archiving publications digitally

[Tripredacus]

You can check out Internet Archive if any of their projects apply:
https://archive.org/projects/

I'm not certain about copyright status. There are many books and magazines that get uploaded into there that are still "active" in copyright status... however, Preservation typically will have more leniency in copyright law (depends on the country of course) as preservation is not usually seen as being competition against the copyright holder.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Tripredacus

You can check out Internet Archive if any of their projects apply:
https://archive.org/projects/

I'm not certain about copyright status. There are many books and magazines that get uploaded into there that are still "active" in copyright status... however, Preservation typically will have more leniency in copyright law (depends on the country of course) as preservation is not usually seen as being competition against the copyright holder.

I think there's a process where a rights holder can make something available in some format without losing the rights. Like if you want to put a book online that never sold well, the author may allow it, but if you want for some reason to publish a hardcopy for sale they still retain the rights.

One of my stamp catalogs did that. Really good detailed book about a very niche area. The original hardcopy was $100, and the author essentially made nearly nothing or lost money. He also would send a free update once a year.
Until he made a deal with Google books. Now it's online for free and gets updated whenever he gets to doing an update. Overall that's not such a bad thing. It's in wikibooks now, I'm not sure if it's an extension of google books or a different service.

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Intern..._Stamp_Catalog

[Exhibitman]

It is probably a good idea for defunct publications with no modern reprints and things that were self-published by long-dead hobbyists, like the self-published guide to the Burdick Collection. Assuming they were ever copyrighted and that the copyrights were renewed they might still fall under fair use. Check out the fair use doctrine:

https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/copyrightinfo/fairuse.html

[topcat61]

Originally Posted by Tripredacus

You can check out Internet Archive if any of their projects apply:
https://archive.org/projects/

I'm not certain about copyright status. There are many books and magazines that get uploaded into there that are still "active" in copyright status... however, Preservation typically will have more leniency in copyright law (depends on the country of course) as preservation is not usually seen as being competition against the copyright holder.

I think all we'd be trying to do is preserve our history for future generations. If this could get started now -even a small portion, it could really benefit researchers and collectors. A project like this isnt something done in a day or even in a year, but it's more along the lines of watching a tree grow. If it were me, I would start out with publications that are small and that I know arent copy-written like the 1939 ACC or Card Collector's Bulletin first.

David Kathman has really done an outstanding job with a lot of our hobby history already, so hat tip to you David!