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[CK Comics]

I have been looking for the rules on how we can use these comics, but I could not find them. Can users download and distribute to other sites such as Amazon?

[FraBig]

Gwandanaland Comics is already doing it so I guess it's possible...

[SuperScrounge]

Not just Gwandanaland. There's, at least, one other publisher putting out POD public domain comic reprints, probably with scans from here, the Digital Comic Museum and elsewhere.

[The Australian Panther]

Oh, there are quite a few.
Craig Yoe is one and I have seen others. Not sure where they get their scans from, but I doubt they are fall from here, because I have never seen one that's not first rate, and we sometimes have scans of books  that are not perfect. 

https://www.printmag.com/comics-animation-design/craig-yoe-preserving-history-comics/

[paw broon]

Well, I can confirm that scans from cb+ are being sold online as I've spotted some of mine and I recognise little flaws.
While all our pd scans are freely available to anyone who joins, which is free, it concerns me that people are trying to make money from  the time and work freely given by our members - scanners and diggers.
That does not seem right. 

[CK Comics]

You make a good point.

[crashryan]

That's the downside of the Public Domain. Once a comic is PD, anyone can do anything they choose with it. If you alter a PD comic significantly you may copyright it as a new work. Scanning, editing and cleaning, compiling, and translating would probably all qualify as creating a new work. Then you could impose restrictions on how your scans are used (this wouldn't affect the original book, of course). The trouble is you couldn't post this copyrighted new work on CB+, where we strive for "free and legal." It'd be nice to get at least a credit line if someone uses my work, but speaking strictly for myself I feel the benefits of having these comics available to all outweigh the displeasure of seeing someone making a few bucks from my fan work. And of course any one of us could start our own mini-publishing company and do the same thing as Gwanandaland (or however the hell you spell it).

[MarkWarner]

An interesting and timely thread. As I am pondering embarking on a "project". And I think we may just do that

[DennyWilson]

That's the downside of the Public Domain. Once a comic is PD, anyone can do anything they choose with it. If you alter a PD comic significantly you may copyright it as a new work. Scanning, editing and cleaning, compiling, and translating would probably all qualify as creating a new work. Then you could impose restrictions on how your scans are used (this wouldn't affect the original book, of course). The trouble is you couldn't post this copyrighted new work on CB+, where we strive for "free and legal." It'd be nice to get at least a credit line if someone uses my work, but speaking strictly for myself I feel the benefits of having these comics available to all outweigh the displeasure of seeing someone making a few bucks from my fan work. And of course any one of us could start our own mini-publishing company and do the same thing as Gwanandaland (or however the hell you spell it).

Scanning alone doesn't create a new work. Someone takes a book and just scans it, it's no different than the original. Bill Black when he reprints public domain works at AC Comics does make changes, minor, to the artwork, to get protection on his version. It's not noticeable, but he knows where the changes are. (And one wonders if he's getting material from here and DCM)

Compiling public domain works protects the compilation, not the original work.

Right now Gwandanaland is dealing with someone being very very vocal of how they source their material on their own Facebook page for goodness sake! This is a moral issue, not a legal issue. CB+, DCM, etc could watermark every single page, of every book if they wanted to keep people from reusing the material - but that is the risk of the public domain. How many VHS and DVD companies copied Sinsiter Cinema's public domain releases? (It's known Alpha Video did!) How many of the fly-by-night PD DVD companies copy each other's releases. But on the same token, Sinister is reprinting Scores of public domain scifi novels of the 1940's-1950's that in the public domain. Someone had to supply the material? Just becuase the work originated in a commercial nature doesn't make the situation different. Someone had to create the scan or transfer of the material being used in the first place!

[darwination]

Sellers on eBay have been selling compilations of scans gathered from the digital museums for years.  Occasionally, a seller will sell their own scans of PD material.  POD services sell printed editions of books that the pulpscans groups, university scanners, google scanners, etc. have made available on Amazon, eBay and elsewhere.

All the time I run into my own scans being sold or books made from my scans available as POD in the course of my eBay searches trying to find new books to scan.   I see all sorts of posters and prints made from magazine covers I've spent countless hours restoring.  A scanner could claim some sort of right to editing of PD materials. Many of the POD or scan sellers claim some sort of copyright just in compiling works.  I can say that scanning is far from simply photocopying as all sorts of hard gained expertise goes into making old books look new (or even better still vintage but lovely) and especially in the digital restoration of covers.

With over a thousand scans under my belt (and others have even more), you just can't let it get to you.  It's all about celebration of the art, the artists and preservation of the history.  If somebody wants to make a buck off it, that's their problem or prerogative, and, really, the more comics and pulps being read or distributed in any form the better.  I've met at least a few scanners that came into the hobby via paid for scans from eBay, so that's something.  And, hell, most of us who really mean business don't let the strict boundaries of the public domain stop us anyways.  We're building a peoples' library by any means necessary, so my hands are dirty, too.  I appreciate that the digital museums do a great job of walking the line and following the rules or bending them just enough just like the pulp scanning groups do, because it's very hard for visitors and skeptics not to see the spirit of the thing and the benefit to scholars and fans of having access to the scarcest of materials.

[The Australian Panther]

you just can't let it get to you.  It's all about celebration of the art, the artists and preservation of the history.  If somebody wants to make a buck off it, that's their problem or prerogative, and, really, the more comics and pulps being read or distributed in any form the better.  I've met at least a few scanners that came into the hobby via paid for scans from eBay, so that's something.  And, hell, most of us who really mean business don't let the strict boundaries of the public domain stop us anyways.  We're building a peoples' library by any means necessary,

Well said, and a great attitude.
cheers!

[profh0011]

Well, I can confirm that scans from cb+ are being sold online as I've spotted some of mine and I recognise little flaws.
While all our pd scans are freely available to anyone who joins, which is free, it concerns me that people are trying to make money from  the time and work freely given by our members - scanners and diggers.
That does not seem right.

The same sort of thing happened with the Spidey-Jazz Yahoo Group.  20 years ago, a group of guys (including me) were finding, recording, EDITING, severely cleaning-up, and assembling a couple of CUSTOM CDs of soundtrack music that was just not available commercially.

Now, someone who worked for APM Music in California (and was in charge of KPM Music in England) had helped the group by pointing them to the official website where, as NON-professionals, we could listen or record the tracks for our use.  The group members made a strong point that this was a FAN-BASED, NON-PROFIT project.

And yet, now and then, we'd see people SELLING copies online. In fact, I saw someone selling copies of an early, prototype comp one fan had sent me, 2 years BEFORE I even got involved in the project. It really annoyed me.

Then again, what also annoyed me, was when people would join the group, then ask the question, "WHERE can I download these tracks from?"  We (and it had really been a group project, I made a point of listing everyone who'd contributed on the back of the CD art) had spent a minimum of TWO MONTHS of hard work compiling this virtually-PROFESSIONAL-looking and sounding comp, with all the songs "tracked" in an order that made sense and "flowed" decently.  And some IDIOTS wanted to save a few bucks and do the whole thing over for themselves FROM SCRATCH.  (Near the end, I was only charging to cover costs of blank CDs, envelopes & shipping.)

Incidentally, you could NOT "download" the tracks frm the KPM or APM websites, unless you were an industry professional.  You could listen to low-quality copies... you could STREAM those same copies (I bought a program just to record streaming media).  But to make them sound really good, we had to use a sound editor to "snazz up" the quality.  I also went to great lengths to edit them for time, so that each track would start within one half second of the beginning of a track, and end within 4 seconds at the end of each track.  How each song "flowed" into the next was also an important consideration. 

Anyone wanting to "download" the tracks at random would be completely missing all the long hours of hard work that went into creating something that was as professional as humanly possible.



Regarding scans from this site... I've used quite a few of them in my own online BLOG project.  Usually, with MASSIVE, EXCESSIVE amounts of Photoshop clean-up, to make them look as good as possible.  (And most scans FROM this site really, desperately require that kind of excessive work.  I'd rather buy the books and do MY OWN high-res scans.. and then clean THOSE up.  But then, I'm an obsessive perfectionist.)

I haven't made a cent off my POE project.  I doubt I ever will.  But if the opportunity ever arrises where I'm actually able to publish my clean-ups... I WILL credit every single person I know who was involved in any way, posting scans, forwarding scans to me, pointing me at books I never knew existed, and even online SELLERS I bought books from.  (I'm like that.)