pilots-n-planes Or Copyright? What's that?

Mike,

I have jumbled your post around a bit I hope you dont mind,

>On the subject of paper books, I wouldn't care if I didn't
>make any money.

Doing it for prestige or your personal satisfaction is just as valid a reason to create content as for money or making a living doing it. Nothing more prestigious than publishing a book.

I publish what I know and learn to the AFC site because I enjoy doing it. The value to me is the fun I get in doing, not to mention I have made and met a bunch of great friends through it.


>so I've got my copy of Adobe Acrobat distiller,

I do it in XML and then run it through FOP, which converts it to PDF. $0 and easy to edit to other formats if need be. I had to do it for a work project, and did a proof of concept with an AFC topic to make sure it all worked.

>I've burnt my CDs - sold some - then some turkey
>comes along, rips off my CD, and plasters it all over his
>web site - I'm going to be just as pissed as if it were
>a paper book.

You are assuming that the value is in the distribution and the scarcity of the product. This is ok if you are a million seller because economies of scale mean enough royalties get back to the author.

If the value is in the content, as production (copying) and distribution cost zero ( which it pretty much does now ), then you have to find a way to charge for the value of the content rather than the scarcity of the item.

If you put your research into internet style sizes ( 5 to 10 pdf pages max ) then distribute them for $0, basically let anyone distribute them, and have in the front of your pdf a copyright notice saying the information in this book is covered by the copyright of nation so-and-so, your are allowed fair use, blah blah blah, any infringement will be dealt with legally. ( you are covered by copyright law agianst people copying your work and publishing your work without consent of the copyright holder ).

Also have on the front of the book, if you enjoyed this, and found value in it, send $5 USD/GBP/AUD etc to PO Box, or Paypal account ..... . It is the old style of shareware, there will be those that abuse it by not paying, but ...... when distribution is $0 anyway they gain nothing by copying it, because the next person that sees it might pay.

I think this would be a good means of publishing extreme minority interest publications, the old Profile series would be perfect for this, 5 pages, a few photos, a couple of profiles and $5 please. This would also be a good way of publishing from an author that is involved in a minority interest community, such as WWI aviation, if one of the luminaries here published and mentioned on this site that they were, they would sell copies. You could even value add, by selling a CD with 20 of them on, plus a signed print of a profile, plenty of ways to lead in and add value.

There are many content creators here who I would buy pdf files from for information, I would print them myself and probably bind them after a while, all of which is allowed under copyright laws fair use.

This method does address the problem of copying and distribution falling towards zero with computers and the internet. The publishing industry is still dead tree, and everything is geared towards recovering the cost of copying ( printing ) and distribution. If copying and distributing is $0 with computers and the internet, why charge for them, charge for the labor in the generation of content instead.

Well known authors with this method, could even solicit money previous to publication to publish on a certain subject. There are plenty of innovative ways to achieve it. I think a 5 page PDF on the aircraft of Richthofen with profiles would probably sell like hotcakes.



cam

[Billy_Bishop]

After having a closer look at http://pilots-n-planes-ww1.com/ I am sure it is the same website which was at pigstompers.com. I wonder if the copyright issues are chasing the website owner around?

It is. *The site I have problems with is http://www.wwiaviation.com/ *
If you look at the bios for the pilots on the above site, it looks like he took them straight from HERE, the Aerodrome!!!

THAT is theft, pure and simple.

VBR,

Al Lowe

[AchimEngels]

That is nonsense, pure and simple!

To be honest, if anybody here fears that any contribution made on this website will be used anywhere else, than he better should not post.

If there are highly reputed historians here who are not interested in sharing their information than they are wrong here.

In this respect I admire Mr. Manfred Thiemeyer. He is one of those who fear that any information contributed by him might be used by someone else. Therefore he strictly denies to participate here. He just sticks to responding in anoying private mails

As a matter of fact (regardless if it might be considered wrong or right) the internet is a very open place where a lot of charracters meet one another and everybody should be aware that there are people out there who benefit from the contribution of others - and that´s by the way is what it is for.

Stop participating if you don´t like it.

You might say he did something wrong. I do not see it that way and never will. It might have been better if he might have quoted the source, but hey, live is bad!

Do you really think I will stop posting copies of documents in those various threads I participate just to avoid that anybody will save copies of these on their harddrive and use them somewhere else? I will not. I did it because I wanted to discuss them and because I wanted to share them. If they will be used with a note that it came from my archive - fine! If they will be used without that note, well, I knew that before. I would not have posted it if i would have feared it!

Just let me know if I am wrong. (but that won´t change a thing )

Achim

[Billy_Bishop]

Achimengels:

I'll Tell you what, you read the stuff below, and YOU be the judge. *The first quote if from THIS website, the Aerodrome.

Bishop attended the Royal Military College before joining the 8th Canadian Mounted Rifles at the beginning of the war. After serving overseas with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps in December 1915 and received his pilot's certificate in 1917. Flying the Nieuport 17 and S.E.5a, " The Lone Hawk" was considered by some to be a mediocre pilot, but his extraordinary eyesight and consistent practice earned him a reputation as a crack shot.

As the commanding officer of the " Flying Foxes," he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) after scoring 25 victories in just twelve days. On the morning of 2 June 1917, his single-handed attack against a German aerodrome on the Arras front earned him the Victoria Cross, making Bishop the first Canadian flyer to receive this honor. Before the war ended, he found time to write " Winged Warfare," an autobiographical account of his exploits in the air over France.

Because Bishop flew many of his patrols alone, most of his victories were never witnessed. After years of controversy, a television broadcast entitled "The Kid Who Couldn't Miss" led to an inquiry by the Canadian government in 1985. In conclusion, the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology discredited the film, finding it to be an unfair and inaccurate portrayal of Bishop.

This next one is from:
http://www.wwiaviation.com

Bishop attended the Royal Military College before joining the 8th Canadian Mounted Rifles at the beginning of the war. After serving overseas with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps in December 1915 and received his pilot's certificate in 1917. Flying the Nieuport 17 and S.E.5a, "The Lone Hawk" was considered by some to be a mediocre pilot, but his extraordinary eyesight and consistent practice earned him a reputation as a crack shot.

As the commanding officer of the "Flying Foxes," he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross after scoring 25 victories in just twelve days. On the morning of June 2, 1917, his single-handed attack against a German aerodrome on the Arras front earned him the Victoria Cross, making Bishop the first Canadian flyer to receive this honor. *Before the war ended, he wrote "Winged Warfare," an autobiographical account of his exploits in the air over France.

Because Bishop flew many of his patrols alone, most of his victories were never witnessed. After years of controversy, a television broadcast entitled "The Kid Who Couldn't Miss" led to an inquiry by the Canadian government in 1985. In conclusion, the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology discredited the film, finding it to be an unfair and inaccurate portrayal of Bishop.

If you look at them, word by word, you will see almost 100% likeness between the two. *

While the paragraphs are broken in different places on their repsective sights, I broke them in the same place in each one to add in viewing them.

While I know that Scott got his information from the various Grub street books, if you compare what is in the books to what is on the pages for each ace, you'll see that HE tried to vary each some what so he wasn't quoting the books, word for word.

On the other hand, if you visit Mr. Boucher's site, you'll see that just about each one is word for word (with VERY minor exceptions) identical to what Scott wrote here.

The one that is REALLY tell tale is if you look at Mannock on Mr. Boucher's list of British aces, Mannock is at the top of the list with 73. *But when you go to the specific page for Mannock, it looks almost exactly like Scott's does here, including the score of 61 Victories instead of 73.

That is what I mean by pure theft. *He very OBVIOUSLY copied Scott's work, with very little change, and put his own copyright on it and claimed it as his own work.

This:
"Original material copyright © 7/8/99 W. Ira Boucher. All Rights Reserved.
Website by Ira Designs last updated on April 19, 2002"
Is what you see on just about EVERY page that is part of his site. *http://www.wwiaviation.com

Now, you, or anyone else is going to tell ME that's not theft?


As I said, I don't really have a problem with the other site, the one that used to be on Pigstompers. *http://pilots-n-planes-ww1.com . *

After all, Dave lists his sources and everything, and I don't see any copyright claims by him either. *

VBR,

Al Lowe

[AchimEngels]

Hi,

It seems that you got me wrong on this one.

I did not say it is not theft the way he did. All I said was that the intention of publishing any material should be (at least is in my view) to let others use it and work woth this stuff.

I do not say that he has done anything I would love to do, especially when it comes down to the point of claiming this his own work.If it was not, than he just might tell lies here and I agree with you. For sure he should not have repeated it typo by typo.

What I basically wanted to say is that if somebody fears that his work might be used in connection with a subsequent publication, he should keep his work confidential.

I do not know if my use of the english language is comprehensive enough to make you see what I mean, but I hope it is.

Let me try to make it clearer: I do not defend the way he act. And I would not do so. I just defend the way to use any published material (with respect to content) as source for the production of a entirely new work.

Achim

[MikeW]

Achim,

I do not believe that there is anyone here who would object to their work being developed upon by someone else - most people would be flattered.

But the wholesale ripping off of someone's work, whatever we individually think of the practice, is bloody stupid, if only because without doing any original research, the mistakes in the original work are presented all over again. And I can assure you that a cursory glance at the website reveals a number of mistakes.

Anyway, what is the Mammoth from Ice Age doing with a WW1 website anyway?


Mike

But the wholesale ripping off of someone's work, whatever we individually think of the practice, is bloody stupid, if only because without doing any original research, the mistakes in the original work are presented all over again. And I can assure you that a cursory glance at the website reveals a number of mistakes.

Not to mention LAZY

[AchimEngels]

I agree with you on what you said above.

[PeterL]

I think I'm on his side. He's just an enthusiast who wants to share the information he has with anyone who is interested, which is really what the great www should be all about IMO. There is no profit motive and I seriously doubt he is harming anyones sales significantly. There are millions of sites like this one, my own included, and I have the conceit to say the web would be the poorer without them

As someone who owns copyrights on all of the work I have on-line, I know that it's difficult to keep track of who is using my work elsewhere on the net. All I'd ask, and would expect, is that someone who wants to use my stuff asks permission first. I've no doubt that this would also be the case for authors who's work appears on other people's websites. I'd say it's just a little common courtesy