, and avoid copyright issues.

[Janet H]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

Is there a mechanism on the CF lib to post links?

As posted, there is a lot of good stuff readily available. A list of links by category/vendor would be useful, reduce storage use, and avoid copyright issues.

This might be possible but as we found last year with the photobucket mess, if the party hosting the document decides to shut down or moves the content, the links are no longer useful. They are also a vector for spammers. Let's give this a try and see how it goes. it will take time to populate and we can tweak the set up if it appears to be needed.

[MarkusK]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

If material is already available on the web, wouldn't it be redundant to repost it here?

Our C34 website has TONS of C34 and other boating related information. I don't intend to duplicate it here.

Unless the data is unusual and either hard to find or unique, it seems to me to be a waste to repost it.

Thanks for the encouragement. For a lot of people, like myself, this forum is the go-to place for information. Adding a library is a great idea.
Maybe you should consider adding the salient documents for your C34…I certainly would not think of going to your website for that.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by MarkusK

.......
Maybe you should consider adding the salient documents for your C34…I certainly would not think of going to your website for that.

Google would think of going to the C34 site pretty quickly. Perhaps a brief section on the CF download that gives the high-level domain address and brief summary of what type of docs are available.

The value of putting manuals up on CF is having a home for orphan documents, not ones that are easily searchable.. A place where people can stick oddball docs that they have. I have a doc for the Sailomat windvane that I regularly get requests for, for example.

[MarkusK]

Originally Posted by Paul L

The value of putting manuals up on CF is having a home for orphan documents, not ones that are easily searchable.. A place where people can stick oddball docs that they have. I have a doc for the Sailomat windvane that I regularly get requests for, for example.

I would like to see those windvane docs.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by MarkusK

I would like to see those windvane docs.

Its kinda large, when I get some free bandwidth I'll try and upload it.

[MarkusK]

Hi Janet,

TGrier was unable to download the Tanzer 8.5 engineering manual that I uploaded presumably because it has not been approved yet. Let me know what I need to do to get it approved,

Thanks,
Markus