Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

nebogipfel wrote:

vernon.taylor wrote:Real shame - content looks interesting.

Thanks for the info' Vernon, sorry to hear you are not happy with the book.
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Bill,
There's no reason why print on demand books need to be poor quality. I have recently bought such a book (not a Lotus book) from an author and the quality of text and illustrations, while perhaps not of top quality is perfectly acceptable.

That said, this book was not an illegal copy and was ?12 not approaching ?40!

No I did not mean that print-on-demand would be inferior quality. But the machines are sophisticated laser printers (i think), not presses, so it's the same fundamental technology as photocopiers. Secondly they would be unlikely to reset the typescript, it would basically be a photo image of the original.

Hence they would look a bit like a photocopy, though one of excellent quality.

Salut

Spoke to John at MRP - the Robinshaw and Ross publisher.

He thought the matter had calmed down and that illegal copies had stopped. He wasn't too happy, but as a one-man outfit said he couldn't afford to do much. He's considering contacting the criminal but realises it's easy to hide behind distance.

I asked if a reprint could be considered, but he has lost touch with Robinshaw and Ross - anyone know where I could contact them with the suggestion of a few official reprints for us from one of the low-volume printers mentioned?

@+

Vernon

Sorry to post in disagreement to everybody but............
Its a very good book and one that is required by anyone owning the car.
There are no copies in the shops and unless you are willing to pay silly money that could be better spent on parts for your car you are left with borrowing and coping yourself or purchasing an illegal copy.
Obviously in an ideal world, none of this would happen and we would all have first editions of the Miles Wilkins Twin Cam book and the Robinson and Ross book and there would be plenty left on the shelves of every high street bookshop
BUT the chap in Germany is providing a service that is not available anywhere else albeit they should be half the price but you get the picture. I do not beleive that there will be any official reprints of the book. Perhaps if the chap in Germany is reading this he could give 5? per book to Mr Robinson and Mr Ross and everyone would be happy!

Now that's put the cat among the pigeons!

Terry

Vernon,

The print on demand services are not necessarily just low volume printers, but some of them can literally publish on demand, the book is held in electronic form and each copy is printed and posted to the buyer individually as orders come in. Royalties are accumulated and paid to the copyright owners periodically.


I'm not sure of the costs to the copyright owner initially, I did look into it some years ago. I think you do at least have to buy a proof print, but you would probably want to do that in any case.


Terry,

Despite the need for the book, copy piracy is still illegal and it destroys the incentive and the feasibility of getting the book re-printed properly.

Copyright lasts for 70 years after the death of the Author.

Salut Terry

Hence my comment, IMHO, that it would be more ethical to copy a friend's book. Probably be better quality, too - for the photos, anyway.

Having said that, if the book had been a tenner, I probably wouldn't have complained. Doesn't make me any better than Bruce, does it.

There are too many dishonest people out there, again IMHO, taking advantage of our passion.

@+

Vernon

http://www.copylike.org/

Says it all, for me.

Salut

I'll close this up, if I may. It has been suggested to me that classic books are akin to classic cars. I'll muse on that and bide my time as I did when looking for my +2.

Signing off

Vernon

I think that Terry makes a very interesting point. If I was to sell a book on ebay, the author doesn't get anything from my sale. If I lend somebody a book to read, the author doesn't get anything out of that transaction either. In both of those cases, if the book is still current, I am reducing the authors and publishers income. And, as far as I know, nobody cries 'copyright infringement' if I do either of those things.

If the book is out of print, then I am not affecting their income in any way. The only thing I may be reducing is the fat profit of somebody selling an original book.

The fact that the guys in Germany are selling a crap photocopy is a separate issue, and one that would make me want an original book at probably a daft price??from which, remember, the author gets nothing.

In the real world I can?t see a moral dilema or anything other than a technical copyright infringement, unless the publisher starts to publish the title again. It's not at all surprising that neither the publisher nor the authors are doing anything to stop the guys in Germany doing what they're doing.

Mark

I do tend to think that the Copyright Law is a crap law.

In my opinion 70 years is far too long & gives (generally) the rights not only to the offspring of the author but also to their offspring too. Also measuring it from the death of the author is a real pain, because you often cannot easily find that date and it tends to make a mockery of the long 70 year time span anyway. If it absolutely has to be a long time, then I would prefer to see it as a simple 100 years from first publication, or in the event of unpublished documents/songs/etc 100 years from the best estimated date of when it was written/created. Perhaps no copyright protection at all if the author fails to put a date on it at inception. (!)

On the other hand I don't really see any good reason why Copyright lasts so much longer than Patents, which (as far as I remember) are initially 15 years with an option then to extend for another 15 years.

I did have an 'argument' with a SF author one time saying it was far too long & his response was that if you build something like a house you expect to be able to pass that on to your descendants so why not the same if you 'build' a work of fiction. When I countered & said Engineers & Inventors don't get nearly the same duration of protection he said something like "Tough, Engineers, should have had a 'powerful' body like the authors organization that originally instigated Copyright." (I've forgotten the actual history of copyright).


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PS, I can be smug because I have a pristine original of the R & R book. I don't recall where I got it, (many years ago), probably from Club Lotus. I see that it cost me ?29.50 and it has a newspaper clipping tucked inside dated 2002.

I was looking at my "copy" last night and was alarmed that it is still called ..."Authentic Lotus Elan"

I wouldn't be too upset about not having a copy of the R & R book.
I bought one when they first came out. Justified what was a pretty hefty price at the time on the basis that I would now be able to get lots of parts at reasonable prices, ( now that I knew what their origins were I wouldn't have to pay Lotus prices).

Or, more accurately, local importer prices. His spares department was kept in the left trouser pocket of his other pants so it was a waste of time trying to get anything out of him.
So I figured the R & R book was a godsend.
Never worked.
Every time I went off with a list of numbers that related to the Lotus part I wanted I got the same response.
"Don't have those any more"
"Never brought any of those into the country so don't have parts"
"I think the number for that must have changed......"
"Are you sure that's the number.....what's it for?".
Etc. Etc.
By the time I went looking for parts the original cars they came off were largely relegated to wreckers yards, and now even those are really thin on the ground.

There is a lot of other stuff in the book though, but nothing that can't be found on this forum.

Ralph.

Hi All,

there is a copy of the R + R book (yellow cover first edition) on our local auction site.

The link is :
http://www.trademe.co.nz/antiques-colle ... 181073.htm

It is at NZ$50, which is about GBP25. It has been listed a number of times without sale. Much cheaper than some I have seen listed on other sites at about GBP95.

Usual disclaimer; I have nothing to do with this item or sale etc etc.

Hi

Paul Robinshaw has a stall at Race Retro next weekend. If I manage to see him I will ask about an official reprint.

Ian

RIB wrote:Hi

Paul Robinshaw has a stall at Race Retro next weekend. If I manage to see him I will ask about an official reprint.

Ian

Several posts back:

I did touch on this whilst speaking to Paul - he said the original print run was around 3500 copies and whilst an updated reprint might be desirable there probably is a market for no more than 500 and these could take a long time to sell. A printer would have no interest in this.



I'd imagine he will get pee'd off quite quickly if continaully asked the same question.

>probably is a market for no more than 500 and these could take a long time to sell. A printer would have no interest in this.

Yes, but quite feasible for print-on-demand.