Excitement to sadness: The story of a 2 minute phone call to the public library.

JC in SC said:
I did find a website that supposedly shows all the available copies at libraries across the country. Who knows how accurate it is, but it showed ~16 across the US. I wonder if Congress loans their books out:rolleyes: Regardless, this will be Plan B if Mr. Shadley doesn't have anything available.
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I've used the inter library loan program before, for a rather rare anthology of American poetry, and it does work. I did have to wait nearly 6 months though.

However, I'm with those who suggest purchasing it. For anyone who truly wants to make slipjoints, it is worth its weight in gold. And my apologies, I just might have picked up the last new copy available at <$150.
 
Should I assume nobody thinks making this a public domain document is a good idea?
 
tryppyr said:
Should I assume nobody thinks making this a public domain document is a good idea?
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I emailed the publisher to inquire about the rights to this book. This past weekend, I searched the US Copyright website for information on this book. I'm not an expert on copyrights, but it appears that it is jointly held between a couple of different publishers and at least one bank. It appears that the rights to this and some ~3000 other books changed hands at some point. A bank being involved makes me wonder if the rights were in some way used as collateral, as a result of a merger between publishers or if these rights were in some way involved in some sort of Publisher bankruptcy proceedings. Again, I'm no expert, but from the copyright to the book being out-of-print, none of it makes sense. If you held the rights to a book that is selling used for ~$250, why not print a small quantity?
 
Tryppyr: If not public domain, then at least give us a digital release that we can purchase and read on our computers.

JC: Because if you printed even 1000 copies, the book would likely drop drastically in value. The value comes from it's scarcity, not it's content(unfortunately).

I'm not condoning piracy, but price-gouging is just as bad! Perhaps in this case, it is worse. I would be willing to bet that many of the buyers that purchase the book photocopy it and then resell the book. Keeping the copy for themselves, of course.

The author made a brilliant book and the publisher won't fork out for another printing. It seems that there will be both a lot of happy people when this comes out in digital format for $9.99. There will also be a lot of unhappy people when the book they just paid $300 for realizes their book is now only worth $5. It will eventually happen.

I checked amazon.com and the book dimensions are 8.5" x 11"? Could someone who has actually touched one of these books answer this: Was it printed on regular letter paper on a printer and then covered and sold by a publishing company? Books are almost never 8.5" x 11" unless homemade. The best way to tell is by the paper. Laser printers need 20lb. bond, where as offset printers can use much lower quality. Most paperback books use real low quality paper.
 
zaph1 said:
I checked amazon.com and the book dimensions are 8.5" x 11"? Could someone who has actually touched one of these books answer this: Was it printed on regular letter paper on a printer and then covered and sold by a publishing company? Books are almost never 8.5" x 11" unless homemade. The best way to tell is by the paper. Laser printers need 20lb. bond, where as offset printers can use much lower quality. Most paperback books use real low quality paper.
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I just checked mine and it is very slightly short of 8.5x11, almost exactly the same dimensions as Goddard's $50 Knife Shop, the same height and a little more narrow. I can't really speak to the quality of the paper but it is not the same as found in pulp mass market paperbacks.
 
As I stated before, I have found many copyright holders to be very cooperative with requests such as this, especially if they don't have any plans or expectations around making additional revenue from the copyright.

Past performance is obviously no guarantee of future performance, but I think this would be worth a try. What can we lose by asking for permission?

- Greg
 
What can we lose by asking for permission? Considering it would only cost them a few reams of paper, some card stock, and some glue, probably not much, except the ire of those that purchased the book at an exorbitant price!
 
By the way, I can cite one example in which the request to a create public domain version of a book were denied. It was a Christie's catalogue from the auction of the Archives of the American Banknote Company held in 1990. Their reason for refusing was that they were concerned that re-release of the information would have the potential to sully the Christie's name. They had the right to say no, so I didn't push beyond that no, even though it made no sense to me.

Another company, Krause publishing, had a similar problem to the one faced with this book. They had a four volume series on Obsolete Banknotes which is commonly referred to as "the Haxby set", originally published in 1988. For years they were in discussions with James Haxby looking to publish a revised version. While those talks were breaking down someone in China scanned the whole set and released a searchable copy on a DVD sold for about $10 a copy. Krause saw that there was still money to be made on the copyright and put out their own version, priced at $170 per DVD (significantly less expensive than the $800 that the four volume set was bringing at the time).

If by approaching the copyright holder we give them the idea to release their own electronic version, we still come out ahead... assuming the electronic version is more reasonably priced than the hard copies.

- Greg
 
zaph1 said:
JC: Because if you printed even 1000 copies, the book would likely drop drastically in value. The value comes from it's scarcity, not it's content(unfortunately).
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Yes, I'm familiar with supply and demand, so I wouldn't expect the market value to remain >$250 if it were reprinted. I do suspect though that if some small number of people are willing to pay the current market value for a book that is out of print, then possibly ~1,000 would be willing to spend maybe $50 to get a reprint of that same text.

I think in 1997 advertising for specialized books like this was somewhat scarce. Fast forward to 2010 with all of the knife related forums, I suspect this text would sell much better than the first printing. Especially with sites like Lulu.com where you can essentially do on-demand publishing of a book, it seems perfectly reasonable that this could be done relatively easily and profitably.

zaph1 said:
Greg, Krause Publishing IS the publisher of this book, according to Amazon.
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Yes, they WERE the publisher in 1997, but the US Copyright website shows the following activity in 2005 which sort of obscures that assertion today:

Record 1:

Type of Work: Recorded Document

Document Number: V3529D633

Date of Recordation:
2005-09-06

Entire Copyright Document:
V3529 D624-644 P1-117

Date of Execution: as of 1Sep05; 2Sep05; date of cert.: 2Sep05

Title: $50 knife shop & 3950 other titles (part 010 of 021)

Notes: Grant of security interest in copyright rights.

Party 1: F&W Publishing, Inc. (formerly k.a. New Publishing
Acquisition, Inc.), Krause Publications, Inc. &
Heartland International Tradeshows, Inc.

Party 2: JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA.

Names: F&W Publishing, Inc.
New Publishing Acquisition, Inc.
Krause Publications, Inc.
Heartland International Tradeshows, Inc.
JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA

==========================================================

Record 2:

Type of Work: Recorded Document

Document Number: V3529D654

Date of Recordation:
2005-09-02

Entire Copyright Document:
V3529 D645-664 P1-116

Date of Execution: as of 1Sep05; 2Sep05; date of cert.: 2Sep05

Title: $50 knife shop & 3920 other titles (part 010 of 020)

Notes: Grant of security interest in copyright rights.

Party 1: F&W Publishing, Inc. (formerly k.a. New Publishing
Acquisiton, Inc.), Krause Publications, Inc. & Heartland
International Tradeshows, Inc.

Party 2: Credit Suisse, Cayman Islands Branch.

Names: F&W Publishing, Inc.
New Publishing Acquisiton, Inc.
Krause Publications, Inc.
Heartland International Tradeshows, Inc.
Credit Suisse, Cayman Islands Branch

==========================================================

"How to Make Multi-Blade Folding Knives" is one of the 3950 and 3920 other titles listed in these 2 records. It seems peculiar that neither of the authors are listed. They are listed though on the original copyright from 1997. Again, all of this seems peculiar to me, so if there is a copyright expert, I'd love to hear your take on it.

tryppyr said:
If by approaching the copyright holder we give them the idea to release their own electronic version, we still come out ahead... assuming the electronic version is more reasonably priced than the hard copies.

- Greg
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I've emailed Krause via the contact form on their website (no other contact was available), so we'll see what, if anything, happens.
 
Good luck with that. Anyway, has anyone checked out books.google.com? There are a number of books available on there regarding knife building.
 
HMM I have a hardcover very clean copy 73 of 100 I wonder how much its worth any ideas? I could use more shop equipment LOL.
 
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