Electronic Gold Book

[the white drew carey]

If I still had it I would. I deleted it when I broke down and bought the Gold Book. Sorry!

That's very honorable of you. I can appreciate that.

[sketchley]

What were not any higher than that?

Please tell me we've at least beat Robotech.

Just did a quick search (results are from the Japanese google):

Macross World is still 9th. The first mention of Robotech doesn't appear until page 3; #38, if I'm reading it correctly.

[yellowlightman]

Open discussion about bootleg videos: OK

Open discussion about bootleg toys: OK

Pinned topic about a place to download plenty of copied videos: Sure thing!

Scanning a very out of print book: Bad

[EXO]

Open discussion about bootleg videos: OK

Open discussion about bootleg toys: OK

Pinned topic about a place to download plenty of copied videos: Sure thing!

Scanning a very out of print book: Bad

That's the thing I dont get. I mean, the bootleg issue has been around before Rohby's JM and Cap's Legioss (and from what I remember it was funding that killed that project). I'm talking about the height of 1/55 recasting and out of production resin kits. If you look at the model section, there's still a pinned topic about recasting the Koenig monster (failed attemt to) even though Yamato already released it as a toy. The fact that it was pinned in the first place kinda suprised me. I'm not trying to discourage or encourage anything. I'm just trying to make sense where justification ends and where hyprcritism begins. I was in line to buy that recast but backed out as soon as an official version was announced. I got my copy of the Gold Book but would love a digital version to keep my hardcopy in good condition. I have so much toys and books and videos of Macross stuff that I'm pretty secure that I've done my part in keeping BW's pockets from being empty. But if it doesnt happen then I wont lose sleep over it.

[JsARCLIGHT]

If I had my drothers NONE of this stuff would be pinned or openly discussed, but I am in the very, very small minority on this issue. I come from another realm of message boards, the firearms world. Any and all talk of illegal things on firearms boards is strictly frowned upon whenever it is encountered. I am used to having to "lecture" people on the law and the reasons you don't talk about certain things in the open. The thing is, that is done NOT because people like me want to be dicks and holier than thou punks... it's done for liability reasons. Hell in all truth about half of the firearm owners out there at some point in their lives are breaking a law... they may not know it, or they may know it, but it still comes down that they are not all rosy in the eyes of the law. The same thing happens here... there are a lot of people here breaking the law. They may not know it and then again most of them DO know it and don't care.

The problem is in this culture of apathetic acceptance of illegal activity that has grown up not only here at MW but all over the net... and the world for that matter. In all truth if Macross World is ever "raided" in earnest by any of the rights holders' lawyers who's intellectual properties we "borrow" for all these things this place (as well as many of it's members and staff) would be subpoenaed and shut down in a breath for complicit activity. It has happened in the past to other sites and we run the risk of it happening to us if we unabashedly continue to thumb our collective noses in the face of the law and the original rights holders. Through our grudging acceptance and "encouragement" through inaction of all these bootlegs and copies we are setting ourselves up for trouble. The only thing, and I mean the ONLY thing, that saves us is that all this revolves around a long forgotten and vastly microscopic small scale (in the sense of greater things) foreign property. In other words we are saved because the original rights holders themselves are seemingly apathetic of enforcing their property on such a small scale... but there may come a day when someone decides we ARE a problem and they take action on something here. We may be small potatoes now, but given time and the increasing volume of stuff we do, we may soon make ourselves quite a juicy target. All this running fast and loose with other people's intellectual properties has to have boundaries "in public". When MW was a tiny, unnoticeable kitchen table group where everyone knew everyone else this sort of stuff was not really an issue... but as this place grows we NEED to keep a better handle on all the publicly visible questionable activity on here or risk possible legal repercussions down the road. Today's MW has thousands of people looking at everything... one of these days one of those people could be a copyright lawyer building a case.

AND FOR THE RECORD: I am NOT against the people who are doing this, as like EVERYONE here (yes I mean ALL of us) we are ALL guilty of something in regard to this issue if not here then somewhere else. What I AM against is the open, brazen and "site encouraged" nature all this keeps taking on. There are ways to do what you want to do and still maintain an incognito low profile, you don't have to have all these blinking billboards pointing at things. In the words of my grandpa: "If you are going to break the law, don't go and do it in the middle of the street in broad daylight with neon signs pointing at your getaway car". After all, discretion is the better part of valor and I feel all this bootlegging and copying stuff needs more discretion. All a person has to do is look at the "bootleg" sites that continue to operate... the chief trait among them is their low profile. Am I saying it needs to stop? Not really. Am I saying we all need to play our cards a LOT closer to our chests? Yes.

Then again from my vantage point none of you guys care. No one cares. It's "cool" be all apathetic and "whatever" about the legal side of all this "fun". Pointing at something someone else did in the past neither makes what you are doing right now right, necessary nor legal... it simply makes you another one on the pile. Eventually that tiny, unnoticeable pile of lawbreakers is going to get really darn big if this attitude continues and someone is going to see it. And at that point all this apathy is going to be our undoing. We need to change our tactics now while we are still under the radar. What that tactics change is is not for me to dictate, but eventually we will need to control the public display and encouragement of all this. It doesn't have to "go away", it just has to maintain a low profile.

[EXO]

This is exactly what I'm talking about though. I feel that even though we're on the same page about what needs to be done, whether we should or shouldnt talk about stuff like this, I feel like a long post like yours (Js) shows the extreme hush-hush, 'hey people might be reading this' when it's a book being talked about, versus if it's a toy being bootlegged. I've never seen you or any other make a fuss over a recasting of a toy (actually models are more rampantly recasted), but drop the idea of digitizing a book then the need for urgency for the discussion to be stopped suddenly arises. There's like a degree of acceptance here. Toys and models, then videos or music that may or may not be available domestically to the US and then books.

I would have rather if Menchinyun just did it on his own and then quietly offered it as a take it or leave it type thing. I think that's something that the toys and models people have learned as well as the people translating videos and offering it here. An interest thread has never gone over well with me. I know it seems stupid giving this away now, but it seems that some people just wont get it unless it said out loud. So I'm gonna say it once and never again.

[JsARCLIGHT]

I have actually been holding my tongue for a long time on this subject, mostly because being a "dudley do-right" and constantly quoting law and procedure loses you friends fast... because of the permeation of it being "cool" to bootleg and copy. I have no wish to be known as the MW "square" who ruins everyone's party. In truth, I never wander into the model section so all the recasting in there slips by me... but just because I don't say anything there does not mean I feel any differently. I could run around this site and constantly drop law and quote regulations but it will still end up the same: life will go on, people will still recast and distribute and my rambling will have solved nothing. I have no wish to see people denied something , my only wish is that certain "activities" and "things" that are floating around this site that are not exactly above the boards be reigned in a bit. To me that includes recasting... but as I said, one guy asking for change does not an edict make.

And as to the reason recasts are given a sort of "pass" on here but direct copying like bootleg videos and copied books are set upon could have something to do with how the law views those actions and how people see the people who perform those acts. See my previous post about "tangible" versus "intangible" items and how they are viewed under the law in respect to total copies and partial copies. Someone who creates a copy manually (such as tracing, physically sculpting or producing) is actually legal within the "fair use" clause as long as they don't sell their effort. Also if only a part is recast or created that falls into the realm of "spare parts" or "modification parts", requiring the original to be purchased and causing no financial loss to the original rights holder in theory. Also to some degree there is a level of "creative respect" given to recasters... mostly because everyone sees "recasting" as a time consuming, "tricky" "art form" that requires skill and finesse... whereas the common belief that in today's computer age "anyone with a pc can copy a video" or "anyone with a scanner can scan in a page from a book" seems to make them "unskilled" and thus not deserving of respect.

[the white drew carey]

Awwww, Js... you're not losing any friends. I completely respect your insight. While the letter of the law is clear, one has to admit that their is a grey area, percieved or actual, in regards to a lot of the items which are "bootlegged." But also, by the points you've made, even homemade kits like we've seen around here are technically "illegal" bacause they are using copyrighted concepts as source material without procuring a license to manufacture and distribute them for sale. If you're going to point out on illegality, you have to point out them all.

[EXO]

Here's my point before I close the thread as requested...

interest threads suck!

If the project was presented as completed or if there was something more to it, like maybe a translation project then it would have been recieved better. But a thread that asks, who's gonna buy my stuff IF I ever do it never goes over well and it seems to make the site and it's members a mob that loot copyrighted material. This goes across the board, not just books.

So PM Mechinyun if interested... Thanks!

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.