Uploading an e-book

The user Ticktockfool wants to upload an e-book in PDF format entitled "Guide to Composition" by a guy called Johann Georg Albrechtsberger.

He says each page is brownish-yellow in colour, suggesting the scan was made from an edition which is not in print any more, letalone in wide circulation. He hasn't yet said where he got the PDF file from.

Should it be permissible to upload this e-book for the benefit of other users? I'd say yes, it won't really harm anyone...unless the book is rubbish of course. :D

I'd say yay. Especially since he's been dead nearly 200 years. What will he care?

That and the book sounds old enough to maybe have outlived it's copyright? :huh:

Books have the (P) and © in the front pages. The person who scanned it should have paid attention to that.

YC is NOT legally covered if the copyright still stands.

But in all honesty, who really gives a scraggy? I mean it's about education, and since YC is (currently) not earning anything... Why not! ;)

I'd say once he explains where he attained the PDF, sure. Provided it IS out of copyright. Will it go in amongst our wiki files, you know... where choppy had his homework? It'd be nice to put it there - that way it will stay with the site and not the user who uploaded it, and we could write a wiki article that provides a brief synopsis and the file link.

Will it go in amongst our wiki files, you know... where choppy had his homework?

Those pages were not supposed to be found :ninja:

I agree, this could be a good wiki source, if only we had...hmmm....editors.....

I'm going to chime in and say that the chances of it being a legitimate source are slim at best, but, as others have said, who cares?

Somehow I doubt that the estate of Johann Georg Albrechtsberger is going to sue us for copyright infringement because we re-ignited some interest in his work. That being said, if it IS still under copyright then we'd be violating our own rules in making it available...I don't personally care, but it wouldn't surprise me if people started calling hypocrisy or something just to stir scraggy up.

If it's hosted on another site (like scribd), then I think you can't be prosecuted for linking to something.... Then again, that's the whole theory behind TPB, and they were recently prosecuted (though in Sweden, not the US).

Likely the book is old enough and obscure enough for it all not to matter. Usually a "cease and desist" letter is sent, and then (if you don't want to fight) you cease and desist.

Those pages were not supposed to be found :ninja:

Take economics out of the page name next time ;)

I agree, this could be a good wiki source, if only we had...hmmm....editors.....

...editors to host a PDF?

I don't really get how it could become part of the wiki - it's in PDF format, unless we use OCR or start copying bits out (both of which could get us in further trouble from a copyright standpoint) but I will let Ticktockfool know he has the go-ahead to post.

You can upload files to the wiki. PDFs included. I just thought it'd be a benefit to include it among the site resources - it might be rather large for ticktockfool to upload using his account if it's a whole book.

You can upload files to the wiki. PDFs included.

The thought associated with my comment was somewhere along the lines of what Mike said. I don't see really how it could fit into the wiki unless he writes a small article about its significance and summarizes its contents.

The PDF is now accessible here: http://www.youngcomposers.com/Albrechtsberger.pdf

Anyone care to wikify it somehow?

It seems a rather unwieldy file - my PDF reader is slow to respond when navigating around. But I don't suppose we can do much about that.

Oh my God...no one is going to read this in that form. Could someone please turn this into a doc file, paste it on the wiki in a sandbox page? Then we can create numerous pages of content based on this pdf.

@Mike @chopin: I presume (from the mention of the colour) that this PDF contains images only. In that case, it's impossible to directly "turn" it into a textual, editable format. The only possible solutions are OCR (unreliable, especially if the scan or source aren't high-quality), or manually retyping everything.

Also, I can't open it in Foxit Reader as a Firefox plugin.

Also, perhaps you could also consider a "External Resources" page that list the community's recommended textbooks/reference books in various disciplines, as well as links to legal sources (e.g. Google Books) or to locally-hosted out-of-copyright digital copies?