ORBs online

Here’s a nice little memory – wonder what their future is now??

= Tim

So would I be correct in thinking, brewerjerry, that this means that the owners of this site cannot make a charge for accessing the ORBs beyond, perhaps, one that reflects their legitimate expense of making this resource available online? If so, I’m not sure how this is reconciled against the remark made by Moggy in his initial post.

That’s a fantastic idea. A research-only, non-commercial library ‘pool’ of ORBs, known genuine combat reports (this would be a great anti-fake reference for potential purchasers as well), APs etc. Love it! The site owners would get the traffic they need to justify advertisers money, not that much would be needed as nothing is actually being purchased.

So, if I read this right, there would be no problems if for example I submitted my electronic copies of Hurricane APs to such an hypothetical site, and they were published for ‘research purposes’?

By extension, what about plans and drawings by Hawkers? Or Bentley? Does using drawings to build an aircraft that might make money as an exhibit or when sold as an artifact in the long term count as research or commercial use?

Sorry, I thought of these questions as I typed!

Hi
Copyright exists, but there has always been on a system of no profit can be made directly from the item copied, for research etc.
Commercial use is different.

In the old days (70’s) you could copy items then sell photocopies of them, until your original copying cost was covered, then sell no more.
( i.e. the old luftwaffe crash reports, sold in the aviation news classified section in the late 70’s)

Slightly different rules now but the site has a page on the ‘deal’

http://www.oldrafrecords.com/copyright.php

So they are not allowed to charge.

It would be nice to the A.P’s online..what a resource that would be…

Now had this site been around four years ago they could have had all my PRO/NA photocopies that i could not take with me.

Must see if i have any scans and if the site takes donated scans of documents.

If all the members on this board sent in just one document each, the site could be a massive wealth of info.

cheers
Jerry

Jerry / gedburke3 is being very modest, by the way. He first mentioned this site on this forum back in July 😉

Presumably no copyright exists in the documents. Or have the reproduction rights been purchased by the owners of the website? If the former, then presumably anyone could obtain copies from the sources quoted (q.v. post #4) and make them available online. If the latter, it is hard to see how they can continue to be made available without charge unless significant advertising revenue is obtained by the site owners.

I’d be interested in 77 Squadron Orbs from late 1941 to March 1942

Would be nice if it could be expanded to do something like http://www.oldweather.org/ is doing.

:D:D:D

Moggy,
Re post #10.
Bulk order required, I’m afraid, to be distributed to many members of this Forum (and other Fora). Plus, of course, instructions on the use of a dictionary – which may come as a complete surprise to many!!
Regretfully
Resmoroh

Spell chequer at least?

And a dictionary

Moggy

From the “About Us” page

Old RAF Records is a private and independent endevour that is run with limited time and resources. The records on this site are free to view, so we are reliant on advertisers and book sales to defray our running costs. If you have have any comments they are very welcome.

Lets hope they get plenty of advertisers….

Thanks for the heads up moggy, if more Sqn’s are added this could make for a very useful resource for research. However, as you said though, I doubt the site will remain free for long.

I applaud the effort. I just wish they’d use grey scale images instead of duo-tone and make the pages a larger. Some of the text is hard to read. 🙁

excellent, this is something I (and many others) have been wishing for for a long time by the sounds of it

Historical operational record books of the Royal Air Force are available here, free and online for the first time, taken from the microfilms of The National Archives’ series AIR 27.

Searchable by Squadron number, Airfield name, AIR Reference, Date and Record Type (Summary of events / work carried out)

Moggy

I can’t open the link at the moment, but this sounds like a great resource, even if one does end up having to pay for it.
Is it just squadron ORBs or are Station ones on there aswel?
I assume the ORBs are copied from the National Archives, RAFM, and AHB etc?

To be fair it’s a service that is probably worth paying for. Just so long as it is reasonable, rather than rip-off.

Better than not having them there at all.

Moggy

Indeed Moggy. Though they have recently upped the count of available squadrons from just two to several, still without applying a charge, so there is hope.

This would be the holy grail, if all squadrons were published and free!