Collective buying of EMC standards (e.g. CISPR 11, 16) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / rf-microwave

author: balage
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2020, 12:37:46 pm
content: Hi Guys,I am very interested on reading some EMC standards, but there are no alternative sources for them. As an individual I cannot afford them.I was thinking if buying some of them, collectively, would be a good idea. The costs would be shared as well as the documents. Some of the standards are downloadable and some of them are in an online readable format. Sharing the pdf would be easy, for online reading there are also solutions.What do you think? Would anybody join? Have you ever tought on something like this? Do you think there is any barrier for such?Hope it is not illegal to talk about.

author: rf-messkopf
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2020, 09:23:15 pm
content: The standardizing bodies like ISO or IEC usually only grant single user licenses for their standards. Sharing them would be a copyright violation. See this document by ISO/IEC:https://www.iso.org/files/live/sites/isoorg/files/store/en/PUB100206.pdf, or this by DIN:https://www.din.de/resource/blob/63718/f9b225241aa8c612855cfc2c9bd59e63/notice-of-copyright-of-din-standards-data.pdf. I think the best you could get is a company wide license.Even in university or institute libraries you cannot make printouts or save standards, and only view them on screen, unless you are an institute member.

author: 0culus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2020, 10:34:32 pm
content: I've never understood whystandardsof all things have to be protected like trade secrets with draconian user agreements for access and very expensive per-standard costs. It's the same racket as the paywall that academic journals keep around their stuff. I had to spend over $2k at work one time for a stack of ISO standards related to a project I was working on. We made sure to get them shipped in printed form too, in case their DRM laden PDFs ever got poison pilled.Best bet is university library or through your job. Buying these as an individual doesn't make sense unless you are a business (e.g. you do consulting) or you have disposable income burning a hole in your pocket.

author: balage
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 30, 2020, 01:42:54 pm
content: In the meantime I was reading about the rights, legal things, etc. My idea is bleeding from several points.I think this idea will be forgotten...

author: Neilm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 30, 2020, 06:56:58 pm
content: Quote from: 0culus on March 29, 2020, 10:34:32 pmThe cost goes towards the costs for publishing the standard - not the content. (I know people on standards committees so this isn't just conjecture). There is a lot of work to the publishing process and it has to be paid for some how. The country standards commitee pays for expenses and the company I work for contribuits the time (plus they get some say on the standards). For a company, the prices of the standards are trivial in comparison to other expenses.

author: wizard69
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2020, 07:27:41 pm
content: Quote from: Neilm on March 30, 2020, 06:56:58 pmThis is also why the electronic variants cost almost as much or sometimes the same price. However lets be honest some of these standards organizations live high on the hog. I know that has frustrated many in the academic world.In general though you are paying to keep the organization viable. The organization is effectively a company that needs to pay its employees. It isn't perfect and frankly that is one reason why Mil-standards and other publicly available standards are more useful.

author: E.Buer
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2020, 08:24:12 am
content: Many of these standards are safety related. There is something wrong when small compaies can't afford to read the safety standards they are legally obligated to comply with.I have read that the Indian standards are open, and allegedly plagiarized from the EN/IEC ones. Try getting a hold of one of these.The IEC has public commenting on their standards prior to release. If you sign up, you can get a peek, and comment on various standards (for free).

author: OwO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2020, 04:05:25 pm
content: Protest your government and make the case that laws can not apply to you if you can't even know what the rules are. Start by simply ignoring the EMC requirements, and if you are lucky enough to actually be noticed, challenge them in court, make a big stink on social media that the government extorts money from you for simply knowing the laws that you are supposedly required to abide by.

author: samofab
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2020, 04:15:00 pm
content: In my country there's an option to visit the standards office (by appointment every Wednesday) and read the standards in their library for free. As a matter of fact you have to tell them which standard you want to look at in advance and the will print them out. I reckon this could be an issue these days.And for actually obtaining the standards the cheapest online source is Romania standards office (https://www.asro.ro/). They have a really dodgy site, language is a large barrier, but a few days after you give them your credit card, they send you access to FTP, where you can download windows software to view the standards that you bought. It's a hassle, but they are about half the price as where I live. And standard have an intro page in Romanian language - actual standards are in English, at least the ones I needed.Hope this helps.

author: richard.cs
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2020, 07:45:42 pm
content: I've got a few Indian standards that are word for word identical with the IEC ones. Not available for everything but the ones that are are freely available online.Thanks for the tip about the Romanian ones. :-)

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2020, 03:20:59 am
content: The Indian standards are freely available even if they're identical to others because of some Indian law. The rest you can find online at the usual places.

author: PixieDust
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 07:21:49 am
content: Looks like there is no two ways about it. If you want to see the standards for business purposes, then you have to fork out and pay. I don't see another way unfortunately.

author: charliedelta
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2020, 01:36:49 am
content: I dont really understand why they cant even make the standards available as a pay for view? In most cases i dont need the whole standard just the metrics or some other basic data. You are being blackmailed into paying for bloatware publishing. Again I blame our stupid governments for pivatising and selling off information that should readily available.

author: KaneTW
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2020, 03:40:57 am
content: I've seen some ISO/DIN standards on Chinese sites that weren't available anywhere else. Honestly, at least academic people should have easier access to standards. But even with university access I have to go to the main library in person and take notes.