Hi all, thanks for any time you can give this.
Over the last year I've collected a good number of issues of PC Format, a now-discontinued computer/gaming magazine whose heyday was the mid-late 90s. Issues from that era are both uncommon and generally competed over on eBay. I had the idea of digitising - through either scans or photos - my collection and selling it as download-only or on cd/dvd/usb stick, but I'm unsure of the legality beyond being pretty sure it's not legal. Reselling the physical copies is clearly either fine or not an issue for Future Publishing - I'm assuming that making copies that could sell in perpetuity, even of a dead product, is where the sticking point would be?
(There's also the secondary risk of, if I went ahead and had some success, a buyer either reselling the PDFs or uploading them to public archive and making the enterprise redundant. It doesn't seem like something I could fight given the product isn't mine in the first place, even if the digitising/time spent thereon is.)
Would really appreciate thoughts - I'm resigned to probably not being able to do it, but if there's precedent for this being a grey area with likely no repercussions then that's good to know as well. People are selling DVD compilations of 90s games on eBay, the copyright for which is certainly not fully theirs to do so, so maybe the industry turns a blind eye to nostalgia-driven reselling?
Thanks again, if you need any more information please ask.
Digitising and selling 90s computer magazines?
Re: Digitising and selling 90s computer magazines?
Hi DDM,
Your instincts are correct. Scanning or digitally copying these old magazines would infringe copyright and although I have no idea how Future Publishing would feel about it, I suggest you would run a real risk of being sued if you went ahead.
The reason people are able to sell their old copies of these magazines is something called the doctrine of exhaustion. Basically this says that once you have legally acquired a physical object such as a book, magazine or music CD the owner of the copyright in the work has effectively lost his resale rights over that particular copy of the work. The new owner is thus able to further distribute the item since they are not copying it, merely passing on the original item they bought. This doctrine does not apply to intangible items such as software or ebooks.
The reason your scheme is not covered by the doctrine of exhaustion is as you have outlined yourself: if you sell pdfs you would have a pretty limitless source of 'new' works which you can distrubute and this would infringe the copyright owner's right to authorise the making of copies.
Also, given the relatively short lifespan of most games, software and some hardware, I would be surprised if there was a large market for just the content on these 25 year old magazines. I suspect that the thriving second hand market you mention is restricted mainly to those who collect the magazines for the sake of having a complete collection, and would not be interested in a pdf version, in the same way that a stamp collector would not want a photocopy of a Penny Black.
Your instincts are correct. Scanning or digitally copying these old magazines would infringe copyright and although I have no idea how Future Publishing would feel about it, I suggest you would run a real risk of being sued if you went ahead.
The reason people are able to sell their old copies of these magazines is something called the doctrine of exhaustion. Basically this says that once you have legally acquired a physical object such as a book, magazine or music CD the owner of the copyright in the work has effectively lost his resale rights over that particular copy of the work. The new owner is thus able to further distribute the item since they are not copying it, merely passing on the original item they bought. This doctrine does not apply to intangible items such as software or ebooks.
The reason your scheme is not covered by the doctrine of exhaustion is as you have outlined yourself: if you sell pdfs you would have a pretty limitless source of 'new' works which you can distrubute and this would infringe the copyright owner's right to authorise the making of copies.
Also, given the relatively short lifespan of most games, software and some hardware, I would be surprised if there was a large market for just the content on these 25 year old magazines. I suspect that the thriving second hand market you mention is restricted mainly to those who collect the magazines for the sake of having a complete collection, and would not be interested in a pdf version, in the same way that a stamp collector would not want a photocopy of a Penny Black.
Advice or comment provided here is not and does not purport to be legal advice as defined by s.12 of Legal Services Act 2007
Re: Digitising and selling 90s computer magazines?
Thanks a lot for the detail, Andy - I'll play safe and leave it be, although I might try getting in touch with Future about it. Can't hurt.
Re the physical/digital distinction for collectors, the physical copies are the ideal but I would definitely have bought a digitised copy of these magazines if one was available when I rediscovered my crippling nostalgia. As it was, there's one or two archived online and I enjoyed the lesser but still palpable hit of leaving through them virtually. So I suspect there would have been at least some interest.
Re the physical/digital distinction for collectors, the physical copies are the ideal but I would definitely have bought a digitised copy of these magazines if one was available when I rediscovered my crippling nostalgia. As it was, there's one or two archived online and I enjoyed the lesser but still palpable hit of leaving through them virtually. So I suspect there would have been at least some interest.