Given that:
Chip companies are in the business of selling chips,
not in the business of selling data sheets.
The data sheet is essential to use the chip. Without
a data sheet, there is no reason to buy the chip.
leading to:
Chip companies make data sheets available to the general
public for free.
And, given that:
Copyright is a carrot given to authors to encourage them
to create works so that the general public will benefit from
those works. Copyright was never meant as a way to prevent
people from gaining access to a work. The goal of copyright
is to get works created and available to the public. I've
read that distributing a copyrighted work is allowed if the
work is out of print.
I conclude:
It is reasonable for a web site to provide a link to the chip
company's official copy of a data sheet and also provide a local
copy in case the official copy is unavailable for some reason.
(server down, DNS problem, accidentially deleted, etc.) I've
seen this link plus local copy done on various websites for
various works.
If the local copy is buried down in a website, under a "no robots"
directory, then the only people finding it would be those interested
in the project. Include a statement offering to take down the local
copy if requested by the copyright holder.
I am not a lawyer.
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