RE: Ethics of reusing vendor's help material -- copyright issue orcommonplace practice?

["Mike Schmidt" <mschmidt -at- weathercentral -dot- tv>]

I have used one or two verbatim... it was something from a vendor that
we used in a package. I got permission and they had no problem at all.
They were happy to have their version in our manual rather than having
someone they didn't know (i.e. ME) paraphrasing it.

Just get permission.

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+mschmidt=weathercentral -dot- tv -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+mschmidt=weathercentral -dot- tv -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com]
On Behalf Of Tom Johnson
Sent: Monday, August 07, 2006 5:58 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Ethics of reusing vendor's help material -- copyright issue
orcommonplace practice?

Is it commonplace or questionable to reuse a vendor's help material
nearly 
verbatim to customize a smaller guide more focused on our audience?

For example, our company recently purchased software that comes with a
384 
page user guide. Our users will only need about 40 pages of this. I want
to 
copy these 40 pages, change it a little to fit with our style guide, and

brand it without own documentation template. However, I plan to leave
the 
wording and screenshots mostly as is.

If we've purchased this software, is it still a copyright issue? Even if
so, 
is it common practice in the tech comm. field to do this? Any 
recommendations for me?

Thanks,

Tom 


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