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Post by Finarvyn on Nov 14, 2010 11:24:14 GMT -6
Slightly OT ...
I am a stat historian for my local high school. In 1991 I contacted our girls' softball coach and asked if he had any old statbooks and he had an old box of stuff thrown in the corner that nobody wanted and I could take it if I wanted. I managed to reconstruct most of the stats for the program 1978-1991 and have kept them current as each season progresses. Local newspaper reporters know me and call or e-mail if they need information, but otherwise nobody on the planet has what I have. I print off stat books for the media and send them out, but no one else does updates and so on. And if you look in old newspapers there simply isn't anything printed other than an occasional score and/or highlight.
I have run into a similar situation for boys and girls basketball for my school. Twenty years ago there was a stash of statbooks and someone threw them away. Now I can't find the information and the newspapers have essentially no data at all.
This is the kind of frustration that I have with the Domesday books, knowing that they are out there but that I'm unable to look at the contents. Part of the reason why they have so much value now is that so many of them were lost over the years, just like the basketball statbooks. All it takes is a house fire or a careless person cleaning out "some old box of dusty papers" and they could be all gone forever.
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Post by harami2000 on Nov 14, 2010 11:47:01 GMT -6
Not really OT, IMHO, since that's a reasonable comparison where you simply cannot tell whether anyone still has the raw material on hand - far less that they might even already have done the research and collation independently! Good work, btw. > This is the kind of frustration that I have with the Domesday books, knowing that they are out there but that I'm unable to look at the contents. Part of the reason why they have so much value now is that so many of them were lost over the years, just like the basketball statbooks. All it takes is a house fire or a careless person cleaning out "some old box of dusty papers" and they could be all gone forever. Thankfully slightly more attention being paid to those than the likes of Lin Carter's work (to take a recent example). The fact there is a high $$ value attached to those also makes it more likely that people will hunt them down and ensure they're clearly inventoried. Anyhow; rolling back to generalities, a museum-style approach with dedicated researcher/archivist would work just fine to counter that potential for disastrous loss, presuming a digital archive of (near-) unique items as contingency and possibly research, at a push of (c). While the dominant mentality is expectation/demand to have "everything online free" - or approximating to that with no attempt to pool funds - that's simply not going to happen unless someone has a major lottery win or finds rich sponsor(s).
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Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2010 19:08:12 GMT -6
Since I have a background in Medieval History, I'll give an example from my field. www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/tmsmenu.htmRight now I have a printed copy of the Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales book which is available in it's entirety for free online. It's good enough that despite being free (and me having a printed off copy in a binder) I was still willing to purchase a copy for $30 because I thought I would get enough use out of it. This is nice as it allows people to check out the text for free online, they can do research for free online, or they can purchase a copy of the book. None of this affects the value of the original manuscripts that are in libraries, museums, and private collections.
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Post by aldarron on Nov 15, 2010 13:25:29 GMT -6
[Sorry, but pulling rank with official or unofficial "archaeologist" titles and their personal views (as if those were coherent across the entire profession) has precisely zero credibility IMHO; not least that the obvious big-name "archaeologist" in the hobby is a lousy researcher, deliberately plays politics with contacts, acts in a cliquish manner, refuses to share information, lies, misleads, cheats, violates (c) at will, etc. I take no "moral lessons" from such individuals far less from any stated-"established views" held by such "professions". Eh, think you may have misread the intent of the post or else I don't grok what the "pulling rank" reference refers to. I'm a professional archaeologist. I dig in dead peoples garbage and write papers about it. Its my job, not a rank. Your doubts are understandable, but I assure you the views of archaeologists regarding the "antiquities" market is indeed coherent across the profession. Reputations are as important in archaeology as in any academic or intellectual pursuit. The post is intended to create an awareness among the many who likely never heard of or considerd that there may be moral dilemas steming from partcipating in the purchase and "collection" of non renewable cultural resources, exacerbated when the purpose is one of financial investment and or exclusive access to items which they themselves were in no way responsible for creating. Such is simply the case. How anyone then chooses to sort out those issues vis a vis rpg material is not my business and it was never my intent to preach or allude to a specific resolution. Everyone's conscious must be thier own guide. I don't know who the despicable character you are refering to is (and am likely better off not knowng), but FWIW David, I take you to be the lead researcher in our hobby.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2010 23:58:14 GMT -6
Quite honestly, the collector who bought these could have easily elected not to sit on them but instead share them with the public, but that is not the intent with 99.99999 of such purchases. When a library makes similar purchases it is with the express intent of preserving the material and sharing it for research activity, and I don't believe that anyone would dispute the use in that or that this route is indeed productive (note HPL's, CAS's examples with their various repositories, for instance; and I for one was able to get photostats of that portion of HPL's letters held by the Wisconsin State Historical Society as far back as 1979, and this by mail; and the list is endless in that regard). I appreciate collectors for what they do and what they share, but I sold my collection of DBs back in 1984, and where are they now? Still held in storage. Some information has been volunteered, but no copies made public, only transferred around for high price tags. It has clearly been 26 years of that, and I for one am not getting any younger. The fact that my collection when sold was not of great matured value then, and that the collector, who we all know, has made quite a deal off of some exchanges since then as they matured in value, sets my mind at rest about my proposed intent, at least. The rest is problematical. History will take its course.
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Post by blackbarn on Nov 23, 2010 15:41:45 GMT -6
It would be amazing to see it happen. Here's hoping it does, and that piece of history isn't lost to the ages.
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Post by grodog on Nov 28, 2010 0:09:05 GMT -6
I certainly don't want to make collectors seem like the bad guy in all of this, and sorry if my post came off in that manner! Not at all, Marv: I wasn't calling out an particular posters or posts on the boards. It's just a vibe that often gets aired in blogs and at DF, K&K, and other places, and it's one that really puzzles me most of the time. I'm certainly not offended by it
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2010 20:54:18 GMT -6
I sure wish Grodog got rankled more often and thus became more and more outspoken.
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2020 6:05:32 GMT -6
Hello! Perhaps these materials will be useful... Recently, I discovered in the Internet that photos of RARE "Domesday book" - "issue # 13" by Gary Gygax (the BACK and front covers). In that photos, the gaps of the following pages are slightly visible Attachments:
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Post by robertsconley on May 29, 2020 8:47:07 GMT -6
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Post by flailsnail75 on Dec 24, 2020 5:38:25 GMT -6
Did these pdf’s ever happen?
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Post by tombowings on Dec 28, 2020 0:46:39 GMT -6
> I'm sorry, but watching a travel show in no way decreases my desire to visit said destination. Quite the opposite, actually. On a bicycle? "Visiting" != "experiencing". You're already a minority. And but a tiny minority of that minority will actually bother to research the history, culture, language, etc., far less travel around on foot or bicycle and immerse themselves as best possible within that local context for an extended period. As opposed to getting into a metal cylinder, jumping out, seeing a few (obvious) sights, staying in Western-style hotels, taking a few photos/vids, then jumping back in and flying home. Unfortunately, going to modern-day Italy is not the same as experiencing ancient Rome. That being said, I've lived aboard about 7 years, in Morocco, Thailand, and Laos. Even after living in those places for 2 years or more, I was/am still learning new things about the country, the language, etc.
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Post by cometaryorbit on Dec 31, 2020 2:29:21 GMT -6
I would be curious to hear Jon Peterson's opinion on this. As would I...
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Post by Piper on Dec 31, 2020 3:59:55 GMT -6
I would be curious to hear Jon Peterson's opinion on this. As would I... Let's ask him! Oh ... increment ! What say you, oh wise scholar and sage?
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Post by increment on Dec 31, 2020 9:06:47 GMT -6
One thing I can't do is give legal advice. Just anecdotally, as I did have lawyers govern my usages in PatW, it was surprising how many things turned out to be special cases, all for unique reasons, and cases rarely turned out to be cut and dry. Guidon DGUTS, for example, does lack a copyright notice on its second (more purple-colored cover) printing - but not its first printing. Does that mean the second printing is in the public domain, but the first isn't, although the text is basically the same? Or does the fact copyright was claimed in the first clobber the lack of it in the second? No idea - I'd ask a lawyer.
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Post by robertsconley on Jan 2, 2021 7:21:59 GMT -6
One thing I can't do is give legal advice. Just anecdotally, as I did have lawyers govern my usages in PatW, it was surprising how many things turned out to be special cases, all for unique reasons, and cases rarely turned out to be cut and dry. Guidon DGUTS, for example, does lack a copyright notice on its second (more purple-colored cover) printing - but not its first printing. Does that mean the second printing is in the public domain, but the first isn't, although the text is basically the same? Or does the fact copyright was claimed in the first clobber the lack of it in the second? No idea - I'd ask a lawyer. Sure, however since many of these items are fragile physical object and never had a version of with a copyright notice. Wouldn't it be a good idea for the community to spearhead an effort to hire an IP attorney, if it is OK, scan them and make them available in print and PDF? It stands to reason that despite the existence of special cases there are those that are not special cases thus fall under the rules governing copyright prior to 1978.
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Post by Ix on Nov 30, 2021 18:53:02 GMT -6
One thing I can't do is give legal advice. Just anecdotally, as I did have lawyers govern my usages in PatW, it was surprising how many things turned out to be special cases, all for unique reasons, and cases rarely turned out to be cut and dry. Guidon DGUTS, for example, does lack a copyright notice on its second (more purple-colored cover) printing - but not its first printing. Does that mean the second printing is in the public domain, but the first isn't, although the text is basically the same? Or does the fact copyright was claimed in the first clobber the lack of it in the second? No idea - I'd ask a lawyer. Sure, however since many of these items are fragile physical object and never had a version of with a copyright notice. Wouldn't it be a good idea for the community to spearhead an effort to hire an IP attorney, if it is OK, scan them and make them available in print and PDF? It stands to reason that despite the existence of special cases there are those that are not special cases thus fall under the rules governing copyright prior to 1978. It would take some persuasion, as the right to privacy trumps PD
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aramis
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Post by aramis on Dec 2, 2021 15:34:45 GMT -6
PDFs of those issues would be a tremendous gift to the hobby. I wish you best of luck on this project! The big issue is that they're late enough for the copyright to be current. And there's also the issue of whether those IP were transferred or licensed, and to whom... Some items with registered unpublished work copyrights or registration copies with notice but printer errors removing.. It's all "get a lawyer" time.
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Post by robertsconley on Dec 7, 2021 10:16:12 GMT -6
The big issue is that they're late enough for the copyright to be current. That my main point is that the automatic copyright rule only applies to works after 1976. It's all "get a lawyer" time. Yup, the point of my comment that it may be worthwhile for the community to hire an IP attorney to look into this. If it is no, then it no. But there is a possibility that they are in the public domain.
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Post by robertsconley on Dec 7, 2021 10:28:29 GMT -6
Also folks it is not particularly mysterious to figure out whether it worthwhile to get a attorney's advice. First go here www.copyright.gov/circs/circ22.pdfThe relevant section is on page 5. The most critical section is as follows on page 7. Rather than throwing our hands and moan and groan about the mysterious copyright gods, see what an attorney says and it may be possible to preserve and share all these old works that don't have a proper copyright notice. What the point of having rights if they are not exercised? The circular even address accidental omission. You can't say something is not copyrighted just because the notice was forgotten on a few copies. However most of these newsletter didn't have any type of notice throughout their run. So that is not a relevant factor. And like most of them or their individual articles were ever registered. Again this only applies to material prior to the 1978 cutoff date.
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