Bundesarchiv Material in Public Domain

[Franek Grabowski]

Andreas, Joerg
You have entirely missed the point. I am not demanding everything for free policy (although it is introduced here and there), but I demand access, understanding of copyright and reasonable prices.
You can visit eg. AWM, IWM or NARA archives and you can order whatever photo is there, and only then if you want to publish it, to pay a fee. In ECPA or BA you CANNOT order a photo for personal use. More, copyright is claimed without any rights to it and the fees are excessive comparing to other similar archives.
In several cases, photos held at BA or ECPA are the only ones of the subject. Eg. bulk of photos of Helmut Wick's aircraft come from PK series and one can count privately taken ones on a hand. Thus if I want to publish anything on the subject I must use photos from the archives. I was able to secure scans or prints of the very same photos coming from other sources, but often with a worser quality or with quite a bit of effort. If I had the possibility of acquiring them in an archive at a reasonable cost, it would save me plenty of time for other research, etc.
Andreas, certainly your government should be condemned for destroying the historical material, but I may assure you that destroying original negatives is as much stupid, and I may assure you that within a few years most of the Lw documents will disintegrate. At the moment, plenty of WWI records are dissapearing due to paper's self destruction.
Joerg
1. No, it is not.
2. Nobody is asking for anything for free, but respecting the law.
3. Every government is obliged to preserve archives and make them accessible. It is noted even in the EU law.
Summarising, BA cannot claim copyright for copyrightless material, and cannot limit access to the material stored to individuals. Here is the point. I do not mention that BA holds thousands of negatives created out of Germany, thus belonging to the heritage of respective countries.

[Andreas Brekken]

Hmmmm

With regards to NOT being able to order scans of photos for research that must have changed since I was there last... the only thing is that these reproductions are in a quality that would be unsuitable for reproduction or publication (basically scans with sub-100dpi resolution, typically to be used for viewing on a computer screen).

They still offer this today as far as I can see, and in my opinion this should be 'good enough' for most of us if and when used for reference. If what you are complaining about, Franek, is that they will not send you 300 or 600 dpi scans, or make duplicates on film, my question would be why should they? To me it seems that you are able to use a personal computer, and if the purpose of obtaining these copies are for research and reference purposes and not as a way of getting around their publication fees, this service should be adequate...

I think our energy would be better spent on other archives that are not at all accessible, at least the really interested person will still be able to visit the different parts of the Bundesarchiv and research the collections there.

Regards,
Andreas B

[Franek Grabowski]

Andreas
Wish you luck deciphering serials from such scans.
I see IWM has no such problems as BA and for me it is a clear indication that the problem is elsewhere.
Problems with the other archives, yes definetelly personal files need some general declassification, as the current situation is crazy.
I will see, what the EU law says about it.
PS To make the situation clear, I have thousands of scans gathered from private persons, so I know what the real research is.

[Bob Korkuc]

Thanks for all of the comments about use of BA-MA material. I emailed the BA-MA and learned the following.

> Sehr geehrter Herr Korkuc,
>
> auf Ihre o.a. Anfrage teile ich Ihnen mit, dass es sich bei diesen Filmen,
> die aus den USA in das Bundesarchiv gelangt sind, nicht um Archivgut
> des Bundesarchivs handelt und daher von hier auch keine Genehmigung
> für die Wiedergabe erteilt werden kann. Über die Herkunft der
> verfilmten Abschuss-meldungen, die möglicherweise aus den National
> Archives stammen, kann ich
> Ihnen leider keine verbindliche Auskunft geben.
>
> Mit freundlichen Grüßen
> Im Auftrag
>
> Elfriede Frischmuth

The gist of the conversation was that the LP Luftwaffe Claims List ledger contained on the films in question were obtained from the National Archives. Thus the BA-MA could not provide permission to use photocopy depictions of the claims. Previously when I contacted the National Archives they indicated that all WWII material was in the public domain, free from copyright issues and could be used in books as long a proper citation was given. Thus with this reply from the BA-MA, the material is free from copyright issues and I will cite them as the source.

A mystery still exists what happened to the Ledger Claims Lists original paper sources? The NA does not claim to have nor does the BA-MA.

Regards,

Bob

[Bob Korkuc]

Last point, when I received the Luftwafee Claims list material via a researcher (Sebastian Remus), I paid a fee to obtain them. Thus I feel that they were compensated already for the use of the material.

[David Ransome]

Hi,

Regrettably a lot of paper documentation has been destroyed after being microfilmed as, at the time, it was considered too costly for the storage. Even as recently as 1999 I was personally aware of certain Civil Servants authorising the destruction of valuable historical documentation (some WWI and more WWII, from a variety of operations areas), often without any attempt at microfilming, including PoW cards. One lady in particular had the attitude that this sort of stuff was for Government / Civil Service use only and, when not needed officially, should be destroyed as it would be of no use to anyone. Of course, once destroyed, the documentation can not be found or passed on to foreign governments!

I managed to get some stuff saved then (including a list of PoWs for one camp which was enclosed in a cover made from an old Shell fuel can!) and I would hope that this sort of mindless and selfish destruction has now ceased.

David

[edwest]

Gentlemen,


I am in no way trying to confuse the issue but some of you may find this resource of interest: http://www.iuscomp.org/gla/statutes/UrhG.htm (Sections V, VI, and VII are the relevant ones.)

I disagree with Franek regarding paper disintegrating. Granted, storage is an issue, but I have recently purchased periodicals printed on poor paper from the early 1900s. And Civil War era (mid 1800s) newspapers are available on eBay. I've seen them. A friend of mine recently contacted me about a Land Grant document signed by President Grant, dated shortly after the Civil War.



Regards,
Ed

[Jukka Juutinen]

Perhaps the bottom line is that why can´t BA adopt the rules on the US NA that charges no publication fees at all.