Can the Forum store reference literature?

[ironringer]

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In my other hobby (Meccano, the metal construction "toy", similar to US Erector and German Maerklin) we enthusiasts have developed and contributed to a wonderful website (nzmeccano.com) that is both a communications medium with many discussion topics, like the Leica Forum, and a storage medium where we upload/store pictures of models, outfits, parts, collectibles, and interesting old literature.

I believe that the Leica Forum has no such storage mechanism for scans of Leica literature, to be available for everyone. I also remember that a recent attempt to offer a link to a member's website, where he stored scans of old Leica Photography magazine, was discouraged by the Leica company, for reasons that were rather obscure.

If Leica does not offer a website for storage of old reference material (e.g. pictures, literature scans), can the "management" of this Leica Forum add this functionality, here? I believe this would be an excellent and useful method of preserving old literature for our collectors and historians, and for sharing some of the vast "paper history" of our hobby among enthusiasts. Naturally I would contribute, with scans of old catalogues and leaflets.

I will be interested in responses from fellow collectors-users, the Forum management, and even the Leica company.

[new2leica]

There's always the Wiki -

 

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-wiki.en/index.php/Sources:

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.... where he stored scans of old Leica Photography magazine, was discouraged by the Leica company, for reasons that were rather obscure....

I rather believe that the reason stated were copyright issues, and those would not be obscure.

[willeica]

LFI has commenced providing access to old issues (late 1940s/early 50s) of its magazines in the last few days. Some of the material is free and some comes with a charge . I presume that this was behind the 'take down ' notice mentioned above.

 

It is likely that Leica did take out some copyright on its manuals but whether this is still effective is beyond my knowledge. I am aware of one website in the US which contains old Leica manuals and which requests a contribution for downloading and printing and another in the UK which will provide print outs of old manuals at a price. In addition, the Hove reprints of old Leica manuals and other material are well known. I am not sure what copyright clearance those companies sought before making their 'products' available or what view Leica AG takes in respect of such activities.

 

I have a large amount of Leica manuals and other materials which I bought from a fellow collector some time back. I have used them but not for commercial purposes eg I used some pages from the M5 manual to illustrate some points I made in a non commercial article I wrote recently. I am not sure that I want to spend a lot of time uploading material but if Leica could indicate in writing that it has no objection to this site putting together a place where members could upload such literature, I would see what I could do to participate.

 

I am not sure that Leica would easily agree to such a proposal but there would be no harm in asking them.

 

William

[luigi bertolotti]

Summilux.net also has a good library of scanned documents... I join the opinion that an area of scanned old docs would be an appreciable enrichment for our forum... of course copyrighted materials (like Lager - Laney - Van Hasbroek - Rogliatti etc...) must be excluded, but old pricelists, catalogs, ads, manuals etc. can be surely published with no sort of issue (I haven't followed well the odd LFI story...) ; personally, in case of such an area would be setup, I give my availability to scan & publish some materials I have...

Edited June 1, 2016 by luigi bertolotti

[M9reno]

Given what is already available at http://www.butkus.org/chinon/ it seems to be the case that:

 

1) old camera manuals (including Leica) can be published with no copyright problems; and

 

2) if we did add such material to the forum, we should not be surprised to find entrepreneurs like manualslink.com seeking to profit from our generosity, by downloading and selling copies of the scanned material.

[sandro]

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William, at the LFI website I can't find a reference to old issues, as you mentioned. How and where would I find them?

Lex

[willeica]

William, at the LFI website I can't find a reference to old issues, as you mentioned. How and where would I find them?

Lex

 

 According to a friend you can get these on the iPad App if you click on content. I have not used it myself yet. Sample below.

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

One would have thought that LFI would have publicised this on this Forum but maybe we missed some announcement.

 

William

Edited June 2, 2016 by willeica

[sandro]

Thanks, William. Just today I got an email from LFI  with the announcement. But unfortunately it is only available (yet) for Iphone and IPad.

Lex

[willeica]

I got an email this afternoon after I posted the above information.  Perhaps we spurred them into action. It seems that the issues are in German only up to 1953 when the English edition commenced. I would mention here also that the LHSA has the back issues of its wonderful 'Viewfinder ' magazine available free of charge online to its members.

 

William