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The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

ianvisits.co.uk

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Re: The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

#51

Post by jack_riminton »

pessimizer wrote: post #40
jack_riminton wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that to happen they'd have to be the owners of the Copyright, they're not exactly patent trolls who can use the law creatively. The Newspapers are largely regional (and mostly defunct) papers. Who at the Derby Evening Telegraph is going to waste lawyers fees getting a Library to remove 100year old content?

Patent trolls own the patent.

Yes but they can creatively say it applies to a whole manner of tenuous things. A sneaky newspaper owner can’t claim copyright on anything other than what they own

Re: The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

#52

Post by exhilaration »

jack_riminton wrote: post #23
reaperducer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From personal experience, I can tell you that there are automated systems searching for such pieces of art. As for newspapers, all it takes is one copyright troll to realize it's happening, and suddenly there's lawsuit settlements everywhere, making him rich.

For that to happen they'd have to be the owners of the Copyright, they're not exactly patent trolls who can use the law creatively. The Newspapers are largely regional (and mostly defunct) papers. Who at the Derby Evening Telegraph is going to waste lawyers fees getting a Library to remove 100year old content?

The Derby Evening Telegraph may have sold the rights of their archives to an entity (like ProQuest) which has a financial interest in finding and shutting down competition.

Re: The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

#53

Post by aaron695 »

wombatmobile wrote: post #12

Trove does this for Australian newspapers https://trove.nla.gov.au/

And because the newspapers were syndicated they also have the big stories around the world.

Like the Carrington Event & Krakatoa, or Alexander Graham Bell's firewall to stop people stealing electricity, or pirate attacks on junks off Hong Kong.

Re: The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

#54

Post by fortran77 »

It's fascinating to read the British account of the American Revolutionary War in their newspapers. Many people were sympathetic, and it wasn't the top story most days. Just some trouble in the colonies.

See: https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/07/03/how-did-the-british-pre...

Re: The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

#55

Post by bnj »

blackcat201 wrote: post #22

Do anyone know any existing effort on converting these scanned image to text corpus ( probably a new OCR model needed to be developed on these old text ) ? I think it would be more usable if they are in text form in terms of search and research purpose.

Well when Apple releases the next OS it will automatically OCR all images, so one possibility is just downloading them all on an Apple device.

Re: The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

#57

Post by AaronNewcomer »

blackcat201 wrote: post #22

Do anyone know any existing effort on converting these scanned image to text corpus ( probably a new OCR model needed to be developed on these old text ) ? I think it would be more usable if they are in text form in terms of search and research purpose.

It already is. I do text searches all the time here and have paid for a subscription for awhile now.

Re: The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

#58

Post by goto11 »

jf wrote: post #27
tosser0001 wrote: post #10

This is great. Historical newspapers are one of the largest corpora of information that has yet to be adequately brought on line. In the U.S. the Library of Congress has digitized a fair number, but at the state and local level it's really hit or miss. Some states such as California and New York have put quite a bit on line, but many others rely on individual towns and historical societies. Different pay services cov…

> Historical newspapers are one of the largest corpora of information that has yet to be adequately brought on line. Not just information, but works of art as well! A few years ago, I trained an image classifier to help me find Krazy Kat comics in newspaper archives. In the process of doing that, I came across a shocking amount of other comics and artwork. I was honestly surprised to see how many amazing illustration…

Fascinating. Fantagraphics (https://www.fantagraphics.com/collections/newspaper-comics) have done great work restoring and publishing such classics, but there might be much more to discover.

Re: The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

#59

Post by dredmorbius »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #26
dalbasal wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This needs to change, big time. There is almost no cash value to an article one day later, yet we completely impoverish the public domain for its sake. Not only are creators of valuable works is usually pretty distant from direct ownership anyway, there's no possible way for them to profit directly from this work. The only way a spotify-like deal works is because copyright ownership is conglomerated. IMO, public (esp…

> There is almost no cash value to an article one day later, yet we completely impoverish the public domain for its sake. We're not imposing publishing restrictions on past works in order to preserve their cash value. We're imposing publishing restrictions on past works in order to stop them from competing with present works. It keeps the cash value of present works up.

This.

Even if the works are not economically valuable, people's attention is, as is gatekeeping control over archives (allowing one to set narratives and agendas and control context).

The time I spend going through an archive (I immediately hit the 3-article registration wall at the BLNA, so ... little time) is time I'm not spending consuming the present-moment adverts-laden infotainment stream.

Re: The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

#60

Post by laacz »

Latvia has it's own digital library of periodicals. It was digitized in few projects, and was made available to general reader (via periodika.lv) for free, except last 60 or so years, which were subject to copyright. However, when pandemic came, digital library became available for everyone without any copyright deductions.
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