On 01/12/2005, at 8:13 AM, Sean Arney wrote:
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view),
litigation in Australia is not as easy as it is in the states.
I did check however, and "updating" your own safety manuals with the
same or similar information as someone else is considered "the norm",
and would be a very hard case to make, plus I was told that it's very
doubtful if a safety manual could be copyrighted at all.
Oh, that's odd. There is a big difference between "same" and
"similar". If
someone takes your sentiments and expresses them another way I
could see how
it would be tough to go after them for that, but to copy and paste
your
work, verbatim, into their own documents and then claim them as
their own is
fairly blatant - at least here it is. Heck Kinkos copies will fuss
if you
bring in a copyrighted manual for copying. Granted not much
fussing, but it
is the standard line.
Yeah, the problem is a lot of the warnings and expressions used need
to be quoted verbatim from regulating authorities in order to make
your product comply with Australian Standards.
These expressions are not therefore copyrightable, they are free to
use, but to get your hands on them and to make sure you include all
necessary passages requires spending $$$ (and not small ones) on OH&S
advisory groups and proof readers.
I guess they're the ones that really miss out when someone copies
another persons work, but it's so bloody expensive to get it done
right that it really annoys me when someone else gets all the
information for free, from me.
We live in a mixed up world.
- Tom
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