UKC

I have a lot of climbing mags from the 80’s and 90’s.

amongst them the first three editions of ON THE EDGE. Published 1987. 
 

They must have a value, anyone know?

For better or worse old mags seem to have declined in value these days. Posts on here offer them free to good homes if collected.

<antiques roadshow>"Would it surprise you if I were to say that - for insurance purposes, and taking into account the current market - a reasonable estimate for this collection of magazines - assuming that they were to be listed for sale by an appropriate specialist auction house, and were to attract the attention of an interested collector - would be approximately in the vicinity of ... shall we say ... precisely f-uck all?"</antiques roadshow>

However - they're still good for lighting the fire with.

At the risk of giving a semi-useful reply, I've got the jarvis books catalogue in front of me. They've got issue 1 of Crags listed for £10, plus various issues of Mountain magazine generally going for £2-£4 each, though a couple of issues are listed for £5 to £10.

Whilst nobody wants a stash of magazines that is 10 ft long on their shelf it's a shame the contents is not available in an online searchable format.

That would be really valuable!

Funny you should mention this. I run https://climbing-history.org/ and recently got my hands on a nice selection of On The Edge mags. I'm slowly working my way through them and recording some of the various bits and pieces, some great nuggets in there! Loads of interesting pics and articles too, though legally it's hard to do anything with them as the mag owns the rights to everything (as I understand it). Seems a real shame though, the value of the content is niche enough that is be surprised if it's worth much so most likely it'll be left to rot as the publishers can't sell it and people don't want the legal risk of archiving it.

Are you selling them....or otherwise disposing of them??

Some of the early stuff was great. Gill was a really interesting editor back then. She published three superb short stories, one by Greg Griffiths, one about Sid Vicious reappearing as a climbing bum in OZ(!) and one lovely piece by her about two old duffers, well past their sell-by date, floundering on their local grit venue. 

The sadly missed TIM Lewis was the first person to have faith in both Gill and me. And she was the second person to have faith in me. I'm eternally grateful to both of them. 

mick

Not much help but I got £200 for Kerrang's 1-10 a few years ago. Who'd have thought.

I've still got 2000AD comics 1-3 with free gifts. Probably worth more than OTE. 

Hey mate, I have the full set from start to finish, so if you ever need any specific info, I would be happy to send over photos of what you need. 

Thanks for the kind offer, I appreciate it.

It's unlikely that the magazine owns much of the content, copyright will lie with the various authors, photographers and illustrators, which makes it even more complex! In most cases I can't imagine it being an issue for articles and news, photographers might feel differently. (Jim Perrin sued the CC when they digitised some of their journals including one of his articles)

I have a large collection of Climber and Rambler, Rocksport, Mountain, On the Edge and some others. I did start creating an index of topics from them a few years ago for my own use, but it would be a good project to crowdsource to make a searchable database, even if the actual articles can't be made available digitally.

Good knowledge.

One thing I've wondered is whether it'd be legally feasible to digitise all the content (and record the authors of each work) but not make it generally available. Then you could gradually try and get permission from the authors and make their work available if they gave permission (or 70 years after the author has died, when the copyright expires).

At east then there would be a digital version of the work available for archival purposes, and you're not reliant on stacks of mags in someone's house which are liable to go mouldy, get thrown away etc.

Have you got a full set of on the edge magazines? I think I was living in llamberis in 1989, but not sure of the exact date.

I appeared on one of the on the edge magazines for having fallen off my scateboard down the fachwen track when it was freshly tarmacked. It would be great to know when that happened exactly so I could work out when I lived there.

Cheers 

Just as a detail, you shouldn't automatically assume that the author actually owns the copyright. It might be the magazine owners or publishers or someone else. Good luck finding out!

I wondered if it could be approached using a "we respond to take down requests" method.

I obviously don't know what the potential liability is of having uploaded things and held them online prior to the takedown request.

I was just going off Wil's comment above.

Presumably it depends on whether the authors signed some sort of agreement with the mag, and the nature of that agreement? Like you suggest, I suspect a lot of these details will be fading rapidly in to the mists of time.

Hi Mick

I got a name check in Gill’s Alternative British Climbing guidebook for accompanying her to so many cafes, pubs and crags, all in the name of literature. She had an unnerving nose for talent in your case and many others as well as being very very funny

Legally there is some provision for "reasonable attempts to find the copyright holder". Often used for photographs in biographies I imagine, where none remembers who actually took the photo! As a catch all it doesn't get you off the hook though.

As Marek says, the actual copyright holder isn't necessarily obvious, could be magazines, publishers, authors or a mix depending on contracts/terms.

It is a frustrating one, because in most cases no-one is going to object. If anything they might be pleased that people can still read their work! But it only takes one...

I have a complete set of “Crags” sitting gathering dust in my loft. If someone were serious about scanning them and putting them on line I would be happy to pass them on. I also have a random selection of older mags. 

I was a regular reader of OTE but I must've missed that issue. I'd love to read that!

I had completely forgotten this story until you mentioned it here. I was a little too young to really understand it, ditto the one about the one with the climber covered in scars from his evening “hobby”… It felt like it grew out of the zine culture that existed back then and which has disappeared today. 
 

It would be great to digitise these magazines, what is the risk of someone did sue for copyright violations?

I was curious as to the actual liability you would accrue if you were non profit seeking, made an effort to contact people (and retained documentary evidence of this) and provided a swift take down procedure.

I'm incredulous that it's not possible to provide an online archive of 1960s climbing magazines. The financial loss to the estate of the photographers of poorly produced grainy black and white photos and the writers on area news would be increadably small. 

"We would have made a Netflix series about the exploration of Cheddar Gorge but we can't as you pirated the 1969 area notes"

This is merely my opinion, it may be complete bo**ox ..

Firstly, if they're published on a website then they can (individually) be taken off pretty quickly if someone/something complains about copyright. It's not like they're permanently in a book that has to be withdrawn from sale.

Secondly, suing would only benefit lawyers because it would surely be rather difficult to prove any significant loss in a niche market like climbing. Also, wouldn't suing only happen from a company (i.e. publisher) after issuing some kind of "cease and desist" that wasn't responded to.

So I'd say to anyone who's got the time and motivation, "go for it".

Just a thought, if it was set up by a company with the only assets being some webpages (i.e. company set up solely for this), then could the person behind it (director & owner), be sued?

It does seem a pretty ridiculous state of affairs!

Let's pretend you wrote an article for a mag in 1970, aged 30 at the time, and kept the copyright. If you lived to 75 the article would become public domain in 2085. I can sort of appreciate why this happens for very valuable works (popular songs, best selling novels etc.) but it seems totally ridiculous for the huge swathes of material that don't fall in to that category.

If, when Im dead, someone cares enough about something I've produced to copy it I'd be ecstatic that it would live on for a little longer!

Im not a lawyer, but as I understand it you could be sued https://prettys.co.uk/newsletters/can-you-sue-director-company-when-you-do-....

An incorporated charity perhaps.

There's some parallels with torrent sites used for pirating films etc. here. The torrent sites have tried to argue they were basically just like google and provided a content agnostic search platform and responded to any copyright take down requests promptly.

This has been through the courts and did not stand up. As I understand it, the courts (in the US and UK) essentially looked at the torrent sites and said "95% of your content is stealing copyrighted works, that's not legit".

I suspect a website that had scanned copies of loads of climbing mags would be viewed in a similar light unless you'd explicitly gained permission from the copyright holders. That is, the courts have leaned towards putting the onus on the person publishing the work to get permission to do so, rather than requiring rights holders to enforce their rights.

Perhaps, but it's a risky approach. Im not particularly interested in spending a few years of my life getting bogged down in a court case.

There is an Instagram page that is dedicated entirely to old issues of US climbing mags, unfortunately I can’t remember what it’s called, but if they can manage it in the litigious US of A then it would probably be fine here. But I appreciate your caution.

I had bits published in OTE, High, Climb and Climber. I don't recall ever signing any sort of agreement with a mag, nor would they typically want or require an invoice, which is where you would normally state licensing terms (have done both when dealing with book publishers). You just sent them stuff and a few months later, if you were lucky, you got a cheque in the post.

The lack of licensing agreements did crop up when I think both Climb and Climber put a lot of their back issues online about 15 years ago. For a lot of contributors I suspect that felt a bit cheeky - it did to me - but it was also clear that although it might help attract the odd subscriber there wasn't the revenue being generated to make recompense worth pursuing. Initially these were article pdfs rather than ebook-style mags, and I did take the step of downloading mine and making them available through my own website, with no repercussions, although technically the magazines owned the design work.

It seems vanishingly unlikely to me that anyone putting old mags online would end up on the wrong end of a court case. As long as you stick to say 20+ years old and don't try to monetise it.

About a decade ago whilst I was, shall we say, under-employed - I was toying with the idea of trying to make my writing for climbing and other "outdoor" websites and magazines into an actual living. I did scan, or take good photos of, my articles in Climb magazine and elsewhere, and screen shot my UKC reviews and some writing I was doing for the Red Bull Adventure website - and put them all on Tumblr (yep, that long ago!). I was sort of planning as using it as a portfolio to rustle up more work. No one ever complained, although that is far more likely because no one ever noticed than because I wasn't breaking any copyright laws.

edit: hold the (decade old) front page! It seems Tumblr still exists, and my page on it does too. Whodathunkit? So this is what I meant: https://tobyarcher.tumblr.com/page/2

That's right. It's not like someone playing The Beatles' Yellow Submarine or The Stones' Jumpin' Jack Flash in a lift (it always amuses me to picture what does really happen - teams of lawyers scouring the world for copyright infringement of famous songs)

No you wouldn’t.  You’re dead…

Intuitively I agree, but Wil gave the example of Jim Perrin suing the CC when they digitised their journals so it seems like it's not that far fetched.

Does anyone know what happened when Perrin did sue? I really don't understand what he thought he was getting out of doing so either, but that's a secondary issue.

The article "Street Legal" about a drug fuelled solo of Coronation Street was if I recall correctly, reproduced in the CC 100 year anthology edition (not digitised). JP in all his pompous glory took exception. I don't really know the outcome but much later I came across a copy of the centenary journal on sale new in Waterstones or some such. It had a slip inside, can't recall the wording but it had some sort of apology as it didn't reflect JP's current views.

I agree, though I'm not even convinced about the 20+ years bit.  Assuming the mag you are digitising is defunct - which is the case with all but one of them - then go for it!  Though clearly if the previous owners or editors are still around, you should contact them in advance to explain your project and intentions.

Assuming you aren't planning to monetise the archive - and that is important - I'd be surprised if you didn't receive their permission and encouragement, though technically whether the copyright sits with the publisher or the author of the individual articles, I'm not certain.

But do make the online archive properly searchable and indexed.

Neil

I believe there was a payout; if so, CC cognoscenti would doubtless know. 

As to his motives, well, Jim is Jim (and I say this as a mate). He may have harboured grievances against the CC. Ironically several of his noteworthy early essays, besides Street Legal, were first published in CC journals. Me, I'd have been grateful to them. Anyway it's sludge under the bridge. 

If you're a writer, your stuff ends up all over the place. You simply accept it. Copyright gets infringed but there's rarely any attempt at ripping you off or anything like that. So you live with it.

However it may be that this approach is old-fashioned. I know a lot of contemporary writers are terrified about infringing rights where photos and images are concerned. And such infringement seems to have contributed to the sad demise of the much loved Supertopo.

Mick

P.S. Have just remembered, Jim had history with the person who changed his article. The guy shouldn't have done it without asking him but he was a decent person and, if it were me, I'd have just let it go. 

My understanding (caveat emptor!) 

As an example, let's say it's an old article I wrote for OTE. They own copyright for that article as it appears in the magazine; I own copyright for the words. So they couldn't publish it elsewhere but I could.  

Mick 

Makes sense, Mick

So was the centenary publication edited for modern tastes? In which case I apologise for misleading the thread.

I can't find the original source where I read about the Jim Perrin case, but a little bit of research suggests that it might not have been about copyright at all. (And as said above, possibly more about personal grievances)

At some point I will get around to making scans of the magazines in my collection, I've been meaning to for a long time.

Aye, you can have your PhDs and your professorships and there's nowt wrong with that.  But they can never be the same as appearing in Gill’s Alternative British Climbing guidebook!

I loved it. Greg Griffiths' cartoons were superb - and his short story about a boulderer in a Breck type setting was superb. Doubt it would get printed in today's culture. 

Remember the cartoon of Pete Livesey getting heckled in his cafe? "Double egg, chips and beans." "Chips, chips and more chips!" The naughty customers, err... chipping away at things. 

Eh, when you're naughty, life can be tough!

Mick 

The CC Journals are now only available to members with reference to copyright concerns.

I'd be interested to hear if the CC took legal advice on this and what their thinking was. After all I assume that the CC does have some assets they may have been concerned about.

Other types of organisation my have less to fear (or not?).

I don't think it was that. It needed editing. I'd have taken those Latin quotes straight out. And if I'd been editing The Villain the ridiculous amount of footnotes (Jim constantly having his cake and eating it) would have been cut to well-nigh nothing. 

Tough love, huh? 

Mick 

A few huts and cash saved up for the Ynys rebuild among other things.
The club's archivist (David Medcalf) did a eulogy for the lawyer who dealt with the Perrin case on the club's behalf the year after his death when there was an AGM/ Dinner weekend in Sheffield. Apparently he sent the CC a letter stating "Perrin's a **** and his lawyer is too." so I suspect that the merit associated with Perrin's complaint was fairly limited.

With regards the full set of magazines, possibly worth checking if the Mountain Heritage Trust has a full set which they can digitise and allow access to for research purposes?

an> edit: hold the (decade old) front page! It seems Tumblr still exists, and my page on it does too. Whodathunkit? So this is what I meant: https://tobyarcher.tumblr.com/page/2

Well that’s very cool!

I quite liked the Latin quotes and the footnotes in The Villian! I feel in particular that the later would have been a slightly lesser work without them. Suing the CC tho? That’s an unpleasant day’s work. 

So have you tried to contact them and ask? i recently cut through a lot of hypothetical rights issues by doing just that over republishing.

Get in touch with who? Quoting Adam Long above:

Which to my non-lawyer brain suggests the individual authors and photographers will have the copyright on almost all of the content within a mag. Getting permission from lots of individuals seems tricky from a practical standpoint.

Ian Smith came and picked up a full set of Crags Magazines off me for the archive, so I would have thought OTE would be of interest

On OTE, the depiction of Ben, Jerry, Ron and particularly Johnny Dawes in the cartoons were brilliant

Those cartoons! The Ian Vincent character getting withdrawal symptoms 'cos he'd just left his cellar (altitude sickness). The Dave Thomas character questioning the very existence of runners on scary trad. 

Whatever happened to that brilliant cartoonist? I heard a rumour he went off and somehow got involved with guidebooks.

Mick 

If you know who the owner of OTE is now it seems they might come up with advice, info etc. I found the technical owners of the material I am concerned with quite willing, or otherwise for good reason, to surrender those rights.