8 ms·
Wizard of the Coast asking fans to scan old books
- thenipper 11y agoIt's great to see that they're taking such an active role in preserving this aspect of 'nerd heritage'.
- FroshKiller 11y agoThis isn't Wizards asking, right? It's DriveThruRPG. Remember when Wizards forced DriveThruRPG to pull all the PDFs of classic D&D books they had for sale a few years ago? Good times. The worm has turned.
- dkuntz2 11y agoWizards is partnered with them now. The DMGuild thing that the page is under is Wizard's platform for letting people publish original content coupled with WotC IP not covered by the OGL. I have some issues with how they handle IP once someone publishes something to the DM's Guild (or whatever the actual name is), but the idea is pretty nifty. Also, WotC has been selling classic (pre-3.0) D&D books through DriveThru for at least a year (but I feel like it's been longer).
- FroshKiller 11y agoYeah, that's what I was referring to. There was old D&D material on DriveThruRPG for a few years before Wizards up and made them pull it. This was back in 2009, a good while after D&D 4th Edition had come out. The PDFs weren't available for purchase legally again until the beginning of 2013. I ain't gonna speculate on motivations, but the timing of these events sure does line up with certain publishing decisions that Wizards was making.
- thenipper 11y agoI'd say access completely lines up with their reprints. Also I from what I've heard about their business now that having the PDFs for sale is probably one of the few ways to get "new" conent for now. They do seem to be in some what of a holding pattern. Not a lot of new content and a lot of what is generated is contracted out.
- PhasmaFelis 11y agoI'm not sure how to interpret this. "WotC has given us permission to republish their old books, but absolutely will not lift a finger to give us access to any of them, so we've got to fall back on begging fans to scan their old stuff" is my best guess. And then they're telling people to cut the spine off their 30-year-old collector's item for best scanning results. In exchange for $50. Good luck with that.
- dsp1234 11y agoI wouldn't be surprised if WotC didn't actually have access to the older reference materials anyways. Stuff is lost all of the time. That said, this definitely sounds like "We'll give you $50 bucks so that we can start reselling it since the rights are ours anyways. Thanks Chumps!"
- njharman 11y agoTSR was notorious for throwing stuff away. Like all the original artwork for many classic modules and manuals. This was also well before era of digital.
- cdr 11y agoI don't know about D&D, but Wizards keeps an incredible archive of Magic products. I would also put money on it being TSR that lost things, if in fact things were lost.
- dsp1234 11y agoI'd certainly pay quite a bit for the original drawing/painting for the Tarrasque[0] [0] - http://www.monkeyinthecage.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Tarrasque.jpg http://www.monkeyinthecage.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Ta...
- mcphage 11y ago> this definitely sounds like "We'll give you $50 bucks so that we can start reselling it since the rights are ours anyways. Thanks Chumps!" I dunno, how much do you think they'll make off of a random adventure from 30 years ago? More than $50, sure—but it's not like this is highway robbery.
- mschuster91 11y agoStuff like this is why public libraries are important and not a "relic of the past".
- dkuntz2 11y agoI mean, minus the parts where the libraries wouldn't get any funding from this, and DriveThru/WotC are making all the profit off sales.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoNothing stops you from dumping the PDFs on the bay afterwards.
- dkuntz2 11y agoThat still doesn't really help the libraries though. It just makes the content more accessible through illicit means.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoNothing is going to help libraries except local community action to protect them (which I fully support). But that's a separate issue from this archival initiative. The libraries of today are the community meeting and learning spaces of tomorrow.
- maerF0x0 11y agoMy and WotC taxes help libraries. I'm glad they're providing value.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoTrue, but only where you and WotC reside! Libraries are funded through local property tax (at least in the US).
- JDazzle 11y agoI have a bunch of the books they want and I am definitely willing to scan them in even with the knowledge that it would be a lot of hard work. Unfortunately, they recommend that the books be stripped and scanned page by page for "acceptable" results. That's where I lose all interest. :(
- Kadin 11y agoThat's if you want to use a sheet-feeding scanner, in order to save time. It's a bit of a weird suggestion, since I'd imagine the people who still have these books probably aren't the sort of people who want to destroy them just to save some time, but there are lots of other options. You could pretty easily meet their requirements with a DSLR on a copystand. I'd do the left and right pages separately (unless you have a two-camera setup) so that everything is nice and flat. The one oddball requirement is that users convert to CMYK. I'm not sure why they think that's a good idea. Most home scanners are purely RGB devices and they're just going to convert (shoddily) to CMYK in the driver or in a conversion program downstream. Seems like they're asking for color issues. I'd have asked for sRGB-colorspaced RGB, or "don't touch the knobs you don't understand". shrug
- cptskippy 11y agoThey're also asking for users to descreen the images which is basically a blurring feature that gets rid of the halftone that's a result of offset printing. They're not looking for high quality archival scans, they're asking users to perform some basic workflow tasks necessary to ready the images for distribution. It all sounds very sketchy to me. That or they're just completely incompetent.
- samstave 11y agoWe need a D&D nerd on the google book scanning team to get involved so their scanners can be use for this. Anyone know how to connect with them?? Wizards should also reach out to this team with this request...
- cptskippy 11y ago
- cptskippy 11y agoThis doesn't sound like it's coming from the perspective of someone looking to archive or preserve these books, but rather someone who is looking to exploit other people to produce something they can monetize with no regard for quality. They're accepting a container format (PDF) that's just a wrapper around a JPEG, PNG, TIFF or other rasters. Or they'd like a lossy format (JPEG) with no suggested compression settings. They'd like you to use the enhancement features/filters of your scanner software which is like Instagramming your photos. Presumably because they don't have a processing workflow in place to perform this themselves. They want you to convert what will natively be captured as RGB to CMYK, something you generally don't leave up to amateurs if you have any interest in maintaining an accurate conversion. That all tells me they don't care to have quality master scans they can go back to, they just want something passable they can sell to others.
- e1ven 11y agoTo be fair, if the company doesn't have the masters any more, but they want to give people legal access, they need to start somewhere... After they have a scanned copy, they at least have the ABILITY to re-type the text, fix the formatting, etc. I empathize a lot with what they're trying to do. Imagine if you're a passionate employee, who cares about the books you grew up with. They're fun to read, and you really want to give more people access to them. After months of pushing, your bosses give-in - Sure, sell the only stuff online.. But this isn't likely to make much money, so we're not giving you a budget for the project. This gives them a way to get started - If the titles sell, and are popular, they can go back, and argue that it's worth improving their quality. If not, at least they're legally available at ALL, and that's better than letting them be forgotten.
- cptskippy 11y agoThose are some valid points but the request to use descreening filters seems strange. Descreening is used to remove halftoning from images, not text.
- Washuu 11y agoIt also does not sound like they have much experience scanning old printed materials either. There are many little issues that can come up with graphics and text during scanning that can only be corrected by rescanning a page. For example, if a graphic has a mosaic pattern in it having the page slightly askew when scanned can result in artificial artifacts especially when scanning at 300 DPI. Scanning at a higher resolution, 600+ DPI, then downsampling after clean up can avoid issues with graphics. The RGB to CMYK is true as well. Scanning black and white pages then converting to CMYK can result in black colors that are not rich and/or do not match the touch up colors. Source: I have previously interned doing manga book translation which required cutting books apart and scanning them.
- 6stringmerc 11y agoThis superficially reminds me of Metallica's recent request for fans to send in old materials, which have been compiled into large box sets for the reissues of Kill 'Em All and Ride the Lightenting which were, in their heydey, bolstered by fan passion and tape trading. Now that the material has been curated / massaged / etc, fans can get ahold of the box sets for the one-time fee of $149.99. Each.
- hackuser 11y agoDo they want copies of Metallica's lawsuit against their own fans who used Napster?
- mikestew 11y agoSure. I'll scan 'em in and then send the magnet link to which they can point their torrent client. No? You want me to be a digital sharecropper where I do the work, send the results only to you, and you reap the profits? Mmm, gonna have to pass on that one.
- IvyMike 11y ago> I do the work I find it hard to believe that you believe that scanning a work (even if rare) that they own the rights to means that you deserve a cut of future profits. You could argue that $50 may not be enough money, but a fixed rate fee seems pretty reasonable for doing what amounts to manual labor.
- teddyh 11y agoExcept that mikestew in no way asked for “a cut in the future profits”. He offered to make the results available for free for everyone.
- IvyMike 11y agoI'd argue when he used the phrase "digital sharecropper", he did imply that. There's no official definition of "digital sharecropper", but Atwood's is as good as any: "Digital sharecroppers typically get nothing in return for the content they've provided, and often give up all rights to what they've created." https://blog.codinghorror.com/are-you-a-digital-sharecropper/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/are-you-a-digital-sharecropper...
- mikestew 11y agoteddyh got it right, and wowser, did you infer a lot from my pithy little comment. I mean, read what you quoted: "give up all rights to what they've created", including throwing it up on the pirate bay. Either free for all, or free for none, because i do charity work for actual charities, not multi-billion dollar for-profit corporations.
- scelerat 11y agoI was all ready to help out because I have a stash of most of their missing 1st edition adventures (e.g. S1 Tomb of Horrors, etc.), well-preserved and in plastic... until I saw this: > You will get best results by cutting the spine off the book and by using a sheet-fed scanner for interiors and a flatbed scanner for covers. Ack. no way, sorry.
- supergreg 11y agoAccording to the Japanese manga scanlation scene, the best way to get the pages out without damage is to heat the spine with a hairdrier, or solder gun or even a microwave so the glue melts away. Also, buy 2 copies, one for scanning, the other for preserving. Or so I've heard :^)
- HarryHirsch 11y agoWell, libraries have proper equipment and proper staff. Can you imagine the Vergilius Palatinus cut up for scanning? Turns out, with proper equipment you don't have to: http://bibliotheca-laureshamensis-digital.de/bav/bav_pal_lat_1631 http://bibliotheca-laureshamensis-digital.de/bav/bav_pal_lat... The digital plantation OTOH knows no limit to cheapness and shoddiness. The rights owner doesn't want to rent equiment for preservation, they don't want to acquire the material they have rights to, instead they ask someone else to do the work for them, including post-processing. For USD 50. Wizards of the Coast, go away and die.
- panzagl 11y agoMost of the old (valuable) stuff is saddle stitched- pull the staples, scan, restaple, no one would know.
- mrkidd 11y agoWow, the two adventure modules I have are on the list. They were hella fun to play and would love to share so others can enjoy. They are stapled bindings though, and I really don't want to cut the pages to put them through my Doxie. Any tips on scanning them without having to cut them?
- theresistor 11y agoTo add a little more fuel to the "this is a rip-off" fire, many of the books they're looking for in 3.5e, 3e, and 2e are not hard to come by, either in physical form on auction sites or in digital form. They don't need fans to do the leg work of finding these books for them. The only reason to do it this way is to avoid paying fair compensation for the time required to scan them.
- blazespin 11y agoUhhh.. for those people yelling "rip off", you have no idea of the demand or lack of for these titles. This may be the only economical way to get these titles preserved. The reality might just be that it just isn't worth it to do it any other way. As someone who loves old D&D modules (and has actually bought from DriveThru), I think it's really great. My guess is that there was someone who works for these guys who also loves old D&D modules that couldn't convince anyone to make this happen unless they did it this way.
- shostack 11y agoIs there any guarantee (perhaps via some sort of license) that the materials will be made freely available to all? If not, I'm not sure what the point of working for free for someone else's gain is. I think I speak for most hardcore D&D fans when I say that most players will be perfectly fine continuing to torrent these books for the foreseeable future. In fact, unless I missed something, I'm kind of surprised this company didn't just do that since people have gone through the trouble of converting them to PDF already.
- panzagl 11y ago$50 is not free. I worked at a print shop- a D&D module would take like 10 minutes to scan.
- forgotpwtomain 11y agoWouldn't they be better off purchasing the books and scanning in-house?
- fapjacks 11y agoMy gut feeling is there is no way the recent stuff with Archive.org and old video games hasn't been a major cause of this "project" by Wizards. They have this huge library of stuff that could be considered abandoned, and with this they could make the argument that they haven't abandoned the works.
- PeterStuer 11y agoI have the 1995 prints of the 2nd edition core books (Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and also the Monstrous Manual), sometimes referred to as the 2.5 edition. They are not in this list and also not in the DMG store. While rule-wise there were almost no changes from the original 2nd edition, the layout and color prints got a complete overhaul. And before you ask, no, I'm not going to cut them up and scan, sorry.
- PeterStuer 11y agoI wonder why they didn't trawl eBay first? A lot of what they are after can be found there for <50$. Is it just to avoid the actual scanning work?
- PeterStuer 11y agoWhat is also curious is that simple Google searches such as https://www.google.com/search?q=Advanced+Dugeons+and+Dragons+book+2+edition https://www.google.com/search?q=Advanced+Dugeons+and+Dragons... turn op decent scans of the materials on the very first result page. I don't think this was thought through at all. Is there some legal angle why they need someone that owns the book send them a personally scanned file?