Reproducing stories from other sources, old magazines, etc.

[UPRR engineer]

Hey Otto? Remember your topic about old MR/MRC magazines? I aint got any of those but i do have some others. Where would i share the articles here at RR.net? Pretty much the same as magazines today, all over the place with a variety of super old topics to post at one single place. I have the energy to look threw them all and try to categorize all of the stories, hopefully to 5 or 6. Dont think i feel like posting in every forum to let people know what i have to share.



Railroad Magazine
Jan. 1936
Apr. 1942
Aug. 1942
June 1944

Trains Magazine
Railroad and Photo annual 1953
August 1958
September 1958
October 1958
December 1958
...........................

Any ideas? Too much to have control of my own spot? I wouldnt mind looking at my grandpas old UP books and sharing whats inside of them also. I think theres enough people on here interested about "Old Railroad Paper", it might take off.

[Otto Vondrak]

Let me get back to you- not a bad idea. I think the copyrigths have run out on that older stuff too... but we would still want to cite the source. What did you have in mind? Typing up the text? Scanning the pages? Let us know...

-otto-

[Lirr168]

I'll be interested to hear your response as well: I have a number of LIRR magazines from the same era that I could scan.

[UPRR engineer]

I dont own a scanner, i wonder if they do that kinda stuff at the UPS Store, or any of the other copy/printing/fax shops around here. Theres some really cool photos, guess i better check into that.

[umtrr-author]

UP, this sounds like a great idea.

However...

Scanners are so inexpensive these days that they will easily prove cheaper than going to a store to have this done.

Furthermore, there are tight regulations about the scanning of copyrighted material-- or anything that looks that way. Some venues are more strict about this than others. You may get challenged or refused behind the counter service. Understanding the finer points of copyright law, including that they are not permanent, is probably not on the job description of employees there.

I would be careful about the law that I think was called the "Mickey Mouse Law" which extended copyright protection further. If I recall correctly, this law is called that because Mickey Mouse would have passed into the public domain if the Walt Disney Company hadn't sweethearted this one through the legal process.

[Otto Vondrak]

Looking at scanned pages can be kinda cumbersome. What wuld be optimum is if someone typed out the text for a story, and then scanned the photos that go along with that story... then we could post it as a feature, citing the source, of course.

-otto-

[Nicolai3985]

I do a similar thing for news articles that I want to save from magazines or newspapers: I use my scanner's optical character recognition (OCR) software (don't be wary, it's pretty much a standard feature these days) to get the text, then scan in the photos, combine them all into a Word document with small margins, then convert them to PDF's. This way, the text is searchable, and all of the text and photo files are combined into a single PDF file. And, since the source is a basic word document, these PDFs do not take forever to load.

Like others have mentioned, though, copyright issues are the biggest obstacle to this project. Look at what Google is going through with their digital library initiative.

-Nick

[UPRR engineer]

Looking at scanned pages can be kinda cumbersome. What wuld be optimum is if someone typed out the text for a story, and then scanned the photos that go along with that story... then we could post it as a feature, citing the source, of course.

-otto-

Sounds good to me there Otto, after looking at the stack of magazines, they would have been destroyed, spine would have ripped, ended up with a stack of loose papers.

[steamguy]

Looking at scanned pages can be kinda cumbersome. What wuld be optimum is if someone typed out the text for a story, and then scanned the photos that go along with that story... then we could post it as a feature, citing the source, of course.

-otto-

Sounds good to me there Otto, after looking at the stack of magazines, they would have been destroyed, spine would have ripped, ended up with a stack of loose papers.

The optimum, and more or less painless solution is to get a flat bed scanner, and scan the pages into OCR software like OmniPage Pro which will convert it into text and images on the fly.

[henry6]

Copyright laws prohibit the printing, publishing, or reproducing in any form any materials without consent of the copyright holder. Although some of these magazines and articles have been out of print for a long time their copyrights may...and in most cases, are...being held by someone. Railroad Magazine which has been discussed is a good example as it was bought or merged into RAILFAN and a lot of the copyright material is owned by Carstens. Other parts...parts of the fiction catalog...were owned by the Saturday Evening Post and may have other copyright owners today. Before going headlong into reproducing any previously printed materials check with attornies for copyright searches.

An example, recently I faxed several maps circa 1915 from a book of maps copyright by National Survey of Chester,Vt. I did not receive compensation for the maps so it was probably ok even though another company (Hagstrom?) owns National Survey today. However, the person to whom I gave the maps wants to publish them in a book and therefore must get written permission (perhaps even pay a royalty fee or whatever)from the successor of National Survey.

All I am saying, though, is to check out the legalities of what you propose before you do it so that you don't get in big trouble in the long run.

[UPRR engineer]

Well maybe i should just make a contents list. If i get any bites ill figure out what to do after that. Under what forum should i do this there Otto? Magazines are CHUCK full old stuff, odd and interesting, kinda wouldnt mind getting started, just dont know where, can i get a forum there Otto? Theres some New York stuff in there dude. Whats the word Otto buddy?

[Otto Vondrak]

Well you dont need as forum... so much as we need to figure out

a) if we can use the stuff and reproduce it legally

b) how to get it into an electronic format

UPRREngineer- maybe you want to put some feelers out there and see if someone would be willing to help you convert a couple of stories into an electronic format we can post. I would much rather put up content like that as an article, if possible. And I don't have the equipment needed to do all that anyway.

As said, content in old RAILROAD magazines may still be the domain of Carstens publishing. The last thing I want is to assume that things have passed into public domain and get sued.

I'm not sure where to go from here. Anyone?

-otto-

[JoeG]

I love those old Railroad Magazine stories. UPRR Engineer's problem is that those old pulp magazines are very fragile, and hard to work with. So, scanning them in might be difficult. I would be willing to call up Carstens and see what they say, if Otto agrees. (I don't want to represent myself as an official of this site without his OK.) I know that in years past Carstens published a few of those old stories in Railfan & Railroad, so it's possible they have them in electronic format.

[umtrr-author]

Which may indicate that they still hold the copyright to them, or at least believe they do...

[henry6]

I did talk with Mike Delvechio several years about this and he told me that R&R did not own most of the fiction copyrights, that Saturday Evening Post and the writers' families did for most of them.

Also note that Freeman Hubbard in the 60's and 70's, realizing the end was near for the magazine, realizing that there were many who had not read a majority of the fiction, realizing that he had no other materials being submitted, and realizing that the magazine had no money to pay for articles, did in fact reprint most of the fiction stories from the 30s, 40s, and early 50s in the magazine right up to the end.