Game Manual Archive?

[bombatomba]

Could we possible begin archiving video game manuals (in pdf, cbr, or another file) on this website?  This question was recently posed in a blog comment section, so I thought maybe we could explore the possibilities.  Is is possible?  What would be the pros and cons?  Where do we stop?  Do we draw a line in the sand such as those on Video Game Mags (who archive nothing past 1999)?

[techwizard]

i'm pretty sure that would infringe copyrights...scanning the cover is one thing but the entire booklet is something else. could be wrong though.

[Izret101]

^
That has been the issue we have grappled with before.
At one time there were a few games that had full manual scans but i believe they were removed by someone.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Actually, I looked it up a while back. It's a grey area, but as long as we're not selling it or assuming that the manual itself is our property, it should fall under Fair Use.

Fair Use itself is a grey area though.

[bombatomba]

Perhaps we should do a trial run then?  Personally I think we should be fine, especially since we, 1) Don't traffic in ROMS or other blatantly illegal downloads that would incur the wrath of an IP holder, 2) Don't participate in activities that could incur the wrath of IP holders (Pokemon art contests, organize nationwide Smash Bros. competitions) and, 3) Can put language explicitly stating that the purposes are purely for archiving on the website.

I think storage and bandwidth could be more of a problem with this venture (though I admittedly don't know where we stand with those two issues).

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Storage and bandwidth aren't a big issue right now.

[bickman2k]

Storage and bandwidth aren't a big issue right now.

Storage would be the biggest issue if this becomes a bigger rollout. We don't have as much space as on our previous host.

EDIT: Not saying we're having storage issues. But, of the two, storage would be the bigger one. I do also have a plan to get the podcast hosting on board here as well. Those files do take up a bit of space, but we have a lot at our disposal.

[bombatomba]

So there would have to be strict limits in place for manuals as far as resolution and dpi is concerned.  What other formats are there outside of pdf of the comic formats (cbr, cbz).  I know the comic formats tend to be the best looking but also tend to be the largest.  Anyone else have any input on this?

I was looking around and found this page on Replacement Docs.  I find it amusing that the protective of their IP are the PC people.  The 3000AD one is hilarious (if you know about D. Smart, that is).

If I get a chance tonight I will break out the ol' scanner and scan a few manuals, see if I can get some sort of idea of what we are dealing with in terms of size.  I don't think the growth would be rapid due to the slight more work that goes into scanning manuals.

[shaggy]

Perhaps we should do a trial run then?  Personally I think we should be fine, especially since we, 1) Don't traffic in ROMS or other blatantly illegal downloads that would incur the wrath of an IP holder, 2) Don't participate in activities that could incur the wrath of IP holders (Pokemon art contests, organize nationwide Smash Bros. competitions) and, 3) Can put language explicitly stating that the purposes are purely for archiving on the website.

I think storage and bandwidth could be more of a problem with this venture (though I admittedly don't know where we stand with those two issues).

As long as we aren't making money off it, it shouldn't be a problem.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Bomba, I tried to upload a PDF to the site that I hand-made from image scans I converted a while back, and the site won't support it due to size limitations (and format as well). It's something we'd have to add proper support for - not hard, just work.

Storage would have to be increased eventually, but we're not using what we have now.

[bickman2k]

I think PDF is probably the more universal, but we might be able to save some space by using CBR and recommending viewing software. I don't mind processing manuals if someone wants/needs help creating a cbr. cbz would be okay, but if we're going to compress, I'd rather use RAR over ZIP.

There's also cb7, cba, cbt. cb7 would give us 7Z compression, which I find to compress better than RAR in certain situations.

Just a matter of testing and working with what is available. I do think that this would be better suited for single game page entries so we don't have multiple copies of the same manual, just a different cart release (like a -A NES cart).

With our current host, the only way to increase storage would be to make the entire server more powerful. If we begin to hit that limit, it may be beneficial to begin looking at offloading some storage to Amazon S3 or some other method of storing this data.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

FWIW, I think the manual I created was ~4MB in size with PDF. It's been a while though. That would take up room quick if we adopted it heavily, and I plan on also adopting other features that we should investigate getting Amazon cloud storage for or something.

[techwizard]

Perhaps we should do a trial run then?  Personally I think we should be fine, especially since we, 1) Don't traffic in ROMS or other blatantly illegal downloads that would incur the wrath of an IP holder, 2) Don't participate in activities that could incur the wrath of IP holders (Pokemon art contests, organize nationwide Smash Bros. competitions) and, 3) Can put language explicitly stating that the purposes are purely for archiving on the website.

I think storage and bandwidth could be more of a problem with this venture (though I admittedly don't know where we stand with those two issues).

As long as we aren't making money off it, it shouldn't be a problem.

not profiting from something doesn't mean it's not breaking copyright laws, that's a big misunderstanding from a lot of people online. i just researched some stuff and one government site recommended game publishers copyright their instruction manuals as literary works. working at a library, i know that you aren't allowed to photocopy more than a few pages of a book (it's probably a specific percent of the total content) even if it's only for personal use. we're not talking about personal use here but distributing entire manuals en masse to the public, and distribution is one thing definitely restricted by copyrights.

some quotes from US copyright law:

“Literary works” are works, other than audiovisual works, expressed in words,
numbers, or other verbal or numerical symbols or indicia, regardless of the nature
of the material objects, such as books, periodicals, manuscripts, phonorecords,
film, tapes, disks, or cards, in which they are embodied.

§106 · Exclusive rights in copyrighted works38
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has
the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:

...

(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes,
and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual
images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted
work publicly;

as i said, it's one thing to put up the front or back cover, but the content is another thing entirely. i'm not staff so it's up to them of course but personally i think it's a bad idea to just hope it's ok and go ahead instead of being proactive and avoid the problem altogether by not bothering. scanning an entire manual is a lot of work anyway.

[shaggy]

I don't believe that these can be compared as the same thing, one is a literary work (a book, a novel) while the other is an instruction manual on how to use something such as your fridge, your dehumidifier, your washer.  In this case it's instructions on how to use a game.

[techwizard]

I don't believe that these can be compared as the same thing, one is a literary work (a book, a novel) while the other is an instruction manual on how to use something such as your fridge, your dehumidifier, your washer.  In this case it's instructions on how to use a game.

from the US Copyright office website:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html

If your game includes any written element, such as instructions or directions, the Copyright Office recommends that you apply to register it as a literary work.