# Harley Davidson brochure.



## comet (Feb 5, 2020)

The owner of the HD I just bought offered this to me for $200. He has it on Ebay for $300. I'm not buying it, but here it is in it's entirety I think. Enjoy.


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## fordmike65 (Feb 5, 2020)

@cyclingday


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## cyclingday (Feb 5, 2020)

Thank you, for the heads up on this.
Much appreciated!


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## hopkintonbike (Feb 5, 2020)

Was this item released publicaly with the  full knowledge of the current owner?


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## saladshooter (Feb 5, 2020)

I didn't see a year anywhere but can only assume 1919.


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## cyclingday (Feb 5, 2020)

1918
Each year catalog has the model numbers ending with the issue year.
Model 418 = 1918 Motorcyke.


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## bikebozo (Feb 5, 2020)

hopkintonbike said:


> Was this item released publicaly with the  full knowledge of the current owner?



Why would it matter? , anything is available on line , if you know how to find it


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## redline1968 (Feb 5, 2020)

Should have bought it...:0


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## JLF (Feb 5, 2020)

A very cool piece of history.  Thanks for sharing.  I love the cover and the adventure it promises!


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## hopkintonbike (Feb 6, 2020)

It matters a great deal, collectors and the dealers that cater to them place a great deal of value on original catalogs, reproducing and publishing them without permission or payment is not just like stealing, it is stealing


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## Freqman1 (Feb 6, 2020)

hopkintonbike said:


> It matters a great deal, collectors and the dealers that cater to them place a great deal of value on original catalogs, reproducing and publishing them without permission or payment is not just like stealing, it is stealing




I'm no attorney but if the person doesn't have the copyright then I'm not seeing where they have rights to anything. Walter is correct just about anything can be found on line if you know where to look as Mmst of this stuff is in the public domain. Now there may have been a moral/ethical issue if the person shared this assuming that it wouldn't be shared publicly. Either way that train has left the station. V/r Shawn


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## hopkintonbike (Feb 6, 2020)

Freqman1 said:


> I'm no attorney but if the person doesn't have the copyright then I'm not seeing where they have rights to anything. Walter is correct just about anything can be found on line if you know where to look as Mmst of this stuff is in the public domain. Now there may have been a moral/ethical issue if the person shared this assuming that it wouldn't be shared publicly. Either way that train has left the station. V/r Shawn



While I appreciate the fact that the "train has left the station" that's really not the point, the OP indicated that owner of the "property" wanted $200 for it, so the item has value to the current owner, copyrighting is not the issue here, thats the purvue of the original author, perhaps I am unfamiliar with the ethics of the vintage bicycle hobby, but in the vintage fishing tackle world, when valuable paperwork is copied and distributed, it devalues the value of the original document and that's a really big deal, if this doc was already in the public domain I guess there would be no harm no foul, but I get the impression from the CABERs that have responded to this thread that this information is just seeing the light of day, just doesn't pass the smell test in my opinion.


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## Freqman1 (Feb 6, 2020)

I guess I thought you were implying there was some sort of legal implications. I agree that it appears there may have been an ethical party foul here. V/r Shawn


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## hopkintonbike (Feb 6, 2020)

Freqman1 said:


> I guess I thought you were implying there was some sort of legal implications. I agree that it appears there may have been an ethical party foul here. V/r Shawn



Actually, its both, and it may very well be that no one here cares, I have raised this issue before and it bears repeating, these hobby boards serve a very important purpose to those interested in relatively harmless and innocent pastimes like bike collecting and fishing, but in todays unfortunate reality, the implications of enthusiasm can be serious, particularly when webpages are forced to shut down as a result of the perceived or real threat of lawsuit, sad but true, just saying.


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## cyclingday (Feb 6, 2020)

I don’t see much of an issue in this case, because the seller posted pictures of every page of the catalog in his eBay listing.
As Walter noted earlier, the information is already public.
What is of high value here, is the originality of the catalog itself.
Kind of like the difference between a replica and an original condition bicycle.
Original is king.
The replica is nice, and it tells us a lot, but that story is nowhere near as fascinating as the one being told by the true survivor.


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## Mercian (Feb 6, 2020)

Hi,

I agree and disagree with various comments above, but I will keep my opinions to myself on that, since I don't intend to enter into a long discussion.

Copyright is a complex issue, and really has to be approached on a case by case basis. In this case, I think it's fairly straightforward. If the brochure was published in  1918 or 1919 (or, indeed before 1st January 1923), it is in the public domain according to the US 1976 Copyright Act.

See the end of Paragraph 3 on this Copyright circular from the US Govt.



			https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf
		


Best Regards,

Adrian


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## piercer_99 (Feb 6, 2020)

very cool photos.

There is no issue on sharing them, they are public domain. As soon as they were posted on the internet, without a current copyright, they became public domain.

non issue.


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## bikebozo (Feb 6, 2020)

Who enforces the copyright law , .? You would get a cease and desist letter , it would cost thousands of $$$$$to prosecute someone ,. .. My lawyer would laugh about this , nothing is private . We live in a new world , .. Most bike people who have been around , could not care less about ethics . The ones that do care are very limited , if the person who 1st posted this information on ebay , did not water mark , or put lines in there photo , they most likely did not care . . Harley Davidson never told anyone to stop making reproduction , sprockets or name badges .There are lots of copied material .., 200.00 for that catalog seemed like a good price , whoever posted the pages did a great service to the cycle knowledge . Who would get in trouble- Scott, or the owners of the Web system ,there is no way it would ever get into the court system .my ethics are limited to things that really matter .


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## comet (Feb 6, 2020)

I didn't think the owner would care. He posted them all on Ebay, and I just thought it would be nice to share with the CABE. The CABE is an amazing source for bicycle literature . I saw something I hadn't seen before and shared it.


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## Freqman1 (Feb 6, 2020)

Maybe the fishing guys are more of an uptight crowd. We are just here to enjoy the ride! V/r Shawn


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## piercer_99 (Feb 6, 2020)

this is so easy.

The catalog shown is circa 1918.

so, fyi...

(from the Stanford Law Library)


The term “public domain” refers to creative materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws. The public owns these works, not an individual author or artist. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission, but no one can ever own it.

An important wrinkle to understand about public domain material is that, while each work belongs to the public, collections of public domain works may be protected by copyright. If, for example, someone has collected public domain images in a book or on a website, the collection as a whole may be protectable even though individual images are not. You are free to copy and use individual images but copying and distributing the complete collection may infringe what is known as the “collective works” copyright. Collections of public domain material will be protected if the person who created it has used creativity in the choices and organization of the public domain material. This usually involves some unique selection process, for example, a poetry scholar compiling a book—_The Greatest Poems of e.e. cummings_.

There are four common ways that works arrive in the public domain:


the copyright has expired
the copyright owner failed to follow copyright renewal rules
the copyright owner deliberately places it in the public domain, known as “dedication,” or
copyright law does not protect this type of work.
*Expired Copyright*
As of 2019, copyright has expired for all works published in the United States before 1924. In other words, if the work was published in the U.S. before January 1, 1924, you are free to use it in the U.S. without permission. These rules and dates apply regardless of whether the work was created by an individual author, a group of authors, or an employee (a work made for hire).
Because of legislation passed in 1998, no new works fell into the public domain between 1998 and 2018 due to expiration. In 2019, works published in 1923 expired. In 2020, works published in 1924 will expire, and so on.
For works published after 1977, if the work was written by a single author, the copyright will not expire until 70 years after the author’s death. If a work was written by several authors and published after 1977, it will not expire until 70 years after the last surviving author dies.

*Year-End Expiration of Copyright Terms*
Copyright protection always expires at the end of the calendar year of the year it’s set to expire. In other words, the last day of copyright protection for any work is December 31. For example, if an author of a work died on June 1, 2000, protection of the works would continue through December 31, 2070.

*The Renewal Trapdoor*
Thousands of works published in the United States before 1964 fell into the public domain because the copyright was not renewed in time under the law in effect then. If a work was first published before 1964, the owner had to file a renewal with the Copyright Office during the 28th year after publication. No renewal meant a loss of copyright.

If you plan on using a work that was published before 1964, you should research the records of the Copyright Office to determine if a renewal was filed.

(there is  a lot more if you care to look, but really, it is public domain as I really doubt the seller applied for a collective works copyright, prior to selling it.)


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## bikebozo (Feb 6, 2020)

Thanks for some knowledge


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## cyclingday (Feb 6, 2020)

I can’t tell you how many original pictures I’ve snagged from eBay listings to post on Paul’s thread of original period photographs.
I usually won’t post them if they have a bold watermark, unless the subject matter is exceptional.
But, more times than not, the item is being listed by an amateur from an estate cleanout.
So, since the intended purpose is to just post a copy of it anyway, why buy the image, when the owner has offered it up for free?
That still leaves the original available for those that collect that type of thing.
Everybody benefits from that all the way around.
That’s just my way of rationalizing it I suppose.
I did purchase the original catalog that’s in question in this thread, because the originality of it was very important to me.
I own a nice original example of the model 418, so having the catalog to go with it makes the collection that much more interesting and complete.
Having it’s information distributed is what this hobby is all about.
I’ve never understood that keep it to yourself mentality.
These items we collect are of historical significance to some, and should be shared for the greater good of everyone’s understanding.
That’s what make these hobbies so much fun.


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## New Mexico Brant (Feb 6, 2020)

Put me down for a proper reprint Marty!


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## hopkintonbike (Feb 7, 2020)

When I originally posted I did not realize that the original owner had already posted the pictures on the internet, if that's the case then the comments above make sense the owner already published or shared the pictures publicaly and at that point they are public property, the argument was never about copyright, it was about current ownership of the original document, let the fleas of a thousand camels infest my uptight fisherman's armpits, Todd


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## bikebozo (Feb 7, 2020)

Everything that is on the internet is open season ,


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## cyclingday (Feb 7, 2020)

The 1918 H-D brochure arrived today, with this nice article from a 1997 issue of Hog Tales.













Enjoy!


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