MegaMachines UK 04 cover.jpg

This image was taken from a post on my blog. Two points:

(1) I've noticed that this sort of thing tends to happen quite often on SegaRetro's magazine pages (several years ago, I provided cover-scans of some of my other magazines for a well-known magazine wiki, and they quickly ended up on here without credit to the wiki from which they originated). Shouldn't SegaRetro have a policy whereby *image* sources are always cited in some way? Citations are already given for the information in articles, but it seems as though things are a little lax with respect to images (which is a pity, given that images are such a crucial part of the video game experience). Citing images will give due credit to the source -- which, if anything, will encourage fresh content that can be referenced in future. At the moment, image sources aren't being cited, so the implication is that each image was originally created by its uploader... and this clearly isn't the case (at least, not all the time).

(2) The quality of this image is low, because the source image was small and the photograph was taken at an angle (someone has rotated it, but it's still squint because of the perspective of the original image). If someone had contacted me before pinching the image from my blog, I could have provided a higher-quality "flat" image for you. :)

I'm happy for this image to be used provided there's some sort of reference to the source. I'm also happy to provide a better-quality image (which, if I'm the uploader, won't require a source because it'll be from my personal collection).

-Matt

Just upload the picture with the same file name, it will overwrite the existing one.

Excellent, that'll solve the problem for this image. More generally, is there a standard way of citing the sources of images that are used in SegaRetro articles? For example, if the uploader didn't create the image in the first place (but instead took it from another site), does the current system make it easy to create a reference for that image? Are users encouraged to cite image sources? -Matt

Yo.

If you're desperate to put the source of the image somewhere, the best place for it is in the images' description (i.e. click "edit" instead of "talk"... though be careful not to edit the talk).

Sega Retro isn't really in the business of trying to "own" anything - we're in the business of video game preservation - bringing all Sega knowledge together in one place so it's not lost. We work on the basis that anything put on the internet is pretty much public domain, because for all intents and purposes, it is, and while we'll make consessions for those who are desperate, if it gets too political, we'll just remove the image and look for an alternative.

Which, incidentally in this case was always the plan, because we're after the full magazine scan. All of the information, free for public consumption, no strings attached - this JPEG pretty much exists here to tell potential scanners "hey this is a thing that needs scanning, it looks a bit like this". If you're not happy with that, feel free to flag up everything and I'll cull it all en masse.

Can't guarantee you'll make many friends that way though! -Black Squirrel (talk) 12:48, 4 September 2017 (CDT)

Thanks for the detailed response! :)

I completely understand that the goal of SegaRetro is to be *the* source for Sega-related information, and I fully support that goal (a lot of information is currently buried in the past, and over time it becomes harder and harder to uncover -- so the sooner it's preserved, the better). For what it's worth, SegaRetro is my first port of call for anything Sega-related.

I'm certainly not suggesting image-culls or anything like that (that would be a huge step backwards, and it wouldn't benefit anybody). However, I do think that citing image sources would be a useful practice. If someone clicks on an image, then there's a good chance that they'd be interested in knowing where it came from. In academic publications, it's mandatory that figures and images are credited to their original source (unless the figure/image was created by the author), and part of the reason is so that readers can consult the source for themselves. Sega's history is sort of like a puzzle that's being pieced-together, so keeping track of where everything came from will help with cross-checking and ironing-out any inconsistencies that could arise along the way. With that in mind, it might make sense to have guidelines for citing image sources (e.g. "the source of an image should be stated in the image's description"); nothing political, just a blanket guideline that applies to everything (in the same way that source-citing applies to information).

Anyway, as I said, I'm happy to provide a high-quality scan of this particular issue cover. I'll do that when I get home tonight.

On the subject of magazine scans (and I appreciate that I'm in danger of drifting off-topic here), what are the legalities of full issue scans on SegaRetro? Is permission sought (when possible) from publishers, such as Dennis, Future and EMAP? Because in the case of complete magazines, the publishers do actually have ownership (the magazine pages aren't in the public domain). I can see it being a delicate subject, since the magazines contain a wealth of information and SegaRetro provides a terrific service by making many of them available. Also, scanning a whole magazine is an exhausting job! Out-of-Print-Archive managed to obtain permission to scan and make available complete issues from at least one publisher.

-Matt

My general rule is that if it's out of print and more than ten years old, it's worth uploading (on Retro CDN - so it can be shared with Sonic Retro/NEC Retro). If it's challenged, then we remove it (though the majority of magazines up there are mirrored on archive.org, Retromags or Oldgamemags). It's a big legal grey area, but I try not to think about it too much - it's generally rare to see a challenge to 25-year old gaming magazines. -Black Squirrel (talk) 14:36, 4 September 2017 (CDT)

I can see why you'd employ that strategy when it comes to full magazine scans... I'm only aware of one case in which a publisher threatened a scanning site with legal action (and the scans promptly disappeared). Having said that, it's only polite to ask for permission before using someone else's work. The well-known video game journalist Stuart Campbell includes a notice at the bottom of his articles page which says that he'll give almost anyone permission to use his content as long as they ask first; I think that's a good model to follow.

-Matt