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Learn Camera Repair: Increase in the price of downloads

Andreas Thaler

Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2017
Messages
4,863
Location
Vienna/Austria
Format
35mm
Learn Camera Repair, an important source for documentation on camera repair topics, has increased the price of most of its specialist magazine and repair manual downloads from USD 1.00 to USD 2.58:

Camera Craftsman Magazine | Learn Camera Repair

Camera Craftsman was an American publication for camera repair technicians. Please Note: In order to keep the site online, we are now asking $3.56 each for most of the files on the site. Tutorials written by members of the Learn Camera Repair Facebook Group are $1.25 each. After you complete...
learncamerarepair.com


Personally, I think this price increase is acceptable, especially since downloads at Learn Camera Repair have been offered free for a long time in the past.
 
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Just remember they ripped a lot of their manuals from other sites for free and are now profiting from other peoples generosity. Search for what you want and you'll probably find it for free somewhere else. Such as all the manuals I have on my site which they took and refused to even give me credit for. www.contax139.co.uk\documentation

If you do obtain any manuals, from anywhere, consider sharing it. LCR doesn't own the copyright of these manuals. You can freely share them.
 
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No mention on the Facebook page of the price hike or why it was necessary. I know that about half of the original $1 fee was going to paypal, not the site owners, which is really inefficient to begin with. Hopefully the price increase wasn't just covering paypal fees. If that's the case, they should find another payment processor or explore other models like a yearly subscription fee.

But nobody wants to question the model because the vibe on the Facebook group is very much "my way or the highway". They are not open to constructive feedback.

Edit: I also don't get the request to not share files. If you are exceeding the bandwidth of your hosting platform, wouldn't sharing files on other platforms reduce the burden?
 
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Dead right. if you suggest another way of doing something, you get banned. Ask me how I know.

They don't want you to share them because they are only interested in making money. They forget that someone else 'shared' the files with them in the first place.
 
I've found a few manuals that I couldnt find elshwere at LCR so 2.60 sound reasonable compare to other places

The files in the facebook group have a lot of said manuals
And many are also found trawling through different websites.

or you can nicely ask people here that might have downloaded them earlier
 
That's a pretty BIG price increase. I can certainly understand a fee -- especially if it is a good copy -- but I'm always going to SEARCH the web first for free copies FIRST.

My websites have lots of free PDF files -- but they pertain to specific photographic areas.

http://www.subclub.org/

 
The price update is not small. I understand and respect their effort, however I believe they have to find a better solution now.
Many of the files are not locked, which means the files can be shared after purchasing. It won't help to maintain people's willingness to pay but starting to look for free.

Maybe they could consider online subscription ? Like , if I have to purchase a set of camera repair course books that would be real costly in this new price, but if I subscripted then I can access not just the the course books, but also others at a lower cost.
 
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