Mechinyun Posted December 21, 2006 Posted December 21, 2006 Hey guys I am considering taking on the project of digitizing the Macross gold book. As in scanning in every single page and producing a big fat PDF Book, that is searchable and printable. Full quality. However this would require me to destroy my copy to do it right. Would anyone be intrested in this? I am thinking of giving this out per donation to cover the expense of buying a new book down the road. How much would you be willing to donate for this? If it generates interest I might take on some of the other rare books in the future.
jenius Posted December 21, 2006 Posted December 21, 2006 Why do I get the feeling that some members will be rather upset with this idea? I asked if anyone could point me to good lineart once and got lectured on copyright stuff...
sketchley Posted December 21, 2006 Posted December 21, 2006 ï¿¥0. Of course, you could always take digital photos of the book. A friend of mine did that for both Kazutaka Miyatake's and Tenjin Hidetaka's books. The results were very good. The main reason he did this was because of the sheer time involved with scanning (not to mention the wear and tear on the books.) I've had mixed results with this, as I tend to have the camera too close, and/or in bad lighting. I believe the trick is to use the zoom feature, while keeping the camera far enough away for the focus to work properly. Anyhow, good luck with whichever means you choose for digitizing the book.
Roy Focker Posted December 21, 2006 Posted December 21, 2006 First off everyone should know while the book is nicked named the "gold book" it isn't some giant resource of all things macross. It is a very big and nice book that covers DYRL? I believe it been release twice and it still cost about the price of new Yamato toy. If you have couple of smaller DYRL book you don't need this one unless you're really into DYRL or collecting books. Now I wonder if this isn't a plan to get extra money.
Mechinyun Posted December 21, 2006 Author Posted December 21, 2006 Well offer is out there, trying to give back something cool to the community. You can always PM me if interested. If I get enough interest it will happen.
TheLoneWolf Posted December 21, 2006 Posted December 21, 2006 Save your Gold Book and hop on Google. Someone's already done this.
Mechinyun Posted December 21, 2006 Author Posted December 21, 2006 Whoa thats awesome, can you post a link? I tried searching but came up with nothing.
Fortress_Maximus Posted December 21, 2006 Posted December 21, 2006 I have mixed feelings about this, but I am mainly concerned the Gold Book itself will get horribly destroyed.
Skullsixx Posted December 21, 2006 Posted December 21, 2006 I'd like to see that link. The Gold Book is something I've always wanted to own.
the white drew carey Posted December 22, 2006 Posted December 22, 2006 I'd like to see that link as well. I did the google search and didn't come up with anything obvious.
EXO Posted December 22, 2006 Posted December 22, 2006 The Gold Book is out of print right? I have no problem with this... of course that's just the way I feel and not at all sanctioned by this site and it's owners, other members and all that legal stuff.i would think you would keep the donations low enough to where you'll out of pocket for most of the book and there's still the whole, what's to stop us from sending the files to other people for free since it's not yours to begin with. Just stuff you have to think about. Thanks for the offer though. But as for having it searchable... the whole thing is in Japanese... how would I search it?
Zinjo Posted December 22, 2006 Posted December 22, 2006 (edited) I see no copyright issues as it is out of print and the publishers have made all their money already (in Japan, where they sold it). I support this idea for all OOP Macross books, it only helps the community. True collectors, me included, will always fork over for the physical books, but some just want the info and I see this as a good project for all Macross fans. Edited December 22, 2006 by Zinjo
Valkyrie addict Posted December 22, 2006 Posted December 22, 2006 I would like one, good idea, how much do we have to pitch in?
Mechinyun Posted December 22, 2006 Author Posted December 22, 2006 Cool, good to see some positive interest. I was thinking like 5 bucks. To cover my time(lots), the book(200) and bandwidth(??). I imagine the pdf will be quite huge of a download that I will host on my server. I am tied up till right after xmas, but plan on starting the project then. The more people chime in the better ill feel on cutting 400+ pages out of the book Still havent been able to find that link to the one already done, I kind of doubt its really out there. If it was we would would all have it already me thinks. But if someone finds it please post it!!!
Valkyrie addict Posted December 22, 2006 Posted December 22, 2006 wow, but to cut out a 100+ discontinued book?, maybe you should try some good lighting and take pictures first
Gaijin Posted December 22, 2006 Posted December 22, 2006 I see no copyright issues as it is out of print and the publishers have made all their money already (in Japan, where they sold it). Out of print or not, the copyright still stands.
sketchley Posted December 22, 2006 Posted December 22, 2006 Yes. Isn't it Big West who hold the rights? And as they are in the process of revising the Macross website, it implies that they are still publishing content, right?
daeudi Posted December 22, 2006 Posted December 22, 2006 (edited) I have mixed feelings about this, but I am mainly concerned the Gold Book itself will get horribly destroyed. Agreed. I have a complete PDF of the Hobby Book. I would love to have PDFs of Memory Perfect, and Design Works books that I own. That way I could drool on my laptop. And stuff that I would never be able to afford or find- like the the Gold Book- would be pure gold. But to mutilate a book, especially one that is practically irreplaceable, goes against everythhing in my being. Edited December 22, 2006 by daeudi
EXO Posted December 22, 2006 Posted December 22, 2006 yeah... the copyright on all the lineart and test still stands... don't make the mistake in thinking this is all legal. I'm all for discussing the issues in doing this kind of thing.
Mechinyun Posted December 22, 2006 Author Posted December 22, 2006 (edited) Edited December 22, 2006 by Mechinyun
JsARCLIGHT Posted December 22, 2006 Posted December 22, 2006 What you guys propose to do will not be legal. The Gold Book is not in the public domain (standard Japanese copyright law follows the Berne Convention which places timeframe of held copyright on published materials at "the life of the author" plus 50 years before it enters "public domain") and Big West has not given you written permission to do this, ergo you cannot legally "reproduce" their copyrighted material online... even if the book is "out of print" or not sold in you country. That includes "taking pictures" and publishing those as well (in a legal sense there really is no difference between scanning vs. taking pictures for online publication as it goes to the legal ends of "intent" and not "final outcome"). As this book is a Japanese creation it is controlled primarily under Japanese copyright law but the copyright laws of the US also back that up. So, as to the question of legality... what is proposed is definately not legal. Will people go ahead and do it anyway? Sure. Just keep this in mind: companies tend to get mad when they discover people copying their material and distributing it for free online... but they really get mad when people copy their material and then charge others for the copy, either online or off. There is a distinct risk of passing from simple contest of the "fair use" provisions of copyright law into bootlegging... and intended or not you can be classified and prosecuted under the same code violations as media pirates if you charge anything for material you do not own the rights to, even if it is simply to "recoup the costs of labor" it is still seen by law as charging a fee for someone else's intellectual property. My advice: if you go through with this do NOT charge for it, do NOT package it as a "product" (which mostly means making it an exclusive "commodity" available from a site you own or operate), do not put your name on it or in any way reference yourself in the copy and try to keep it as limited as possible in it's "distribution". In other words if you plan to do this distance yourself from it, simply do it and release it into the wild and let it go from there. Anything else paints a rather large legal bullseye on you.
Mechinyun Posted December 22, 2006 Author Posted December 22, 2006 Jezzusss.. this thread is getting too heavy. Too many debbie downers... :/ http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=244 Pinned for almost 4 years here at the top. There is no difference except about 100 gigabytes. Its obvious whats up, lets easy off this high horse riders.....
JsARCLIGHT Posted December 22, 2006 Posted December 22, 2006 All this talk about it invites the negative, of which there is a lot, and all of it legal. I have no dog in this fight and I am not trying to be a bully or a so called "high horse" on this, I am just voicing the facts of the situation. You came on here asking "should I?"... if you really, truthfully want to do this you should, reguardless of what anyone else says. But my "issue" with this is you came out saying "I want to give something back to the community" and then you started talking about "recovering the costs" of you doing it, implying you will charge people for your efforts. Despite that not really being in the spirit of the IMacross FTP, it legally invites the most harsh retributions of copyright law onto yourself. We allow the IMacross FTP stuff because it is open ended, free user to user sharing. Having someone pay you, even if it is simply "recovering operating costs", raises the eyebrow of "bootlegging" which is NOT really discussed on here that much due to the stigma of law about it. If doing this is what you want, simply do it and release it into the wild... people will love it and you will have less legal tape tying you to it if it somehow comes back on you. You may not agree with what I'm saying but I'm trying to help you, not hurt you.
EXO Posted December 22, 2006 Posted December 22, 2006 Jezzusss.. this thread is getting too heavy. Too many debbie downers... :/ http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=244 Pinned for almost 4 years here at the top. There is no difference except about 100 gigabytes. Its obvious whats up, lets easy off this high horse riders..... Like I said, we should discuss the issue, so let's not count JsArclight's post as "downers" but it is a valid counter point to doing such things. You can't just put up a post saying I'm gonna digitize the Gold Book and sell it for cheap and expect to win everyone over. All you can do is put up a good counter argument. Like the fact that MW was built on stepping all over copyright issues, by bootlegging toys and selling resin copies of other people's work and selling original sculpts of toys and models based on BW lineart. And offering videos that we can't get domestically in the US thru the imacross servers.
Zinjo Posted December 22, 2006 Posted December 22, 2006 (edited) The legality issue is very real, however the "risk" of legal action is much less as both the publisher and the property owner are not likely to engage legal counsel for a digitization of their out of print work outside of Japan. If they licensed the work to a Western publisher for distribution there would no doubt be legal action. The remote likelyhood of legal challenge to the project doesn't make it "legal" as JsArclight has pointed out and would indeed be considered a "bootleg" release of the book on digital media. If anything it would fall into the grey area that asian bootlegs currently exist in. Since no legal action is being taken against the publishers and retailers they survive in the legal void of indifference. That being said, I would still support it as the original publisher and property owners are no longer profiting from the publication and have no apparent interest to sell it in the West. Thus with full knowledge and understanding if the legality of the project I still would like one.... I do agree with JsArclight that to charge for that specific comodity will be exposing yourself to undue legal risk should there ever be a legal challenge made against your work. How you recover any costs associated with the project should be recovered by NOT directly referencing the Gold Book project. Edited December 22, 2006 by Zinjo
JsARCLIGHT Posted December 23, 2006 Posted December 23, 2006 Like the fact that MW was built on stepping all over copyright issues, by bootlegging toys and selling resin copies of other people's work and selling original sculpts of toys and models based on BW lineart. And offering videos that we can't get domestically in the US thru the imacross servers. And to that degree we can remember what happened to some of those more ambitious toy and model recast projects... Rohby's custom Joke Machine models, of which he designed and made himself thus copying nothing, where "shut down" via legal action. Captain America's 1/32 scale Legioss project also fell to the sting of legal action. For all the "successes" Macross World and it's network of recasters and uploaders has we have quite a few very notable legal C&D's. A large part of those items getting legally shut down was that they where advertised on here... their makers did not play their cards close to their chest and their efforts caught the attention of the folks who held the legal rights. It seems to me we (MW) get away with a LOT of the other stuff mostly because we keep most of it hush-hush and relatively low key. The more that people talk, the more people's attention it grabs... it seems to me the more "subversive" and under wraps that people keep things, the greater chance they have of eluding legal action IF legal action is going to find them. Also to the subject of "tangible product" versus intellectual property there is some legal "wiggle room" if you may. When you directly copy and "republish" someone's copyrighted materials such as a book, audio recording or movie you are making an exact copy of said property and thus infringing on their intellectual rights and possibly "damaging" them by people buying your copy rather than their product. But when you create new items based on their property (such as Rohby's toys or CA's legioss) you are guilty of using their license without their permission but you are not directly copying or bootlegging their property. Also in some cases, such as folks recasting single parts like 1/48 BP-8's or hands, that can be legally construed as "replacement parts" or "modification parts" as long as it is not a complete exact duplicate in both name and function to the entity. In other words if I build and sell a copy of a 1998 Camaro as a "JsARCLIGHT 1998 Camaro" without Chevy's permission they can hit me with all sorts of legal heat... but if I design and sell an aftermarket replacement quarter panel for the 1998 Camaro I have now moved from infringement to a more tertiary legal area. I may not be out of the legal woods but I have a much better legal defense making an aftermarket modification part than I do attempting to copy and sell the whole, for you need the original whole to use my part thus implying I am not damaging the original rights holder's ability to profit from their intellectual property. But when your sole product is a direct copy of someone else's intellectual property you find yourself right in that legal bullseye with little to no wiggle room. It's almost comical to think this but legally speaking if Mechinyun would hand trace the line art out of the Gold Book he could possibly bypass this entire legal issue as now his "traced" Gold Book would technically be an "interpretation" of the original protected source material and would fall into the realm of "fair use" as it is now "his work".
Beltane70 Posted December 23, 2006 Posted December 23, 2006 Yes. Isn't it Big West who hold the rights? And as they are in the process of revising the Macross website, it implies that they are still publishing content, right? Wouldn't the copyright belong to the publisher of the book, which in this case would be Shogakukan?
TheLoneWolf Posted December 23, 2006 Posted December 23, 2006 I'd like to see that link as well. I did the google search and didn't come up with anything obvious. Did you try 'anime artbook torrents'? It's possible that it's no longer seeded. If that's the case then the next place to check would be the IRC anime artbook channels. When I downloaded it it was a massive .zip file with high res scans of each page. Whoever did it removed each individual page and scanned it in it's entirety. The way I see it, you've got two options here: Option A) spend a couple hours searching through torrents and/or IRC for it. Or... Option B) spend a couple weeks collecting the money, finding the book, buying the book, the dozens of hours spent shearing and scanning each individual page (it's a couple hundred IIRC), assembling and distilling the .pdf, and finally finding suitable host space or burning it onto CD's for the donaters. Maybe I've just taken too many blows to the head in my day, but I'd go with Option A.
sketchley Posted December 23, 2006 Posted December 23, 2006 Wouldn't the copyright belong to the publisher of the book, which in this case would be Shogakukan? These things are usually published under license. The license for the book may or may not have expired, but that doesn't mean that the copyright held by Big West is over.
sketchley Posted December 23, 2006 Posted December 23, 2006 Just out of curiousity, I got out a varied selection of my Macross books, just to check the copyright writeup: This is Animation: SDF:M 下巻: copyright æ¯Žæ—¥æ”¾é€ & ビックウエスト (Publisher: å°å¦é¤¨) Macross Perfect Memory: copyright æ¯Žæ—¥æ”¾é€ & ビックウエスト (Publisher: ã¿ã®ã‚Šæ›¸æˆ¿) This is Animation: Macross 7 TV Animation Materials: copyright ビックウエスト (Publisher: å°å¦é¤¨) Shoji Kawamori Macross Design Works: copyright ビックウエスト,　河森æ£æ²»ï¼†ã‚¹ã‚¿ã‚¸ã‚ªã¬ãˆ (Publisher: MOVIC) Tenjin Hidetaka Art Works of Macross: Valkyries: copyright Tenjin Hidetaka & ビックウエスト　(Publisher: KOBUNSHA) As suspected, the copyright for the material in the book(s) is still with Big West, which is actively publishing related material. In addition, there may be the copyright for the book with the company that originally published it (the additional material produced by the publisher that wasn't provided by the copyright holder.) There is also the possibility of the publisher reprinting the book. For example, my This is Animation: SDF:M 下巻 is the 5th printing, printed in 1990.9.01, when the first printing was in 1983.9.10. Another point I'd like to raise is that copyright laws are potentially quite different in Japan, from your country (if it isn't Japan.) What I have noticed here in Japan, is that websites do not have copyright pictures in them, without permission from the copyright holder. On the other hand, there are many derivative pictures, which appear to be allowed by Japanese copyright law (the sheer number of dojinshi appears to confirm this supposition.) Regarding the visibility of Macross World - it is currently ranked 9th on a google search under the term 'Macross.' As I'm in Japan, and google loads into a Japanese page, I did the search again, limiting responses to English only. Macross World is 5th. Highly visible, in other words. Yes... I agree that 'we' get away with more than the law allows. IMHO, pessimistically, it's because a lot of the infractions are two small, or causing negligible (financial) damages. Optomistically, the copyright holders let us get away with them, because a large proportion of the membership actively buys their products, not to mention all the free publicity the Macross World Publicity Machine © is generating for them. But that's just me and my alcohol fueled take on it.
Mr March Posted December 23, 2006 Posted December 23, 2006 I'm currently working on a fan website with another member and even I'm worried about skirting too far beyond the range of the fair usage laws. Especially with Macross, which has been such a hotly disputed property for years. I think as long as some fan creation is going into the project and you're not in effect bootlegging actual products, you're okay. But out-and-out reproduction of a product is bad news. While some fans may indeed play it fast and loose with whatever Macorss merchandise they want to obtain, I'd recommend against this "scan the book and sell" sort of endeavour. If you want to give back to the community, work on a fan website or do some badly needed translation on some of these books, or maybe just provide single page scans to people that ask for it. And DON'T ask to be compensated for labor/time/expense.
Roy Focker Posted December 23, 2006 Posted December 23, 2006 Regarding the visibility of Macross World - it is currently ranked 9th on a google search under the term 'Macross.' As I'm in Japan, and google loads into a Japanese page, I did the search again, limiting responses to English only. Macross World is 5th. Highly visible, in other words. What were not any higher than that? Please tell me we've at least beat Robotech.
JsARCLIGHT Posted December 23, 2006 Posted December 23, 2006 Hmmm.... when I do a google search for "Macross" I get Macross World at #3 behind the official Japanese Macross page (Big West) and the Macross Compendium. Robotech.com is number 7.
the white drew carey Posted December 24, 2006 Posted December 24, 2006 When I downloaded it it was a massive .zip file with high res scans of each page. Whoever did it removed each individual page and scanned it in it's entirety. Would you be willing to set your file up as a torrent?
TheLoneWolf Posted December 24, 2006 Posted December 24, 2006 Would you be willing to set your file up as a torrent? If I still had it I would. I deleted it when I broke down and bought the Gold Book. Sorry!
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