Landships II

Ralph Lovett · General

Notes on German Shells May 1916

Ned · General

Thanks.. looks very detailed.

Druid_Ian · Lieutenant

interesting that you have claimed a copyright on the images you can't claim copyright on an out of copyright item, especially since you could never have owned the copyright as it states on the front of the book that the copyright was held by HBM Government

-- Edited by Druid_Ian on Tuesday 10th of October 2017 04:40:05 PM

Willem Visser · Brigadier

It is just the standard text that is under every page of the website ......

thanks for sharing Ralph!

Druid_Ian · Lieutenant

no it claims all images are the property of the OP since the original page images are out of copyright he is attempting to claim copyright on an out of copyright item

Ralph Lovett · General

Notes on German Shells is a well known British Government research work over 100 years old. Certainly, I am not claiming it is mine. The first few pages make the origin clear. I felt it would be helpful to share with other researchers. As a government work from over a century ago, I believe it can be shared on the internet without worry of copyright infringement or security classification issues. Further, I have removed the standard note at the bottom of the web page and replaced it with a statement giving contact information if particular pages are needed for research.

By they way, all images and research on my site are available to anyone, just for asking. I only request that when it is my research or a photo of an artillery piece or related item in my collection that I am given credit if it is used in a publication or another web site.

R/

Ralph Lovett

-- Edited by Ralph Lovett on Wednesday 11th of October 2017 03:21:44 AM

Druid_Ian · Lieutenant

I have no problem with you copyrighting your own photographs. The issue I have is also not with Ralph specifically its solely with the legal implications with the wording of the claim that the images were your property. (which I notice you have now changed). the reason for my initial post was that someone (a large book publisher) tried to sue me for copyright infringement. I have a Scribd archive which contains nearly 2000 books and publications on the Great War from various sources and which are all copyright free and freely available to anyone. The "book company" published a version of one of the manuals I had in the archive and then sent a DMCA to have me take down my original copy of the manual claiming they owned the copyright to the manual even though the version I had posted was posted 2 years before they published the manual. I filed a reply to the DMCA with Scribd, who agreed that the manual was not copyrighted and therefore was allowed to stay on the site. The book company then obtained my info from Scribd and then attempted to sue me for copyright theft. when it came to court the final verdict was that I had not infringed their copyright and I was allowed to continue offering the book for download

The reason that they believed that I had infringed their copyright is that I happened to have used the same source (Ike Skelton Combined Arms Research Library ) and that they had effectively downloaded the same document as I had. They had then printed the pdf exactly as posted on the CARL site and put a cover on it. this meant that the markings on the pages as well as the layout were exactly the same and since they claimed copyright of the page images for the book I had obviously copied the images from their book

in lay mans terms the final verdict was that if someone took photographs of a copyrighted book (for example Osprey's Railway Guns of World War I) and then published them then they have broken the copyright laws and that the images are therefore owned by the copyright holder. however if you take photographs of an out of copyright book you can not claim ownership of the images as the images are still copyright free if this was not the case then it would set a precedence in the case of the Osprey book that anyone photographing the pages would also have a copyright claim on the book

that said you have a very fine site Ralph with lots of great info and I will be visiting again and if you or anyone wants the 2nd edition 1918 version of the book I will be more than happy to send you a pdf

Ralph Lovett · General

Ian

I agree with your assessment of what others have done with government studies, in terms of copyright claims on works that are both not theirs and are not copyrightable. There seems to be a regular industry of this practice. My error was forgetting my standard statement at the end of the web page. I believe this is the only page I have on the site that the "sole property" statement does not apply, so as you have suggested, I have changed it. That is one great thing about a web site. Once an error is noticed it can be changed.

I have used the "sole property" statement in an effort to stop wholesale use of my images and research without citing but even with it, there are model companies and others using my images without permission. In one amusing case, a French company sells copies of a color photo of me standing with my restored German 15cm lg.sFH 1913/02 as a rare colorized photo from WW1.

Thanks for the kind words about my site and I do appreciate the critique.

R/

Ralph

green_acorn · Captain

Ralph,

The second edition is also available online at gottmituns.net/2013/04/27/notes-on-german-shells-2nd-edition-may-1918/

I have spent a few years collating a list of what "SS" documents were produced and where they are available, if anyone has some on their website, or knows of said documents public location I would greatly appreciate any info received.

Cheers,
Chris

Druid_Ian · Lieutenant

I have a few on my scribd archive here https://www.scribd.com/user/11720553/Druid-ian if you have any problems downloading please pm me I can email them to you and I will be uploading somewhere around 300 more titles in the next few days

including some of the official histories

-- Edited by Druid_Ian on Wednesday 11th of October 2017 05:26:27 PM

Ralph Lovett · General

Thanks for posting the links for the 1918 version of Notes of German Shells. It is a great resource.

R/

Ralph

Druid_Ian · Lieutenant

green_acorn wrote:
Ralph,

The second edition is also available online at gottmituns.net/2013/04/27/notes-on-german-shells-2nd-edition-may-1918/

I have spent a few years collating a list of what "SS" documents were produced and where they are available, if anyone has some on their website, or knows of said documents public location I would greatly appreciate any info received.

Cheers,
Chris

don't know if you have seen this list not mine but very useful also its worth looking at the US sites as a lot of the "SS" documents were reprinted verbatim as US manuals and they mostly have the same titles as the UK manuals but without the "SS" number.

if you have a list of the ones you have found please post it and I will fill in any of the ones you are missing if I have them plus I have a some not listed on the attached document

-- Edited by Druid_Ian on Thursday 12th of October 2017 02:17:44 AM

-- Edited by Druid_Ian on Thursday 12th of October 2017 03:30:15 AM

green_acorn · Captain

Druid_Ian,

Thank you, yes I have seen that recent update to the Birmingham Uni First World War Studies Centre list (I used a previous version as one of my start points). I have found quite a few (100's) more documents.

I am in the process of finalising it as Version 1, before submitting it to Birmingham Uni and other institutions. My version of the list, which is pitched at academics, students and researchers, also includes the known publicly accessible location of documents internationally. It will probably take years to finalise it properly, as places like the Royal Artillery Archives are still packed from the move and the catalogue doesn't have all the detail of references. Similarly, the Royal Engineer site has inconsistent cataloging. At present, I am awaiting a reply from The Tank Museum, and need to write to Canada and one or two other institutions to find out what they have.

Cheers,
Chris
Brisbane Australia