14 replies to this topic

[SteveS]

"An ambitious project to digitise every newspaper, periodical and journal ever printed in Britain has launched, making more than a million pages of pre-1900 newspapers available to readers online.

The British Newspaper Archive will allow readers to search by date, title and keyword, and will include material previously only available at the British Library." (BBC website)


I ran a quick search on concertina which resulted in 5076 pages of results.

Edited by SteveS, 29 November 2011 - 06:03 AM.

[wes williams]

Thanks Steve,
There has been a small collection of BL newspapers running for years as a demo, and I thought the idea had been forgotten. Nice to see its finally progressed!

Edit: Oh dear!! Only those who can pay for it

Edit again: Even worse - you can't use anything from it. This doesn't help research one bit. Its terrible

Edited by wes williams, 29 November 2011 - 06:29 AM.

[Irene S]

"An ambitious project to digitise every newspaper, periodical and journal ever printed in Britain has launched, making more than a million pages of pre-1900 newspapers available to readers online.

The British Newspaper Archive will allow readers to search by date, title and keyword, and will include material previously only available at the British Library." (BBC website)


I ran a quick search on concertina which resulted in 5076 pages of results.

Yes indeed - you can check the index with no charge, but should you wish to actually progress to looking at the digitised document, then you will have to spend about £80 for a year's subscription, or higher rates pro rata for a month's subscription, or a two day one.

http://www.britishne...o-use-this-site


A historical researcher in my family has already bewailed the high cost of the annual subscription - frustrating to see that there is documentation that you can get at ... but only at a relatively high cost.

Edited by Irene S, 29 November 2011 - 08:34 PM.

[wes williams]

Its not just the cost; the terms and conditions of use are draconian. I'd be happy to pay for a year's subs if I could then disseminate the information in articles. But it seems that if you sign up, you must agree not to publish anything, or even quote the index data. All you can provide is a link to the relevant reference, and people must pay to read it. So its only purpose is to milk as much money as possible. Shame on you BL! I sincerely hope the whole thing is a miserable failure in its current state.

Contrast that with the early recording catalogues at the BL Sound Archive, which I've been using a lot recently while researching concertina recordings. Free access worldwide for all.

Edited by wes williams, 30 November 2011 - 08:58 AM.

[Irene S]

Its not just the cost; the terms and conditions of use are draconian. I'd be happy to pay for a year's subs if I could then disseminate the information in articles. But it seems that if you sign up, you must agree not to publish anything, or even quote the index data. All you can provide is a link to the relevant reference, and people must pay to read it. So its only purpose is to milk as much money as possible. Shame on you BL! I sincerely hope the whole thing is a miserable failure in its current state.

Contrast that with the early recording catalogues at the BL Sound Archive, which I've been using a lot recently while researching concertina recordings. Free access worldwide for all.

I must admit that, until you mentioned it Wes, I hadn't looked at the terms and conditions. However, having done so, I can't see anything in there that is more restrictive than the terms and conditions of most archival collections.It makes it clear that you are entitled to use the material for your own private and personal research of a non-commercial nature, and that the intellectual property in the material either belongs to the archive or has been licensed to them. As far as I can see there is no difference in these terms and conditions to those of the local archive that I have been using in my own research. (Confirmed for me since originally drafting this by a qualified archivist.)

The terms and conditions do not actually state that you can't publish anything . They do, however, state that you need to contact them if you want to use the material for anything other than research .. and they also point out that matters may be out of their hands for practical and legal reasons .
"Please contact us if you want to use the website, newspaper archives or features for anything apart from your own research, we try to be accommodating where we can be, but as most of the newspaper archive belongs to other people, we will require their permission for you to use it. You can read more about copyright in this government guide."
So, it's not really quite as negative as you suggest.

In the case of the British Library sound archives there are a number of collections which are not actually accessible online (frustratingly so) - presumably because the owners of the intellectual copyright in them have not given permission for them to be made public in that way. So, while I can access the early 20th century cylinder recordings from the Lucy Broadwood collection (belonging to the English Folk Dance and Song Society, and held by the British Library archive), I cannot access anything from the much later Peter Kennedy collection or others - although I can see from the index that there is material there that I would love to hear!

[michael sam wild]

I hope Dan Worrall gets onto it to supplement his mammoth work, any plans Dan?
Just by coincidence the current Folk Journal from EFDSS mentions Cecil Sharp meeting fiddlers like Harry Cave in Somerset and concertina players. It also mentions a lively scene of step dances, pub dances etc so obviously an important part of local music . Much new information is coming out from access to local newspapers.

[chris]

after a bit of emailing with their support team it appears that one is not even allowed to transcribe any information (by that I mean -re-type into a document rather than use the actual image- even with a citation) It does seem a lot of money with no certainty that even if you contact them that you will be able to use the fruits of your research!!
Seems unlikely that I will be using their website. It is worth noting that the company who run the website are the same people who run 'Find My Past' - another website I wont use (far to expensive and very poor search system).
Unfortunately 'brightsolid' seem to be cornering the market as far as digital archives go.
Perhaps a few letters to the media and to British Libraries might be worthwhile.
chris (very irritated)

[Irene S]

after a bit of emailing with their support team it appears that one is not even allowed to transcribe any information (by that I mean -re-type into a document rather than use the actual image- even with a citation) It does seem a lot of money with no certainty that even if you contact them that you will be able to use the fruits of your research!!
Seems unlikely that I will be using their website. It is worth noting that the company who run the website are the same people who run 'Find My Past' - another website I wont use (far to expensive and very poor search system).
Unfortunately 'brightsolid' seem to be cornering the market as far as digital archives go.
Perhaps a few letters to the media and to British Libraries might be worthwhile.
chris (very irritated)

Interesting Chris - and that certainly WOULD make it very different from most normal archives. And I stand corrected .That differs more than somewhat from the implications of their statement about endeavouring to help out where possible!! In the circs, one wonders what the point of making the stuff available online in the first place is. "Here's some information ... but you can't use it ....."

I wonder what the situation is if you go straight to the owner of the material (if that is indeed not the Newspaper Archive itself??

[chris]

since my last post I have spoken to someone in BL copyright admin.
I explained that I run a website in which I publish (for no financial gain) articles. The man I spoke to said that under those circumstances there would be no issues over repro. He said that the desire was to prevent images being used in a book/ profit making enterprise.
Presumably if one wanted to make money then I guess one would have to apply for permission and incur whatever costs were involved.
So... I may use them! but they are still damned expensive!!!
I guess that I will be using their 'bookmark' facility and getting enough likely views to make it a bit more worthwhile.
chris

[wes williams]

since my last post I have spoken to someone in BL copyright admin.
I explained that I run a website in which I publish (for no financial gain) articles. The man I spoke to said that under those circumstances there would be no issues over repro. He said that the desire was to prevent images being used in a book/ profit making enterprise.
Presumably if one wanted to make money then I guess one would have to apply for permission and incur whatever costs were involved.
So... I may use them! but they are still damned expensive!!!
I guess that I will be using their 'bookmark' facility and getting enough likely views to make it a bit more worthwhile.
chris

OK, Chris, thanks for trying.

So it seems one person says "you can't even transcribe" (brightsolid? and that's how I read the T&Cs) while another says "OK for non-profit" (BL). But I assume the agreement for your subs will be with brightsolid rather than BL, so until its clearly stated somewhere in print what the situation actually is on non-profit quoting, I'm avoiding it, and I hope everybody else will. The situation is also slightly different for those of us who publish in the ICA's PICA. Is that considered a 'profitable' use?

Edited by wes williams, 01 December 2011 - 12:26 PM.

[wes williams]

The terms and conditions do not actually state that you can't publish anything . They do, however, state that you need to contact them if you want to use the material for anything other than research .. and they also point out that matters may be out of their hands for practical and legal reasons .
"Please contact us if you want to use the website, newspaper archives or features for anything apart from your own research, we try to be accommodating where we can be, but as most of the newspaper archive belongs to other people, we will require their permission for you to use it. You can read more about copyright in this government guide."

I finally found your quoted passage again, but 'this government guide' isn't a link, or explained ( and there are many such guides). The guide I normally use for copyright is The Intellectual Property Office. This seems to suggest 25 years for any published item, or 50 years for a published recording. It also says that previously published items may not be re-copyrighted without substantial change. So the 78rpm recordings that I republish on my website are effectively public domain, and I have no claim on them, as are the articles that I reproduce. Public performance and reissue of original works are in a different category relating to the author or owner.

In the past we've published stuff in PICA from The London Gazette ( the Government's legal journal) and the conditions at the time were up to 200 words with a credit to HMG as source. It seemed that publishing the original would be possible, but we decided on a transcription for easier reading. 200 words plus credit is a perfectly usable limit for most research purposes, and most archives I've used imply similiar terms. That's why I'm so annoyed with the terms and conditions you are meant to agree to in this case.

[Kautilya]

The terms and conditions do not actually state that you can't publish anything . They do, however, state that you need to contact them if you want to use the material for anything other than research .. and they also point out that matters may be out of their hands for practical and legal reasons .
"Please contact us if you want to use the website, newspaper archives or features for anything apart from your own research, we try to be accommodating where we can be, but as most of the newspaper archive belongs to other people, we will require their permission for you to use it. You can read more about copyright in this government guide."

I finally found your quoted passage again, but 'this government guide' isn't a link, or explained ( and there are many such guides). The guide I normally use for copyright is The Intellectual Property Office. This seems to suggest 25 years for any published item, or 50 years for a published recording. It also says that previously published items may not be re-copyrighted without substantial change. So the 78rpm recordings that I republish on my website are effectively public domain, and I have no claim on them, as are the articles that I reproduce. Public performance and reissue of original works are in a different category relating to the author or owner.

In the past we've published stuff in PICA from The London Gazette ( the Government's legal journal) and the conditions at the time were up to 200 words with a credit to HMG as source. It seemed that publishing the original would be possible, but we decided on a transcription for easier reading. 200 words plus credit is a perfectly usable limit for most research purposes, and most archives I've used imply similiar terms. That's why I'm so annoyed with the terms and conditions you are meant to agree to in this case.

Image and Transcription
The critical factor here is perhaps the phrase
",,,desire was to prevent images being used in a book/ profit making enterprise"

It is the image in which BL are claiming copyright as they scanned/photoed the image.

If you go and scan/photo and reproduce the original image from an OUT OF COPYRIGHT book or newspaper which you bought in a bootsale, you have copyright in that image which you took.

If you want to transcribe the text from an image or book at the BL which is out of copyright then the BL has no more rights over the text than anyone else.

So, as far as I understand, if you reroduce (in other words copy/scan/photo the layout of the latest score with words for the Maid of PEnderyn as printed in let us say a book called the 2011 edition of Welsh Songs for the World then you would be infringing their image/version copyright.

But if you put up the words of this well out of copyright song/tune by typing them into your own score then that becomes your version copyright.

You could sit and copy out the original plain chant dots and words of the Te Deum from say mediaeval manuscript and not have to pay anyone, BL or otherwise, to reproduce your own physical dots and words. They have no rights over the out of copyright content - only the visual image as they want to sell make money out of that visual image.

For the Te Deum, anyone wanting to get into the arguments over who wrote what,where,when and since can get bored here
http://www.canticanova.com/articles/hymns/artd41.htm

[wes williams]

.....It is the image in which BL are claiming copyright as they scanned/photoed the image......

From the IPO guide(their bold):
Copyright in the typographical arrangement of a published edition expires 25 years from the end of the year in which the edition was first published.

Published editions do not have to be original but they will not be new copyright works if the typographical arrangement has been copied from existing published editions.

[Kautilya]

.....It is the image in which BL are claiming copyright as they scanned/photoed the image......

From the IPO guide(their bold):
Copyright in the typographical arrangement of a published edition expires 25 years from the end of the year in which the edition was first published.

Published editions do not have to be original but they will not be new copyright works if the typographical arrangement has been copied from existing published editions.

Fine, so you have to wait 25 years for that (except**).

My understanding is that it is the visual image being reproduced from that publisher's book that is at issue(provided the melody and lyrics are also out of copyright, (**from death of the composer/author etc plus whatever).

The problem with these interesting discussions is that you have to take all the variables into account for a specific book and its content to be able to come to a clear decision.

If you have your own old copy of The Times (found in your great grandfather's rubbish in the loft AND which falls outside the copyright periods then you can reproduce he front page as much as you want and flog it where you want. But try and lift and start selling the version scanned in by Mr Fox and Co then Homer Simpson Detective Agency may well come after you.

Perhaps another example to add to the confusion.
French novel from say 1870.
Out of copyright.
But only one copy left in the French National Library. If you want to reproduce a facsimile/photo of the pages of their book you will have to pay them a repro fee depending on how many copies you make and how many copies you are going to sell.

However, you then find another copy on the Seine bookstalls and you can make as many copies as you like. If someone then reproduces, without a licence from you, your text page images from that found book , you can probably sue them.

OR
Write or type up the book yourself from the original BN one -- day after day with quill and ink - then no fee to be paid and you can reproduce your own handwritten version and sell it and then you control the rights on that version. But someone could then go into the library, ask for your book off the shel and write out the text with a ballpoint pen and then sell their ballpoint version. The text itself is free to reproduce in such a way.

Translate the French original into German in 2011, then tho the original is out of copyright, your translation then gets a copyright life of its own and no one else can use that translation in any form without permission from you alone. Put your own fancy cover on your translation and no on can reproduce that either , with proviso for text and cover that is, until the relevant copyright periods expire.

Probably no clearer either!

Edited by Kautilya, 01 December 2011 - 08:03 PM.

[Kautilya]

.....It is the image in which BL are claiming copyright as they scanned/photoed the image......

Never mind the quality feel the price -

http://shop.bl.uk/mall/productpage.cfm/BritishLibrary/ISBN_9786000008079/86645

that is what it is all about... unless you amazingly find another copy of the Lindisfarne Gospels in a skip behind a caff on Holy Island.

The BL should also make a few bob from selling pics of various pages of St Cuthbert's Gospel after getting taxpayers to buy it

http://support.bl.uk/Page/The-St-Cuthbert-Gospel

Enery's Psalter
I cannot see where the BL says it acquired this tho perhaps I am not looking properly but I know they paid a few bob for it and it is the only one so they can demand whatever they like if they start selling facsimiles.
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/henrypsalter.html

Dont reproduce the score from this pic and try to sell it! But you can write out the dots for use on your velum Xmas cards - they 'aint theirs.
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/henrypsalter.html

Here are some page prices for Lindisfarne Gs and Book of Kells
http://www.alfredom.com/ashop/407.htm

Edited by Kautilya, 01 December 2011 - 08:50 PM.