Person selling my manuals on eBay

[Jerry Work]

Hi all,

It recently came to my attention that a person is offering printed copies of one or more of my manuals on eBay.  He does not have my permission to do that and is in violation both of my copyright and of eBay's prohibition against the selling of selling copyright materials.  I have notified the lister (mic_bs) and he has agreed to immediately remove the auction.  eBay has also been notified through their copyright protection group.  Please let me know if you see him or anyone else active with such shenanigans again.  My agreement with those for whom I write these manuals is that they can post them on their web sites at no cost in addition to the sponsorship fee so long as the downloads are for free.  My objective is to share what I have learned over the last 40 years of building fine furniture as one small way I can put back into the system more than I ever took out.  Any person who downloads any of the manuals may print them and store them in any form so long is it is exclusively for their own private use.  The manuals, text and photos may not be reproduced in any form or distributed in any manner for any commercial purpose without my expressed written consent.  The fact that they are made available for free download does not in any way place the work into the public domain - they remain my copyrighted work.  Thanks.

Jerry

 

[nickao]

Hi Jerry I guess this person or another person is also selling the manuals that Rick Christopherson and others have made for  Festool and they gave this person permission after talking to him. I guess this is a different person or he probably would have asked you.

What I get is that he is charging for the nice binding of the information in a nice package and tells the buyer that the info is free and the charge is for the nice binding together in a book format . I do not think he tried to pass the work off as his own and the person I am referring to is struggling and trying to support a family and thought of this pre binding idea to help pay the bills. I do know there is another company doing this that is larger and not a single person, but this father putting together the info and making a few dollars off the binding into book format really did not mean to hurt you in anyway(if it was him). It is a hassle to print up everything and bind it nice and it would cost at least 10.00 to do it if not more myself. And I would love to purchase all your stuff pre-binded ready to go.

I am hoping the person that you were dealing with is not his same father just trying to make 2 or 3 dollars off the binding the info together. He is very nice and I think he would have asked you first and explained what he was doing. If anything it just would give a bigger audience to your body of work.

I get it is copyrighted and your info and meant to be for free, but I also understand the the gentleman I am referring to was not selling the info, but the packing up of that info explicitly stating the info was free and he was only charging for his work packing everything up into a book format.

I have no idea if you are referring to this person or a big company just stealing your work, but I ask you to consider if this is that father trying to make 2.00 off the binding to possibly let him do it if he follows your rules about linking to the free info etc.

 

[Dave Ronyak]

Nick,

If I understand your description of the actions of the person who is binding copies of Jerry's manuals, that activity is still infringement if the binder is making the copy, absent a license from the copyright holder (Jerry in this case).

Dave R.

 

[nickao]

Absolutely 100 % correct Dave, I get that.

I also get that if this is the same person, Rick Christopherson  and about 3 others have talked with him and given permission. In these hard times I am only saying if this is not a huge company and just one guy getting tossed from his house maybe a little leeway or permission can be given thats all I am saying.

Of course he should not have done this without talking with Jerry first and getting permission, that goes without saying. Some people just do not realize the rules. If they did I doubt they would have tried this in the first place.

It may be a totally different person, I do not know at all.

 

[nickao]

I think there is a thread on this at Talkfestool. One place binding the info was a company just ripping off info, the other was a stay at home dad or something like that trying to make ends meet.  I believe Festool or at least Rick Christopherson gave the father permission and told the large company to take a hike.

 

[Jimhart]

Rick Christopherson told the dad it was Ok as long as he noted in the Ebay listing that the info was avaiable free and that the price was for printing and binding.  He told the other guy, who just reprints everything he can get his hands on, to knock it off.

Don't know about Christian.

Jim

 

[nickao]

I got it Jim thanks, I mixed up the names, sorry guys I do not really read the other forum very closely.

 

[Dave Ronyak]

If I wanted to reproduce any of those or other authors' manuals, I'd get permission in writing first.  Doing so would help avoid later disputes which I think is always a good thing.

Dave R.