[OtherEric]

I just saw that somebody is selling a nearly complete run of Animal on CD on eBay.  This is hardly the first time somebody has done this, but it is the first one I've seen that's primarily my scans.  Not sure how to feel about this; other than pitying the buyers for not figuring out they're available for free.  We could probably get the guy in trouble because he's also selling non-PD collections; but I'm not sure I want to try.  Very mixed feelings about this one.  (I also wonder why he didn't wait until we were done; it's not like we've been quiet about the rest of the books being on the way.)

[JonTheScanner]

The thing to do is to post #2 (or something) with an error.  Wait til he updates and then post the correct one.   

[Zog]

It's one of the main reasons we started this place, to provide an outlet for scans those "people" try to sell.
They drive me up the wall.
Taking something they get for nothing and try to make money out of it, leeches in every sense of the word.

[rez]

well dang, that's worth an applaud.

It's one of the main reasons we started this place, to provide an outlet for scans those "people" try to sell.
They drive me up the wall.
Taking something they get for nothing and try to make money out of it, leeches in every sense of the word.

[bchat]

eBay has a strict policy against stealing in any sense of the word.  For example, if you were to sell Spawn # 1 and you took your own picture of the book, eBay will remove any listing where someone else has taken your picture to sell the same exact item and remove it from their listings if you let them know what's happened.  Unfortunately, I speak from experience on this one as I've had people take my photos (usually for variations of a particular item) to sell their stuff ... not that it's ruined my day or anything, but I hate the idea of someone passing-off my "work" as their own without at least asking me first.

I would suggest, if you want this guy to stop selling your scans, contacting him first and asking that he stop or, maybe, coughing-up some money as compensation for passing-off your work as his own.  If that doesn't work, contact eBay (if memory serves correctly there should be a "report this item" link somewhere on the listing) and tell them what's going-on.  I can't imagine that they wouldn't investigate the matter.

[OtherEric]

Well, I most emphatically _don't_ mind people using my scans in general; since it's not my work.  It's Public Domain, all I did was scan it.  What bugs me is people trying to sell the files I'm giving away for free, unchanged.  (And thanks to the people who give us a place to give it away; Yay!)  Like I said, my feelings are mixed; other than pity for the buyers.

[bchat]

What bugs me is people trying to sell the files I'm giving away for free, unchanged.

Speaking as someone who only has a dial-up connection (my money is better spent on my children than a faster connection that costs more than 4x times what I'm paying now for internet access), having the option to buy some of the books on cd or dvd is tempting, since I always have trouble with the larger files.  I always seem to lose my connection on anything above 50 MB, and after waiting two or three hours, that gets to be frustrating. 

There are three reasons I haven't purchased any of the cds I see on eBay that I would want to get.  First is a question of the quality of the scans and completeness of the books.  From what I've seen, the sellers on eBay are simply taking what's here and making a buck with little to no changes.  If that's the case, "why pay for what you can get for free?" definitely runs through my head.  Again, we go back to the problem I have with larger files.  I've pretty much written-off trying to download anything that's 50-60 MB or more, which means I'm missing-out on books I really want to read.  My options?  Buy a disc off of eBay, patiently wait for it to appear on a blog somewhere or wait to get lucky and buy the books myself off eBay at a decent price (with the rarity of some of these books, this last option isn't likely to happen any time soon).

The second reason I haven't purchased a cd/dvd off of eBay is, basically, I'm a cheap S.O.B. that refuses to pay more than what I think something is worth.  Again, it's pretty obvious that these people are taking files from here and making some money from other people's hard work (I know it's not heavy lifting, but scanning & editting is a time-consuming effort).  What dollar value do I put on that cd/dvd?  About half what they do.

The third reason?  Maybe all you did was scan it, but it still took your effort for the book to appear online.  For anyone else to come along and basically claim that work as their own, without so much as even asking you if you mind, is just plain wrong, no matter how you slice it.  I simply won't support people like that by buying their product.

[OtherEric]

Well said, bchat.  I'm more offended by those people taking other people's scans than my own, if that makes sense.  (Perhaps I value my own scans less because I _don't_ need them; I've got the originals.)  I think part of what amuses me is the clown didn't wait for the whole run of Animal; he jumped once he saw the issue 1 hit.  Even though it was clear to forum readers that the whole run would be showing up soon after the #1.

I think there's also an element of laughing so I don't cry; this could bug me a lot if I let it.  But now that I've vented a bit, I'm fine with it (for relative values of fine.)  I still don't like the idea, but it doesn't bother me enough to do anything about it.  With the economy like it is I can't begrudge anybody the income, and I'm very conscious that my scans are just as PD as the original books.  So I can't stop him from selling my scans and I'm not going to mess with them selling other people's non-PD scans since they're not mine to worry about.

[phabox]

Some good points raised here, some i've had to deal with myself with regard to a certain UK Project that i've been involved with the past couple of years.

The bottom line is we are NEVER going to stop these pirates ripping off 'our' scans, especialy if the material is PD which should of course be the case of all the stuff here.

But then we can't really even call them 'our' scans because none of us own the rights to the material but we DO spend a LOT of cash buying these books only to devalue them by putting them on our scanners.

Then there's the REAL hero scanners we have here who spend hours and hours doing restoration and upgrading work on their stuff which I personally am to dumb and lazy to do with my own scans.

So although I know selling scans is not a popular idea with many here there certainly seems to be a market for them so why does'nt this site beat the pirates to it by selling their own discs mega-cheap plus costs and UNDERCUT these parasites ?

To offset claims of 'cashing in' all profits could be turned over to a charity, I believe that there is already one set up to help comic book creators in their twilight years and IMO this would be an ideal cause to surport.

-Nigel

[OtherEric]

A very nice idea, but one I'm hesitant to say we should actually do for various reasons.  I do think it's a good enough idea that I hope somebody can poke holes in my objections; it seem fitting that we can raise money for creators using the books that are PD.  (Is the charity ACTOR or something else now?  I know they changed the name, I can't remember if that was the original or what they changed it to.)

One, while we strive very hard to stay 100% PD we've proven ourselves wrong on occasion; while they can nail us even if we don't make money off it it becomes even easier once we do.  Also, Trademark becomes much more of an issue if we start actually trading in goods.
Two, a lot of us are resistant to the idea of selling our scans, even if we don't mind giving them away. 
Three, the quality of our scans varies wildly and at least speaking for myself I don't want to sell a product of highly variable quality. 
Four, in some cases we still don't know where our scans come from, or they're from people who don't actually post here.  Even if we can, I wouldn't want to try and sell somebody's scans without clear permission. 
Five, we would need somebody to do the actual work of organizing, sorting, burning, selling, shipping, advertising, etc...

[bchat]

Is the charity ACTOR or something else now?

HERO - The Hero Initiative    www.heroinitiative.org

So although I know selling scans is not a popular idea with many here there certainly seems to be a market for them so why does'nt this site beat the pirates to it by selling their own discs mega-cheap plus costs ?

If the money (after costs) is used for charity or to help keep the site running, I don't see why anyone would have a problem with the idea.  The result is the same in that the people who can't afford to buy the actual comics still get to read them.

One, while we strive very hard to stay 100% PD we've proven ourselves wrong on occasion; while they can nail us even if we don't make money off it it becomes even easier once we do.

It depends how the cds were organized.  If unquestionalby Public Domain material was all that was sold, then no problems.  Anything where the status is "iffy" would require some additional research.  Still, there's enough material that has been well-established and researched that something could be started once all the ducks were in a row.

Two, a lot of us are resistant to the idea of selling our scans, even if we don't mind giving them away.

Well, the free downloads shouldn't go away, so they would still be available for free.  Again, charity and keeping the site running are two big benefits of selling cds.  For other members who may only have access to dial-up connections (like myself), the benefit is not having to wait hours for the larger files to download.

Three, the quality of our scans varies wildly and at least speaking for myself I don't want to sell a product of highly variable quality.

I've never deleted a file because the quality of the scan was poor (even the blurry files of fiche) or a page was crooked or badly cropped, I'm just happy to be able to read books that for the most part I've never come across at stores or conventions.  Let people know up-front what the quality of the scans are like and, unless they're total jerks, they should be ok with it.

Four, in some cases we still don't know where our scans come from, or they're from people who don't actually post here.  Even if we can, I wouldn't want to try and sell somebody's scans without clear permission.

OK, I agree with you on this point.  Scans that were taken from outside sources should either be ignored or at least an effort made to contact the original scanner.

Five, we would need somebody to do the actual work of organizing, sorting, burning, selling, shipping, advertising, etc...

I would suggest a trial-run of sorts, only selling stuff here and not spending money setting-up an additional site that might not pan-out.  The details of the operation would need to be hammered-out, but I can't imagine that some volunteers wouldn't step-up to the plate, especially if the money made is used for charity/helping the site.  Keep it simple to start with and don't make it more work than it needs to be.  We're not creating a business, just giving people options on how to get the files.

[JonTheScanner]

A couple of comments.  First the eBay sellers may be getting the scans from ABPC not here so they'd not know that Animal was to be completed.

Animal might be a good CD to start with.  I think that Eric, HP, Ontology and I have done all the scans for that series.

[Yoc]

Hi Guys,
I'm not sure how to think about this.  Sadly I've seen money pull apart online friendships very easily.  Second, we are talking about 100s of different scanners and who knows how each would feel knowing their scans were being offered for sale?  Even for a good cause?  We've never asked for ownership or control of the scans hosted on GAC so I'd feel quite torn by the idea of someone possibly being upset or offended by our using their scans in anyway other than our stated mission plan of sharing them for free with anyone happy enough to download them.

There's nothing to stop a scanner like Henry Peters who owns his books and did all his own scans from producing a 'Best of Henry Peters' cd to sell or for the gang behind The Animal Comics Collection for pulling something together though.  I'd wish them the best of luck on any project they started. 

Before anything like selling disks or even offering disks of scans at cost would happen the admins, moderators and Serj would all have to be onside of the idea.

I think the easiest solution for bchat would be to find a neighbour or institution with a high speed connection and a burner.  Get them a list of books he wanted downloaded and then have them burn him disks.  A burning buddy.

-Yoc

[bchat]

I think the easiest solution for bchat would be to find a neighbour or institution with a high speed connection and a burner.  Get them a list of books he wanted downloaded and then have them burn him disks.

If only it were that simple, I would have already done it.  Thing is, my area is located some distance from "civilization", so high-speed connections are rare/limited/expensive or, in the case of an "institution", about 30 minutes away from where I live.  Most people I know who live anywhere near me don't even bother with the internet, and the few that do, it's with dial-up connections, so no help there.  Besides, the majority of people I know aren't into comics, so they don't care that I have trouble downloading the larger files.

I hope that I wasn't giving the impression that I wanted this site to sell cds just for my benefit, because with two little ones running around the house, I don't have money burning a hole in my pocket.  It would certainly make my life easier, but then I wouldn't have money to buy the few comics I still continue to collect (family comes first).

[Yoc]

+1 karma for having your head on straight bchat.  Family and real life should always take precedence over scans. 

And no worries, I could see the idea has it's own merits and if we really felt they outweighed the downside it might be something to help people such as yourself and perhaps even keep the site financially in the black.  But I personally would hope we don't come to that day.  The headaches could be enormous even without the possible legal dangers...

[boox909]

+1 karma for having your head on straight bchat.  Family and real life should always take precedence over scans. 

I second that Yoc. bchat has no idea how much I admire his stance. I am ashamed that I thought ill of him previously.

B.

[OtherEric]

I won't pretend to speak for everybody, but I think right now the idea of the site selling CD's of scans is "possibly worthwhile in the future, either for charity or to fund the site.  So don't forget about it.  But it's not worth worrying about right now unless somebody has a specific proposal."

[bchat]

I am ashamed that I thought ill of him previously

boox909 - No problems.  We didn't get off on the right foot ... it happens.

[Yoc]

From your mouth to Freedyfly's ears bchat.
*sigh*

And yes, this might be an idea to think about one day down the road, preferably when we have more complete runs as well. 

-Yoc

[larrytalbot]

Hey, Yoc,
Just want to let you know I matched your contribution of $25 for the JVJ postage fund.  I Sent my check directly to JVJ to avoid getting involved with PayPal.  Couldn't find your original post on this subject, so I'm slipping this note in here because I saw your name. Pardon my butting in here with inappropriate topic.  If you have a string going for the postage fund, please let me know.

Re the topic of current string I interrupted: It would be nice if anone selling CDs copied from this site felt some obligation to share a small portion of their gains to this site.  If they have a conscience it just might help them sleep better at night.

LT

[Yoc]

Thanks great news Larry!
You can find the proper thread here:
http://goldenagecomics.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,1034.0.html

-Yoc

[John C]

I don't have the time to mess with this right now.  But if anybody's interested in pursuing the "make CDs for low-bandwidth fans" idea as an on-demand process, it's pretty simple overall.  I would approach it as a web application that takes a list of book URLs, downloads the files during off-peak hours, and uses a DVD-burning application to create what's called a disk image (ISO format, for the people who care, and all DVD software has an option to make them).

Then, once a week, the owner can download the images, burn them to a physical disk, and drop it in the mail with a hopefully-already-formatted mailing label from the payment system.  In an ideal case, it could even have postage printed to the label, so that the only manual labor would be loading and unloading the DVD burner and stuffing the mailer.

I would be surprised if software for this didn't already exist, by the way, but a quick search didn't turn up anything interesting.  I also thought there was a company that did specifically this sort of work for you, but again, I can't find them, so they might've shut down.

Not that I'm recommending it, mind you, but I figured since there was interest, I'd throw in whatever trivial insight I might have.

[citaltras]

Precisely for helping people who don't have the time to download
comics one-by-one or the bandwidth to download a 50 MB file,
last year I started posting the GACP (Golden Age Chronology Project)
torrents with full collections of comics scans form this site
on our sister site zcultfm.
Many are still there and also available in other torrent sites.
The comics can be downloaded  with any bittorrent program.
In total more than 32 torrents, about 1 GB of comics each.
Enough to burn 7 or 8 DVDs.
I am currently reseeding many of the torrents.
I had to stop posting new torrents because I don't have enough bandwidth to
seed everything.
So the torrents have not been updated with the new scans of the last year.

Contact me if you need more information.

By the way I have received several PM's  from people asking me to burn the DVDs for them
(of course paying).

[bbbrown]

I've even heard of people sending drives to people to fill up for them.  With the prices of drives getting so low you can get a lot of comics on one drive

[Yoc]

Why send a hard drive when a USB thumb drive can hold 4+ gigs, costs $15 and likely could be mailed for the price of a letter?  And if you were to use a digital camera SD stick you wouldn't even need to worry about adding bulk to a normal letter!

-Yoc