I notice quite a lot of people are selling repair and service manuals as PDFs on eBay.
Most of these are available on here, FREE to Gold members.
This is mainly due to a lot of time, effort and dedication put in by Peter.
Surely, a fellow Beoworlder wouldn't be so un-ethical and mercinary to download them free then sell them on eBay!
Would they???

Andy T.

Andy, there seems to be on seller on Ebay with quite a few listings. looks to be all newer equipment, so they were probably off the main B&O site. His feedbacks pretty crap too. Must admit I have made copies of manuals to put with items I have sold if the original is missing.

 

Craig

Might be an idea to place a watermark (discrete of course) on each page, saying something like "generated by www.beoworld.org" etc.

That's different Craig.
Can't see anything wrong with adding a copy of a user manual with an item.
But to make profit of Peter's goodness goes against the grain
I have spotted at least four different sellers, one has 0 feedback.

hi guys,

yes its pretty cheeky to say the least, i didnt realize there was more than 1 doing it, i thought it was just the guy with the rubbish feedback,

trouble is watermarking them wouldnt stop them as they already have them without it

well peters work on them has been and will be appreiated by a great many people via beoworld which im sure is what was intended, cheers peter

jay

See the old 130+  Service Manuals on CD ROM is still doing the rounds on Ebay.

 

Craig

I remember this being discussed on the old forum and I think the general consensus was that there was nothing that could be done about it

One seller is just literally taking the biscuit by advertising manuals for anything and what really gets me is that people actually buy them
 

We have had this discussion 'behind closed doors' so to speak on the moderators forum..

Watermark them large, right in the middle of each page at a diagonal.

SWISS 2:

Watermark them large, right in the middle of each page at a diagonal.

As Lee says, Swiss2, They are not ours to watermark.
We'll just have to grin and bear it. Peter's work has given a lot of people a lot of pleasure so let's just be thankful for that.
Here's to you, Peter

Andy T.

9 LEE:

We have had this discussion 'behind closed doors' so to speak on the moderators forum..

There is actually one person on ebay selling manuals for individual products clearly stating he or she can get pretty much any manual required. This person is a Silver Member, and has never posted (surprise surprise) - and even has the cheek to steal BeoWorld photos to add to their listings..

Unethical, yes - but as stated there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.  They aren't our manuals to copyright or watermark - they belong to Bang & Olufsen at the end of the day - and we clearly state that once you are a Silver or Gold Member you can download as many manuals as you like.

Yes, it does feel like a poke in the eye - but it's something we have to live with.  Peter's tireless efforts uploading manuals for literally hundreds of hours has brought a lot of pleasure and help to a great many people, so we try and focus on the more positive aspects.

Lee

I think that is a very positive attitude and outlook to adopt Lee. I agree with all that you wrote. Peter's efforts are known to the BeoWorld community and that is the important thing. I can't help but admire the person who is trying to make money from this; taking initiative is never a bad thing, even if morally it doesn't seem right or fair, but then, who are we to judge? I wouldn't do it myself because of my own principles, but we all live by different principles. So long as you know what you want to achieve with your project and you do it with a good, open and honest heart, then you will see that what goes around comes around.

All the best.

Simon. 

This is one of the quandaries about living in a digital age; things are easily copyable and can be uploaded/downloaded easily without a lot of recourse for stopping the one who's doing it.

Another point to make: I would imagine that most dealers would be able to provide manuals needed to a customer who'd call and ask, and they would probably do it free of charge. 

Seems like, aside from Peter, the people being "shafted" here are the consumers who are actually buying these manuals on eBay. It's kind of like paying someone to tell you the time of day, when most people will give you that information a gratuit!  I wonder if eBay could be notified? It does seem like a rip-off to pay for a manual that is easily attainable for free, and most consumers probably don't realize this.  EBay has lots of scam-alert pages and articles dedicated to helping people discern if what they're buying is genuine or not. Maybe they could post a page about these manuals.

Actually, there is quite a number of solutions that can be adopted as recourse to limit or curtail this from happening. This type of theft or misuse is not unique to BEOWORLD.

Subtext encoding, metatags, membership key assignments, etc. do not have to be necessarily seen to be traceable back to someone who misuses the privilege. I agree that it is a shame that a low-life scoundrel is able to get away with profiting from it.

Doesn't EBAY take negative feedback ( IE Misuse or theft of copyrighted material ) and address this directly with the seller ?  Can't a direct negative feedback item be posted to a sellers " store ? "

It's a shame people are naive enough buy them, but yeah getting worked up about it won't fix anything. Meh

Really a bad behaviour! I wonder that such a lot of people buy these manuals.

Well, i think there will always be some people making profit of others work, and i am not sure if there is any protection against this.

But you could for example change the terms of use for beoworld members, containing a regulation  that says that comercial use of beoworld files is not allowed and will result in membership loss. So in this case you had at least the possibility to throw someone out if such behavior gets known.

9 LEE:

There is actually one person on ebay selling manuals for individual products clearly stating he or she can get pretty much any manual required. This person is a Silver Member, and has never posted (surprise surprise) - and even has the cheek to steal BeoWorld photos to add to their listings..

Lee, simple queation: If you know who is doing this, could you refuse that member when he wants to renew his membership next year?

Lee can't really do this Tom as the guy isn't doing anything illegal.
Lee and the mods have to think about the effect that banning someone would have overall.
Gosh! What if they didn't like drivel? I'd have been gone a long time ago!

Andy T.

i really dont see how it could be stopped or if time should be wasted in such a futile way, people are resourceful and always find a way around things.

it is indeed the people buying them that are been cheated although im sure they would disagree if it was the manual they were after

maybe as an introduction to beoworld your first manual free, most people have more than 1 b+o product so would then see ONE of the benefits of joining and at the worst it may put the people selling them out of pocket a little

another suggestion may be to list them also, but for simply the cost of ebay fees and not a single penny more, no-one else would bother then

if you cant join them beat them i say (maybe i heard it wrong)

what do you think??

jay

Andy is of course correct, and i think it would be wrong to ban someone on the strength of selling manuals we never really owned in the first place.

It must be morally wrong, because i felt a little cheated the first time i saw this happen - but it's not something i am going to get worked up over.  I spend so much time keeping the site running well and keeping it interesting that i wouldn't have time to pursue these people anyway..

Lee

As you said: the problem is that the manuals don't belong to beoworld. I think you/we have to live with this problem...

Watermark each page is not a bad idea.

Is it possible to make the manuals viewable (and printable) but not download'able ?

Martin

If you can view them onscreen, you just hit PrtScr (printscreen), save each page, tedious I know...

They may be copyright B&O, but a (clickable) watermark at the bottom of each page, just saying "provided by www.beoworld.org" may be enough for the buyer to be caught out once, then come to this site for further documents. Or password protect each document with a password of "www.beoworld.org", or accept the fact that we live in a digital age and things like this happen.

JoC 

I suppose the sellers thought process is that Beoworld copied them from B&O so why can't he copy them from Beoworld? I can't imagine he makes much money selling them. There should be a condition stated that  a person has to agree with (i.e.  a box to tick)  before becoming a silver or gold member that all information on this site is not to be use for personal monetary gain, cannot be downloaded and sold. Maybe that would work.

I think we should not judge buyers who buy manuals on eBay which could be downloaded for free from B&O website.
I don't see anything wrong with this, It's their money and they are free to spend it the way they wish, it's silly of course but its their own choice.

As for beoworlders - it's a bit controversial. Surely seems unethical - this was my first though as well, but if you think about it,  they paid for membership which allows downloading these documents. I assume from posts (I'm not a silver member yet) it does not say that manuals cannot be sold. So once manuals are downloaded they can use they way they want to. After all its B&O manuals...

P.S.
I have to admit I have once stolen picture of DVD1 from Lee, when I was selling it for my friend on eBay.
I did not even know it was Lee's until I came across his picture of BC9000 in similar setup.

....Lee, I apologize

I have often used description taken from beoworld.co.uk (at that time) and included in the item description when selling on eBay.
However I always mention that this information is taken from beoworld "and please refer to beoworld for more details as it's a great source of information"

I agree with the fact that what this man does is not very ethical... BUT everyone says that those manuals are free at Beoworld. That's wrong, you have to pay a Beoworld membership to get them.

Now consider someone wanting a service manual in order to repair one of his B&O products (or "just in case"). He has two solutions :

1. Getting a beoworld membership : that's quite expensive for just a manual (or two...), considering that this person is not interrested by any other thing that beoworld membership gives him.

2. Buying this manual from this guy on ebay : that's a good choice for our customer : he will pay a very low amount for the manual, less than a beoworld account.

Now my solution in order to satisfy Lee :

You just have to make available every Beoworld service manual for download, at a low price, for instance 1€ by manual. People just wanting a manual will get it at Beoworld, and the "little guy from ebay" business will be killed quickly! (and Beoworld will make more money)