All Manuals for Agriculture Equipment should be free

VANHILLIGOSS

New User
I have spent 10s of thousands of dollars on equipment from various manufactures and I know a lot of you have spent 100's of thousands on equipment. I think it is pure greed on the part of Manufactures to charge for manuals on this equipment.

There are several other scavengers who happen across an old manual and put them online for 30.00 or more to squeeze a few bucks out of already "Broke" producers with 7 kids to feed.

I think this is simply wrong and really a fairly easy issue to solve. If folks who have original manuals not available for free simply scan them and post as PDF or other format. If they happen to be copyrighted there is a good chance, on some of the older equipment, that the company is no longer in business.

If the company is still in business it would be pretty poor form for a billion dollar company to sue its own customers for posting a manual. To sue folks for posting would be pretty short sighted as well since getting access to a manual will most likely result in more parts business for them.

These manuals have repaid their cost and effort to create years ago, or immediately, as part of the original equipment sales. I dont think its right to deny a man compensation for their efforts however in the case of manuals they received compensation through sales of equipment and that, to me, is fair payment for effort.

Having these manuals free and available online would save most of us a lot of time and effort. I know I am usually looking for a manual when something is broke or not working as we think it should which impacts production. Sometimes it can take weeks of research just to find the flipping manual only to find out some scavenger in NYC has it and will only ship it to me for cost plus shipping and a "handling fee". I think the only thing getting "handled" is ME while I am waiting two weeks for the manual.

I dont know what other folks think about this but I would be interested in hearing your input.
 
Odds are the worst that will happen is receiving a cease and desist letter from the copyright owner. I am not a lawyer just from what I have seen in the past.
 
Copyrighted materials are OWNED by someone or some entity. Copying and producing is STEALING something you did not pay for. So by all means encourage someone else to do the copying and stealing. Just buy the manual. my .02 worth gobble
 
Not to get cocky about it,so don't take it the wrong way,but what am I supposed to do with manuals for things that have gone to the scrapper or have been stripped for parts and welding stock? Is there supposed to be some repository where I'll have to send them at my expense where they can be redistributed to those who need them? Why can't I sell them for $15 to cover my trouble and postage to send them to somebody who needs them myself?
 
Why not request the manual when you purchase the equipment??? I'm asked if I have a manual when I sell something... and if I have it, I give it to them.

However, keep this in mind- if you just spent $5-10 k- or even just a few hundred- on some piece of farm equipment, what is the problem dropping another $20-30 on the manual? You wouldn't expect a seller to
provide free parts or repairs would you?

If you buy something missing wheels, expect to pay for wheels if they are not provided. If you buy something without the manual, expect the same- to pay for the manual.
 
I see a lot of responses, mostly negative, however nothing of real substance to deter the idea of posting scanned manuals.

"Some thing for nothing", really that's it? LOL

"Why should I send to someone for nothing?" Well you're really not doing it for nothing. Someday you might be broke down and need access to a manual that someone else posted. Its really an investment in your own interests and heavenly pursuits. Remember the helping your fellow man thing? btw, sending manuals via snail mail is not what I am talking about. A few cups of coffee and a scanner should cover most manuals.

I surely and happily will post a link to my manuals as soon as I get a chance. I don't have many and some are still available on the JD site (Free to all) but I have no issue posting and providing links. If I can help someone else avoid the scavengers and manufactures prices I would be happy to do so.

I'm still on board with the Free Manuals for All.
 
Oh and I forgot to mention one more thing. Do you think the Scavengers that are "re-selling" manuals online for download (or shpping) are kicking up royalties to the Copyright holders?

I would bet not, they are just profiting from other folks work and would far more likely to encounter a lawsuit for actually receiving compensation for reproducing material. Providing them for free kind of limits the liabilities on money earned.

You can find 50.00 reproductions of parts breakdowns, operator manuals, etc all over the place. I just wonder how much of that money gets kicked back to John Deere? Now who is really getting the "Free Lunch"?

You can get electronic books from a library for free. You can download computer and other books for free. What's the difference except for more limited production and maybe age?

I agree asking for the manual when you receive or buy the equipment and do when I can. However when you find a piece of machinery at an auction you take it as is, with or without the manual. Kind of gambling from the start at an auction hoping not to have to fix too much when you get it home to use.

A manual is not a tire, a bearing, or blade. Its a manual its intangible knowledge. A tire is a physical thing you put on the ground, knowledge you put in your head. If you run across a JD Model B drill and need to know something about it to get it into the field a readily available (for everyone) just makes sense.
 
Personally I think the current system works just fine,I've been able to pick up original manuals on almost all my older equipment with wanted ads here and off ebay.I don't mind paying
$30 for a manual for a $1000 or more piece of equipment.Take the profit incentive out of the mix and no manuals would be available period.That's the way Capitalism works.Bet you can't get a manual for an old machine in Cuba anywhere there and no one would care anyway since the Gov't owns them most likely.
 
Every thing I have bought new came with operators manuals and service have alway cost you money. But today with a computer you can find
manuals that you can download and most at no cost.
 

You think it's pure greed to charge for a manual. I'm sure there's someone somewhere who thinks it's pure greed for you to expect something for nothing. In the end, there's nothing wrong with someone, a "scavenger" in your terms, feeding his family by finding and collecting old manuals any more than there is in your using the equipment to feed your family. It's capitalism at work.
 
That's just what I did. I did some housecleaning about a year ago and offered on this site a dozen or so older manuals that the I didn't need for the cost of postage. They pretty well all went, got a couple left, offer still stands. Someone might as well get some use out of them rather than taking up space in my filing cabinet. Ben
 
I'm still not following you. Would you rather have a reprint,or no manual at all? If there are a finite number of manuals out there,and somebody is willing to reprint them so there are more,seems to me it's like anything. Reproductions bring down the price of originals.
 
Why stop at manuals? I want everything for free. What do you do for a living? How about sending me some of the fruits of your labors for free? If I'm going to go to the trouble of digitizing a manual, you're going to pay for my efforts. Regardless of how "unfair" you think it is.

Oh, wait- she lost. So no universal freebies. Pity. Man up and send somebody some money for making something available to you.
 
I would rather pay for the benefit of having had someone else digitize or reprint a manual rather than spend weeks doing that myself. I've
probably got 15000 pages worth of manuals around here for the bit of stuff I have. I shudder to think how long it would take to scan all
that.

Rod
 

I think that the Donald should appoint a department of manuals commissioner to insure that all equipment gets manuals with it. They can contract with a big printing company to print up piles of them in order to be sure that they are available for all equipment regardless of how old. This would also require a big warehouse for storage with plenty of workers to place and retrieve them. It could probably be paid for by a tax of maybe 3-4 percent on the equipment. That way the bigger dollar sales would subsidize the smaller and older stuff.
 
Apparently you have not heard of "Intellectual Property" or "Copyright laws". While it is true as you say "A manual is not a tire, a bearing, or blade." It is however "Intellectual Property" and protected by
copyright laws. You may also be correct that some are not paying the fees to the copyright holders but that doesn't make it right or legal. Im not an attorney but in a former life one of my jobs was to
calculate the amount of Copyright usage for intellectual property my company used each year. The company then paid the Copyright Tribunal for the use of those materials. The fines can be pretty heavy (6
figures) and as I recall doubled for subsequent violations. Just my $0.02
 

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