Contrary to popular belief. All manufacturer schematics released before 1976 without a copyright notice are in the public domain, including Gottlieb. They were public domain the day they were released without a printed copyright notice and date. Gottlieb began adding the notice around 1973 or so. I have many pre-73 Gottlieb schematics without such notice.

What happened was Gottlieb Development LLC asked sites such as IPDB to remove the copyrighted material such as manuals, schematics and roms. They were removed as requested. But they threw the baby out with the bath water and removed everything. Including the public domain stuff that was never copyrighted to begin with.

Gottlieb Development LLC is a litigious bunch who once sued Paramount Pictures for copyright infringement because a Gottlieb machine was used as a set decoration in the background of a movie. They lost. But the pinball sites don't have Paramount's lawyers. So no one wants to risk them sighting intellectual property or some nonsense, and get sued, just to make a few schematics available to a niche section of the pinball community.

... And that is why you can't download public domain Gottlieb schematics.

I believe Ship Ahoy came out after the copyright law change, so even if they didn't include a copyright notice it would still be copyrighted. The public domain issue is only with material published prior to 1976 without a copyright notice.

I was simply explaining why the OP couldn't download older Gottlieb schematics. Over a dozen scans from my originals were already removed from IPDB. I have no intention of making Gottlieb schematics available for download for exactly the reason I stated in my post. I've already read the "we are not ogres" letter.

The only cheap people I see are Gottlieb LLC trying to make money off of something they don't own. Even though it may have just been an oversight by the original D. Gottlieb. Buying or selling a company doesn't change the fact that many early Gottlieb schematics are, and always were, public domain.

I'm sure the estate of George A Romero would like to undo the release of Night of the Living Dead without a copyright notice. That snafu cost him millions.