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Heathkit Manuals No Longer on BAMA

The Boat Anchor Manual Archive (BAMA) can no longer offer Heathkit manuals for free, nor can commercial services sell the manuals. A company call Data Professionals now owns the copyrights. Their website states:

Data Professionals of Pleasanton California has purchased the Copyrights and existing inventory of all legacy Heathkit product documentation from Heath Company of Benton Harbor Michigan for an undisclosed amount. The new company will make copies of the original legacy manuals available to the marketplace via its website and through eBay and PayPal.

There’s some more information about this at: http://www.pestingers.net/Heathkit_manuals.htm.

There’s also some debate as to whether Data Professionals owns all of the copyrights or not. Some of the manual may have already passed into the public domain.

It’s kind of sad that these manuals have been pulled, but if the company can actually make a go of providing professional support, then it may be a good thing. I suspect that hams will form an informal network of file-sharing to keep these manuals available for free. We’ll see.

By: Dan KB6NU | 2008/12/21 | Building/Homebrew | Trackback | Comments [RSS 2.0]

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Mike Elsner

Comment by Mike Elsner | 2009/12/16 at 14:19:14

Datapro purchased the factories manual collection, and the right to sell copies of those Legacy Heathkit Manuals from us, it doesnt mean that Heathkit gave up any rights we can still sell copies of manuals.

As an employee of the Heathkit Company it’s I feel like a victim sometimes as the money we make selling manuals pays my salary, it doesnt matter that we have not sold that item for 50 years or not it was our product.

If you call Tech Support for help we are still here… if we chose to send you a copy, or sell you a copy that is our business…

You cant just go to the library and pickout a book and republish for money can you ?
Dan KB6NU

Comment by Dan KB6NU | 2009/12/16 at 16:08:49

Mike–

Thanks for your comment and for clarifying this issue. I did know that Heathkit was still in business producing educational products, but I didn’t know that one could still call Heathkit for support on the older products.

You’re correct that you can’t go to the library, copy the contents of a book and re-publish it to make a profit, but you can copy portions of it for personal use. The vast majority of BAMA users were downloading the manuals for their personal use and not to make a profit.

Heathkit Manuals No Longer on BAMA

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