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Contempary race reports online?


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#1 Richard Jenkins

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Posted 25 September 2002 - 21:43

Now, I may be looking in all the wrong places, but I'm wondering where on earth you can read race reports, preferably contempary as opposed to nostalgic, of past races, if you have neither the budget or resources at hand (ie copies of 1950 Motorsport's)
I'm looking, intially, for race reports for the 1950 F1 World Championship races, as a small side project to run alongside my updating of the WATN thread. (Always the way with me, I finish one side project, like I did today & now I HAVE to start another one otherwise there's a void in my life :) ) I'm trying a few things out & 1950 is a decent place to start.
It hardly matters if there is no easy access to said reports as I can work on it the hard way through the results etc. I have but it would be nice & also, I imagine, very, very interesting to see what DSJ et. al thought at the time.
I could just be a dolt & the answer is right in front of me, but for now, any helpers please?

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#2 Vitesse2

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Posted 25 September 2002 - 21:54

Richie, there would be one over-riding problem with this: copyright.

If anyone tried to publish Motor Sport reports on the web (even from 50 years ago), Haymarket would come down on them like a ton of bricks, closely followed by DSJ's literary executor and a host of copyright lawyers ....

If it was that easy, someone would have done it by now.

OTOH, there is no problem with copying for individual research purposes (copyright lawyers call it "fair dealing") - check your PMs :)

#3 scheivlak

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Posted 25 September 2002 - 22:36

Well, if you like to read Jenks' reports on the 1967 season:
http://www.isanski.w...uk/frameset.htm

Some nice additional stuff as well, like his preview to the season (interesting opinion about G. Hill, Lotus and Ford) and his ideas about the European circuits from a spectator's point of view.

#4 jdfelter

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Posted 01 October 2002 - 22:03

Richie,

grandprix.com is a good place to start:

http://www.grandprix...pe/res1950.html

Have fun.


JDF

#5 Doug Nye

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Posted 01 October 2002 - 22:45

Originally posted by scheivlak
Well, if you like to read Jenks' reports on the 1967 season:
http://www.isanski.w...uk/frameset.htm

Some nice additional stuff as well, like his preview to the season (interesting opinion about G. Hill, Lotus and Ford) and his ideas about the European circuits from a spectator's point of view.


As co-Executor of Jenks's Estate and co-holder of the copyright on his material I have to say we're not altogether thrilled about this.... We won't spoil the fun, but I must make it clear that any publication for commercial gain without so much as a by-your-leave or at the very least a charitable donation to the BEN Fund - which did so much to ease DSJ's final months - will be asking for trouble...

DCN

#6 scheivlak

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Posted 01 October 2002 - 23:01

I was wondering about that as well, of course.
How about the disclaimer: "I will of course remove any material as requested by the holders of the original copyright." -??

#7 MichaelJP

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Posted 02 October 2002 - 09:08

Originally posted by Doug Nye

As co-Executor of Jenks's Estate and co-holder of the copyright on his material I have to say we're not altogether thrilled about this.... We won't spoil the fun, but I must make it clear that any publication for commercial gain without so much as a by-your-leave or at the very least a charitable donation to the BEN Fund - which did so much to ease DSJ's final months - will be asking for trouble...
DCN


I can understand that, Doug. In their defence, I think DSJ's 1967 race reports are on that website mainly due to the interest created by the excellent PC racing simulation, Grand Prix Legends, which sets out to simulate that very season. I don't think they intend it to go any further.

Having said that, it would be nice if it could be arranged to publish all DSJ's grand prix reports - either as a CD-ROM or printed volumes. I'd pay good money for those.

- Michael

#8 Allen Brown

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Posted 02 October 2002 - 16:35

Originally posted by scheivlak
I was wondering about that as well, of course.
How about the disclaimer: "I will of course remove any material as requested by the holders of the original copyright." -??

I read that as meaning that you know you are breaching someone's copyright but your making it their job to find you. That's not a disclaimer, it's just a very poor excuse.

Allen

#9 Felix Muelas

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Posted 02 October 2002 - 19:45

Originally posted by Doug Nye
As co-Executor of Jenks's Estate and co-holder of the copyright on his material I have to say we're not altogether thrilled about this....

Amen. Very rightly so.

Originally posted by MichaelJP
...it would be nice if it could be arranged to publish all DSJ's grand prix reports - either as a CD-ROM or printed volumes. I'd pay good money for those.

Me too.
Is that a feasible proposition, Doug?

Felix

#10 Doug Nye

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Posted 02 October 2002 - 22:55

Complicated but not impossible. I really apologise for raising this, but it is an important principle which makes all kinds of freebies possible in other areas...and abuse of which would make the freebies completely IMpossible to offer...

DCN

#11 Arturo Pereira

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Posted 02 October 2002 - 23:09

What about Doug's articles on a CD and/or PDF files ?? I would also like to pay for DSJ's reports and DN's articles, so you have sold 2 in a matter of minutes :) :)


Arturo

#12 Bladrian

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Posted 04 October 2002 - 17:31

Originally posted by Arturo Pereira
What about Doug's articles on a CD and/or PDF files ?? I would also like to pay for DSJ's reports and DN's articles, so you have sold 2 in a matter of minutes :) :)
Arturo


Make that three. I would regard a DCN and DSJ story collection on CD as a real treasure.

#13 ensign14

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Posted 04 October 2002 - 20:11

Well, the complete National Geographic is available on CD-Rom and DVD. Is it in any way feasible for Motor Sport/Autosport to go the same way?

There are some contemporary reprints available from the usual sources (the Unique Portfolios, Brooklands Books and suchlike), but these are of course from different writers and the repro can be pretty poor.

#14 Felix Muelas

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Posted 04 October 2002 - 20:55

Originally posted by ensign14
...There are some contemporary reprints available from the usual sources (the Unique Portfolios, Brooklands Books and suchlike), but these are of course from different writers and the repro can be pretty poor...


I do not think I agree with what I understand you might mean...

Actually I find all those "reprints" quite useful and, unless you have been collecting magazines for several decades there is little chance that you might have "cheap" -because I believe it´s not really expensive- to "themes" like, don´t know, let me see...The Carrera Panamericana reports or The New Zealand Grand Prix.

(You caught me with one of those, an 86-page thing called "Motor Racing in the 30´s" that makes no sense at all, but every single article or advert reproduced there is simply amazing)

OK, we are talking photocopies, I agree, but I stopped protesting about photocopies when I saw the quality of the Sheldon books!

To be honest, sometimes I dream that someone might actually take THAT route (the Unique Portfolios kinda-thing) with French, Spanish or Italian magazines! Imagine?

Felix

#15 ensign14

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Posted 04 October 2002 - 23:13

It's mainly the Unique ones, the photograph repro is poor (the paper looks cheap). I agree that the info is priceless tho'.

#16 Joe Fan

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Posted 09 October 2002 - 21:43

Originally posted by Doug Nye


As co-Executor of Jenks's Estate and co-holder of the copyright on his material I have to say we're not altogether thrilled about this.... We won't spoil the fun, but I must make it clear that any publication for commercial gain without so much as a by-your-leave or at the very least a charitable donation to the BEN Fund - which did so much to ease DSJ's final months - will be asking for trouble...

DCN


Doug, I recently found out some interesting information about copyrights. I am not sure how British copyrights work but I am under the impression that they are quite similar to the U.S.'s copyright laws--at least today. If so, prior to 1976 and under the Copyright act of 1909, any copyrighted material only had one sole copyright holder. That is the author and the publisher could not both be copyright holders. The vast majority of publishers retained the copyrights to any magazine articles because they wanted control of their material and they wanted the ability to reprint any articles if they desired. Most authors were licensees of their work unless they negotiated otherwise, which was uncommon then. Consequently, the writer would have to seek permission to reprint the article and were typically granted this authorization.

Before 1976, if say, Denis Jenkinson had copyrighted his articles in his name and sold them to Motor Sport, Motor Sport would be required to designate this in the magazine that such and such article was "Copyright Denis Jenkinson." The real kicker, if the publisher didn't note this and only had "Copyright Motor Sport" at the front of the magazine, this rendered the copyright invalid and made it public domain. The laws are much different now but if the British copyright laws were similar to the U.S.'s back then, if Jenks didn't copyright his work and sell it to Motor Sport, he would have to get the copyrights from Motor Sport and then file it on record with the copyright office.

#17 Doug Nye

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Posted 09 October 2002 - 22:11

:cool: ...so that's what the lawyers say in the US is it....

DCN

#18 Vitesse2

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Posted 09 October 2002 - 22:12

Here's the relevant text from

http://www.copyright...k/copyright/law(01).htm

regarding British copyright law.

When copyright occurs
Copyright arises whenever an individual or company creates a work: A work is subject to copyright if it is regarded as original, and must exhibit a degree of labour, skill or judgement.
Interpretation is related to the independent creation rather than the idea behind the creation. For example, copyright will not exist in names, colours or ideas, but will exist in a work composed of these elements. In short, copyright may protect a work that expresses an idea but not the idea behind it.

Who Owns The Copyright On A Piece Of Work
Normally the individual or collective who authored the work will exclusively own the copyright. However, if a work is produced as part of employment then normally the copyright belongs to the person/company who hired the individual. For freelance or commissioned work, copyright will usually belong to the author of the work, unless there is an agreement to the contrary, (i.e. in a contract for service).


Duration of copyright
The 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act states the duration of copyright as;
For literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works
70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the last remaining author of the work dies, or, if the work is of unknown authorship: 70 years from end of the calendar year in which the work was created, or if made available to the public in that time, (by publication, authorised performance, broadcast, exhibition, etc.), 70 years from the end of the year that the work was first made available.

#19 Doug Nye

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Posted 09 October 2002 - 22:18

:wave:

DCN

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#20 LittleChris

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Posted 09 October 2002 - 22:25

As a straight forward type of bloke, I'm somewhat confused about all of this. I will willingly put stuff on the internet ( 1 article so far, so it ain't much ) in the hope that future generations pick up on my enthusiasm and stop what I love from dying out. I don't care how many times it may be reproduced, by who and whether for profit or not , because it still perpetuates what I love. I can understand what Doug is saying, but how many of DSJ's relatives contributed what he did to motor racing history and if nothing, then why should not we benefit from his experiences rather than them in a monetory sense?

I'd like to think that he would have had same attitude.

Sermon over !!

#21 Doug Nye

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Posted 09 October 2002 - 22:31

Originally posted by Doug Nye


As co-Executor of Jenks's Estate and co-holder of the copyright on his material .... We won't spoil the fun, but I must make it clear that any publication for commercial gain without so much as a by-your-leave or at the very least a charitable donation to the BEN Fund - which did so much to ease DSJ's final months - will be asking for trouble...

DCN


Between straightforward blokes I really do not think that the above is in any way unreasonable.... ???? As far as we are concerned this matter is closed.

#22 MrAerodynamicist

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Posted 09 October 2002 - 22:36

Back to the original question: A site of actual race reports, rather than the usual statistics is the aim for the site that will eventually turn up www.petrolhead.org However, thats still very much in development, although you can read a draft report of Morocco '57. Of course it fails the contempary vs. nostalgic test, although the plan is to write all reports "as contempary" (ie, no reference to events after the race being reported)

http://www.insanitys...lhead/test.html

#23 Vitesse2

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Posted 09 October 2002 - 22:40

Chris: much of the reasoning behind copyright subsisting after the death of an author was due to the fact that often they had laboured in the proverbial garret for many years for scant reward in their own lifetimes. It is a sad fact that most authors' reputations usually increase after their death - surely it is right that the bereaved spouse and/or family should benefit from that, rather than a free for all in which the only winners are the publishers?

"Now Barabbas was a publisher" (Thomas Campbell, but often attributed wrongly to Byron, who actually got on very well with John Murray).

Today, of course, authors of books at least benefit from Public Lending Right, but that is capped at £5000 per year and most receive a lot less.

#24 Joe Fan

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Posted 09 October 2002 - 23:00

Originally posted by Doug Nye
:cool: ...so that's what the lawyers say in the US is it....

DCN


Here is an interesting article that I found that pretty much backs up what I had said earlier:

http://articles.corp...cationslaw_1_66

Like I said, I am not sure how the UK copyrights laws differed from U.S. copyright laws back then. But I have talked to the U.S. Copyright office about an usage issue I am faced with my Masten Gregory biography concerning an article written in the 60's by an author who has passed away. The individual I spoke with told me unless the author got his copyrights back from the publisher and filed it with the U.S. copyright office, I only have to get permission from the magazine publisher and not his family (or both). However, if the article was noted as copyrighted by the author in the magazine itself, then I would have to be dealing with the author's family.

#25 Joe Fan

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Posted 09 October 2002 - 23:04

Originally posted by Vitesse2
Here's the relevant text from

http://www.copyright...k/copyright/law(01).htm

regarding British copyright law.

When copyright occurs
Copyright arises whenever an individual or company creates a work: A work is subject to copyright if it is regarded as original, and must exhibit a degree of labour, skill or judgement.
Interpretation is related to the independent creation rather than the idea behind the creation. For example, copyright will not exist in names, colours or ideas, but will exist in a work composed of these elements. In short, copyright may protect a work that expresses an idea but not the idea behind it.

Who Owns The Copyright On A Piece Of Work
Normally the individual or collective who authored the work will exclusively own the copyright. However, if a work is produced as part of employment then normally the copyright belongs to the person/company who hired the individual. For freelance or commissioned work, copyright will usually belong to the author of the work, unless there is an agreement to the contrary, (i.e. in a contract for service).


Duration of copyright
The 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act states the duration of copyright as;
For literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works
70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the last remaining author of the work dies, or, if the work is of unknown authorship: 70 years from end of the calendar year in which the work was created, or if made available to the public in that time, (by publication, authorised performance, broadcast, exhibition, etc.), 70 years from the end of the year that the work was first made available.


This mimicks the U.S Copyrights today but back in the 60's, the laws were a little different. See the article I posted above.

#26 Vitesse2

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Posted 09 October 2002 - 23:09

Joe: apart from the 70-year subsistence rule, the situation here pre-1988 was, AFAIK, as I posted above, but with only a fifty year renewal on death. 70 years was adopted here as, I think, part of an agreement to harmonise European copyright laws and inter alia to bring all European countries in line with the Bern Convention. IIRC only Germany had implemented this pre-1988.

#27 Joe Fan

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Posted 09 October 2002 - 23:22

Originally posted by Vitesse2
Joe: apart from the 70-year subsistence rule, the situation here pre-1988 was, AFAIK, as I posted above, but with only a fifty year renewal on death. 70 years was adopted here as, I think, part of an agreement to harmonise European copyright laws and inter alia to bring all European countries in line with the Bern Convention. IIRC only Germany had implemented this pre-1988.


I understand what you are saying as this is real similar to the U.S.'s copyright laws but the real issue was, who actually owned the copyrights to those Jenks articles in the 60's. The laws and practices today usually allow magazine publishers exclusive rights for certain period of time (I think 3 months is typcial but it could be negotiated and has to be in writing) but then the rights would revert back to the author. Copyrights laws here in the U.S. have changed so many times in the past century, it is hard to keep up with and then you end up having to pay for a copyright search with the U.S. Copyright office just to cover your arse. Fortunately, work published after 1978 has its copyright information online but before this, for work that it is in question, it requires a search at an hourly rate by a federal employee at the copyright office. And you know how fast government employees work.

#28 Joe Fan

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Posted 09 October 2002 - 23:52

Originally posted by LittleChris
As a straight forward type of bloke, I'm somewhat confused about all of this. I will willingly put stuff on the internet ( 1 article so far, so it ain't much ) in the hope that future generations pick up on my enthusiasm and stop what I love from dying out. I don't care how many times it may be reproduced, by who and whether for profit or not , because it still perpetuates what I love. I can understand what Doug is saying, but how many of DSJ's relatives contributed what he did to motor racing history and if nothing, then why should not we benefit from his experiences rather than them in a monetory sense?

I'd like to think that he would have had same attitude.

Sermon over !!


The majority do which is why permission is routinely granted if asked. Exceptions would be if copyright holder has plans to generate income from the written article in the near future for whatever reason.

#29 LittleChris

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Posted 10 October 2002 - 12:15

Doug / Vitesse2/ Joe Fan,

Your comments have been taken on board and I fully agree. :blush:

I guess my comments were based on pure selfishness as I'd love to be able to read all of DSJ's articles but cannot ever see myself having enough dosh to be able to afford to buy a run of Motor Sport that long :(

Chris

#30 MichaelJP

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Posted 10 October 2002 - 12:39

LittleChris, that was why I suggested that DSJ's reports could be scanned in and made available on CD-ROM. Even after allowing for the costs and a reasonable profit, they could surely be sold for *much* less than a full Motor Sport set!

I bet even owners of a full run of Motor Sport would buy a copy; properly done it would allow indexing and text-searching across the whole archive.

Hmm. I wonder if the publisher of those "Brooklands Books" and the like might be interested in a project like this - after all they must have done similar work before and got approval to publish the old magazine reports.

- MichaelJP

#31 ensign14

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Posted 10 October 2002 - 13:15

Originally posted by Vitesse2
Joe: apart from the 70-year subsistence rule, the situation here pre-1988 was, AFAIK, as I posted above, but with only a fifty year renewal on death. 70 years was adopted here as, I think, part of an agreement to harmonise European copyright laws and inter alia to bring all European countries in line with the Bern Convention. IIRC only Germany had implemented this pre-1988.

Yes, it led to some confusion when works by some authors which had fallen out of copyright - I think Rudyard Kipling was chief amongst them - once more became copyright.

Where some people have gone wrong is that sometimes the contractual arrangments between author and publisher specifically relate to magazine publishing or suchlike which leaves other forms of publication (e.g. internet) up in the air. The whole thing's causing a big stink in some places. It would also affect CD-Rom publishing.

#32 Don Capps

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Posted 10 October 2002 - 17:53

A request such as Doug's is extremely fair and reasonable -- and made more so by the knowledge that the money goes to a cause other than self-enrichment. However, the current mess in the US with the copyright laws are completely about the idea not merely self-enrichment, but establishing a possible perpetual cash cow and, most importantly, control. The Sonny Bono Copyright Law was merely the product of the media lobbyists, with the biggest wad of dough coming from The Mouse. Indeed, if there is a single, solitary factor in all this, it is that The Mousemeister is pertrified of losing control over The Mouse's image. Hence, the changes.

I heard a report on some of the comments that were made yesterday before the Supreme Court concerning the notion of eternal copyrights. With a court that somehow came up with the Gore vs Bush decision, I am not holding my breath that it will strike down what The Mouse wants.