I'm not talking about the CD, I was referring to the hard copy manual for 1978. I think Brett is telling the truth...of course. He has an licensing agreement with GM. As far as the parts manual, the hard copy that I have does have copyright notation on each and every page. I think they forgot it on the 78 service manual though. The body manual is protected with a copyright notation too.
GM is tough. They really throw their weight around. In the 90's I worked for TRW. We had a long term contract to provide valves for GM. The contract was specific about the price, which was on a declining scale year after year. In other words, in order to make money on the contract, TRW would have to figure out how to cut costs to keep up with the price degradation. About half way through the contract, the CEO of GM came into the CEO of TRW's office with contract in hand. He tore it up and told the TRW CEO, now we have to renegotiate the contract....they did, at much lower prices. TRW's CEO had the choice of suing GM or renegotiating...he couldn't sue his largest customer.
You'd think that GM would want to inspire brand loyalty by being reasonable about these types of things. It probably cost more for GM to collect their miserable $3K per year from Brett than they spend dealing with the issue. It's really great advertising to see an old GM rolling down the road. You'd think they would try to nurture the owners of these cars.
