4 ms·

This site is one nasty lawyer's letter away from being lost forever. It's the unpaid[1] labor of love of a single person[2], far more than Popular Electronics[3

This site is one nasty lawyer's letter away from being lost forever. It's the unpaid[1] labor of love of a single person[2], far more than Popular Electronics[3], but appears to be unauthorized. Whoever currently holds the rights to these journals should have no financial reason to order the material taken down, but they can still do so "just because". This huge historical resource depends on the whims of old copyright holders and their lawyers. Someone else here has pointed out that the Popular Electronics scans are also on the Internet Archive. I wonder how they deal with it; the issue must come up often for them. [1] "There are no ads or things for sale on the site. I've been in radio for better than 50 years. This site is a way of giving back." From the FAQ: http://www.americanradiohistory.com/American-Radio-History-FAQ.htm http://www.americanradiohistory.com/American-Radio-History-F... [2] "Just one person does most of the work." From the FAQ. [3] http://www.americanradiohistory.com/index.htm#TECHNICAL http://www.americanradiohistory.com/index.htm#TECHNICAL

ocdtrekkie 10y ago
The highlight point of how to keep things from being "lost forever" is the download button. As long as a hundred or a thousand people download these PDFs and keep them, the preservation retains. Someday they'll even potentially be public domain.
radiodavid 10y ago
Nearly everything that is able to be traced to an interested owner has consent. Where no rights holder can be found, we place a "take down" notice on the site that says we will remove offending material. The only time that has happened was with a limited circulation DX publication. We have an attorney who prepares out letters of consent and guidance. Many early radio publications are out of copyright, and many later ones are totally abandoned. Occasionally the owner of a live copyright will right and ask, "why are you not preserving the publication... I have some in the garage you can have."
- radiodavid 10y ago
  Ah, the dangers of unbridled spell checkers. Of course, that is "write" and not "right".

ocdtrekkie 10y ago

The highlight point of how to keep things from being "lost forever" is the download button. As long as a hundred or a thousand people download these PDFs and keep them, the preservation retains. Someday they'll even potentially be public domain.

radiodavid 10y ago

Nearly everything that is able to be traced to an interested owner has consent. Where no rights holder can be found, we place a "take down" notice on the site that says we will remove offending material. The only time that has happened was with a limited circulation DX publication. We have an attorney who prepares out letters of consent and guidance. Many early radio publications are out of copyright, and many later ones are totally abandoned. Occasionally the owner of a live copyright will right and ask, "why are you not preserving the publication... I have some in the garage you can have."

radiodavid 10y ago
Ah, the dangers of unbridled spell checkers. Of course, that is "write" and not "right".