Technical documents / data sharing

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AbsurdePhoton

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Hi,

as I posted a thread about a particular document I am looking for, I was wondering if there could be something done for documents and data sharing, this could interest not just me.

My aim is to document Kodak and Ilford data (maybe others of interest like Agfa and Fuji) about their historical and present B&W films : mainly density curves, spectral charts and MTF curves, and other useful information, if available.
We all know these films changed since their launch. When ? What ? Each time the technical characteristics changed, it had an impact on the photos' look and feel. For this I also need information, and one way is to just compare the curves and write a timeline.

What I am thinking about is sharing a part of my MEGA space to deposit documents and allow those interested to upload and download. Permissions can be given to read and/or write.

About copyright : on this Kodak page it is stated : "Kodak generally grants permission for use of Kodak product information for non-commercial research, educational, historical or journalistic purposes such as newspaper and magazine articles and textbooks provided they give proper credit to Kodak as the source as applicable. All other uses, including commercial uses, are prohibited. This permission does not cover the right to use the image of any person shown in a product information image."
So I think, as my project is not commercial, and a real research is the aim, it is also a bit historical, a documents sharing place would not infringe copyright. I still have to look up for Ilford and others, but I am confident their view is the same.

As I consider that knowledge should be free and accessible for all, I am also thinking about authoring an article on Wikipedia with the material I could collect, beginning with the films timelines.

Please share your thoughts about this idea.
 
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koraks

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Sounds good, and I applaud the fact that you're aware of potential copyright issues.

My initial thought would be the question how you'll organize things in such a way that it'll be (remain) possible to easily locate information. I'm not familiar with MEGA (other than the news items from years ago), nor the data types, metadata etc. of the files you're dealing with. Depending on this, I imagine that some discipline in terms of file naming, recording metadata and perhaps even full text search may be relevant.
W.r.t. file naming, I my habit is generally to name files in the format "authors year title/subject". So e.g. "Mees 1942 Theory of the photographic process.pdf". I sometimes omit non-critical words from the title if the title is very long, or limit to the first 2-3 authors if there are too many, or use a company/organization name if no individual author(s) is/are known, etc. In short, variations to the theme.

I am also thinking about authoring an article on Wikipedia

Go for it!
 

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AbsurdePhoton

AbsurdePhoton

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the question how you'll organize things
Well ordered folders and good naming of files, that's how. We agree on this.
If you need a starting point this guy has a pretty decent archive of tech docs/pubs:

Tech Documents • 125px
I already sailed those seas my lad, many of the Kodak "modern" tech sheets (post 1987) I got from there. Speaking of this I also searched a lot on Internet Archive and other sites of that type. I didn't explore HathiTrust enough... yet.

About copyright issues, using a private site to put the files means the file access won't be public. Only those with a real interest will have access.

This said, there are many sites where tech sheets can be found, like La Pirate Dev Charte, Pacific Rim Camera, 125px... And interesting lists found at Craig's Camera, Film Rescue International... Yes we should share good sites too. Post them here !

To show the good example, I already uploaded some books on MEGA about Kodak :

Ref
Year(s)
Title
Version
?​
1946​
Kodak Reference Handbook​
1946​
?​
1947​
Infrared and Ultraviolet Photography Data Book​
2nd edition, 1947 (1st printing surely 1946)​
?​
1951-192​
Kodak films​
5th edition 1951 First 1952 Printing​
F-1​
1956-1958​
Kodak films for B&W Photography​
7th edition, 1956 First 1958 Printing​
?​
1968-1969​
Kodak Data Books of Applied Photography​
?​
W-4​
1976​
Kodak Professional B&W Films​
2nd edition First 1976 printing​
F-5​
1990-1998​
Kodak Professional B&W Films​
1990, Revised edition 1998​
That's all the Kodak data books I could find (I have some more for color films, I just listed the B&W ones). If you have other versions, PM me !
There's a lot of individual tech sheets I could gather too : 162, a lot of them I extracted individually one by one from the books above (took me hours). 1/4th are the "modern" versions from the "pdf" era, the oldest is from 1987 if I remember well. These I did not upload (yet).

Does one of you want to play the guinea pig and try the MEGA access ? I still have to test if I can really give writing access with a sharing link. I think this is possible with another MEGA account - it's free and you have 20GB of secured space, for my part I still have 16GB left that's why I thought about putting the files there. And no, I have no affiliation with MEGA, I am just an historical user (wink-wink, nudge-nudge)

Want an access ? PM me.
 

MattKing

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You've probably already discovered this, but 125.px does have a fair number of documents that you can locate using the Search function on that site which are not specifically listed on the dedicated page for that category of documents.
In other words, not all Kodak technical documents are listed on the Kodak technical documents page.
 

MattKing

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The Kodak Reference Handbook of the 1940s is in binder form - so it is quite possible that the contents are of varied vintages. Users did update the contents by swapping out the old with the new when revisions came out.
 
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AbsurdePhoton

AbsurdePhoton

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The Kodak Reference Handbook of the 1940s is in binder form - so it is quite possible that the contents are of varied vintages
Yes, that's why comparing the charts is important. This coupled with a film's timeline will help. Like this one :

Kodak Royal-X
1963 Introduction​
1964 Grain structure Tonal quality​
1967 Introduction Royal-X Pan Film sensitivity 400​
1970 New formulation Sharpness & Contrast​
1975 Shadow detail Push processing​
1980s Minor updates​
1992 Discontinued​
Today Not available​

I just did that yesterday for about 15 films... There are surely errors, things missing. And if I write an article for Wikipedia I have to keep track of all references. Getting the documents to make sure the information is right is important.
It's just the beginning.
 

Romanko

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If the archive is not publicly accessible (and searchable) I'd say it would be of limited use. Can you post a link to your MEGA storage here? What will happen when you run out of free storage space on MEGA?
 

Romanko

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About copyright issues, using a private site to put the files means the file access won't be public.
I am not a copyright lawyer but I doubt that limiting access to copyrighted material to registered users would solve the problem. Given the nature of the resources it might be possible to obtain permissions from the owners.
 
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AbsurdePhoton

AbsurdePhoton

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I am not a copyright lawyer but I doubt that limiting access to copyrighted material to registered users would solve the problem

I think you have a point here.
So how did all the sites where I got documents do ? Do you think 125px asked for permission ? I'll ask the guy.
 

Steve Goldstein

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Logically, manufacturers should have no issue with others disseminating technical data about their (the manufacturers') products that they (again, the manufacturers) give or gave away for free as it's a form of promotion for those products. Sadly, the world is often not logical.

I am obviously not a lawyer, don't take the above as legal advice!
 
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AbsurdePhoton

AbsurdePhoton

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don't take the above as legal advice

I won't. We could think that sharing outdated and dead products' sheets is right. But if Alaris decides to revive something like Panatomic-X, they are still the owners and the product will be active again. That's how Disney partly proceeded.
 

koraks

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So how did all the sites where I got documents do ?

I think it's a matter of "let's keep it quiet and fix any problems only if people start complaining about it." And logically the manufacturers usually have little reason to complain, for reasons of:
* unawareness
* no clear damage due to copyright breach
* no clear advantage to starting legal procedings
* potential negative backlash/reputation damage if legal proceedings are started
* basically couldn't be buggered / zero f*'s given
* we could technically start proceedings if only we could figure out if we're actually legally the owners of these copyrights to begin with (given mergers, acquisitions, potential expirations, etc.), and are we willing to figure that out?
* any combination of the above

We could think that sharing outdated and dead products' sheets is right.

That's not the criterion. There are evidently many ins and outs to copyright legislation and much of it is region-specific, too. But one thing is certain: the copyright is associated with the content itself, not the product it discusses. So whether or not the product that a datasheet is associated with is still active - in terms of copyright law, it just doesn't matter.

It's safe to assume that most of the information you want to share is technically protected by copyright law. Whether or not that's a problem, is another matter. There are many shades of grey between arguments w.r.t. educational purposes, exceptions explicitly allowed by copyright owners, lack of clarity of the legal situation, tolerating violations for reasons of cannot-be-buggered, etc.
 

MattKing

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It may very well be the case that the copyright holders are happy if the material is widely shared, but still interested in protecting the copyright because it gives them a tool for dealing with misuse of the material.
As an example, happy to take no action with respect to 125.px, but prepared to take action if someone appropriates the material into a book that is highly critical of their product, while lauding a competitor's product.
And then of course, there is the Scarlett Johansson use of copyright infringement remedies to protect her photographs ......
 

Romanko

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It may very well be the case that the copyright holders are happy if the material is widely shared, but still interested in protecting the copyright because it gives them a tool for dealing with misuse of the material.
Copyrighted material can be used with the owner's permission.

We could think that sharing outdated and dead products' sheets is right.

I believe the copyright for printed materials expires in 50 years. This is obviously specific to the country of copyright and the country of use. It's very complicated.
 

Sirius Glass

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Copyrighted material can be used with the owner's permission.



I believe the copyright for printed materials expires in 50 years. This is obviously specific to the country of copyright and the country of use. It's very complicated.

The length of time that the copyright expires for printed material varies by country and use.
 
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