The Aeroplane magazine

There’s a goodbye article from 1969 about The Aeroplane in the online archive of Motor Sport magazine (which archive may in itself show how an existing magazine can manage it’s historical content) https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/january-1969/26/goodbye-aeroplane

Plenty of technology apparently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_scanning

Interestingly I believe that most of the copies of Les Ailes on the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica) website came as bound volumes from Air France and this is evident from certain of the individual pages that one finds there. So I suspect that either there is the technology to scan bound volumes or the task can be achieved given the will, time and financial resources.

I believe that the Flight photographic library went into private hands and some years ago I did have contact with the company. I also recall that they were being stored in an ex military bunker. Quite frankly scanning bound issues is a perfect pain as the damn things wont sit completely flat on the scanner bed.

John

Relocate to the USA?

I believe that I’m correct in saying that just one individual at one gliding club, with access to a complete run of Sailplane & Gliding, took the bull by the horns and scanned and put S&G online. Maybe rather than imploring Key Publishing to do so, someone who can should take The Aeroplane bull by the horns and do the same. Either that or ask the Smithsonian Library to continue from where it left off in 1922?

At one point the Google Books project was doing deals with American magazine publishers and putting their historical content online, most famously the defunct Life Magazine and it’s largely unpublished photo archive but also Flying Magazine* (aka Popular Aviation). I wonder what Google Books paid for the rights? (*Still published but under different ownership…perhaps the historical content was sold separately?)
I think the Flight Global Archive online is excellent but live in dread of it being withdrawn….

Certainly it is incomplete and using the search function is very basic but I applaud them for choosing to spend the time and money on the venture. I access the online magazines almost daily. You are right that only a small fraction of those that buy Key’s current crop of magazines would be interested in seeing The Aeroplane online and that narrow bottom-line thinking would rule out the expenditure but it would be nice to believe that some in the organisation would see value in supporting historical research and enthusiasts. Few of our museums would survive without enthusiastic volunteers and Key’s magazines would be completely devoid of any articles of merit without authors prepared to make the effort for scant reward. Key see value in hosting this forum, we can only hope that they may see equal value in supporting future volunteers and authors by doing this.

interesting

I’m afraid you’re right. There is no sign of interest from any of the senior Key people, several of whom monitor this forum.

I’d say that this issue is almost over – if not for the fact that the fat lady ain’t yet sung!

There surely comes a point when these copyright issues descend into a near-reductio ad absurdum situation. If you applied it rigidly to very photo, article, advertisement maybe even the fonts nothing would ever get published. Everything submitted for inclusion in the original paper magazine was intended for broad distribution, extending that to online digital copies would surely be of no consequence except for the legally pedantic. If Key own the rights to the magazines, including in digital format, as stated above then it is just a lack of interest on their part that they are not scanned and made available. Yes, there is a cost involved but if their business accounts people see that as a concern they could either make access available by payment or take the Reed/Flight approach and see that there is benefit in the goodwill it produces, which has a monetry value albeit hard to assess.

Well, that seems to nail the copyright ownership issue conclusively – although there is still the issue of the extent to which the material contained in The Aeroplane is still in copyright.

I did try to add this previously but for some reason it failed to appear on the thread.

Key Publishing and/or its holding company own all rights to The Aeroplane (1911-1968), Aeroplane Monthly and Aeroplane.

The title and copyright for The Aeroplane (1911-1968) passed from Reed to IPC. Then, in 2010, IPC sold the title it then published – Aeroplane Monthly – and the rights to its previous incarnation – The Aeroplane (1911-1968) – to Kelsey Publishing. Kelsey sold its aviation and historical military portfolio to Key Publishing in late summer 2014.

The following is from a document that was publicly available at the time of the purchase by Key and lists the property/assets that were subject of the sale. I have deleted various titles etc to keep it relevant to the magazines being discussed.

From the document:

The following titles in printed, digital and online format:

1. Aeroplane Monthly
2-8. Deleted for brevity
11. The Aeroplane
12. Deleted for brevity

The following assets in respect of the titles listed above:

• All goodwill relating to the titles
• All intellectual property relating to the titles
• All logos, trade marks (including UK registered trade mark 2135993) and copyrights in connection with the titles and associated activities
• All websites and any other social media assets relating to the titles including associated accounts

• All rights in internet domains in connection with the titles including: Deleted for brevity

• All subscription details and all rights and obligations arising from subscriptions, save as otherwise provided in the Asset Purchase Agreement
• The commercial information relating to the titles
• All data relating to the titles
• All work in progress relating to future issues of the titles
• Back catalogue of editorial material for the titles
• The Archive Collection
• All design templates relating to the titles
• Stock including back issues of the titles and all books and other documents relating to the subject areas of aviation and military history (excluding military ship history)
• All marketing/promotional material relating to the titles
• Exclusive right to use these titles and the assets in the future

Deleted for brevity

I did try to add this previously but for some reason it failed to appear on the thread.

Key Publishing and/or its holding company own all rights to The Aeroplane (1911-1968), Aeroplane Monthly and Aeroplane.

The title and copyright for The Aeroplane (1911-1968) passed from Reed to IPC. Then, in 2010, IPC sold the title it then published – Aeroplane Monthly – and the rights to its previous incarnation – The Aeroplane (1911-1968) – to Kelsey Publishing. Kelsey sold its aviation and historical military portfolio to Key Publishing in late summer 2014.

The following is from a document that was publicly available at the time of the purchase by Key and lists the property/assets that were subject of the sale. I have deleted various titles etc to keep it relevant to the magazines being discussed.

From the document:

The following titles in printed, digital and online format:

1. Aeroplane Monthly
2-8. Deleted for brevity
11. The Aeroplane
12. Deleted for brevity

The following assets in respect of the titles listed above:

• All goodwill relating to the titles
• All intellectual property relating to the titles
• All logos, trade marks (including UK registered trade mark 2135993) and copyrights in connection with the titles and associated activities
• All websites and any other social media assets relating to the titles including associated accounts

• All rights in internet domains in connection with the titles including: Deleted for brevity

• All subscription details and all rights and obligations arising from subscriptions, save as otherwise provided in the Asset Purchase Agreement
• The commercial information relating to the titles
• All data relating to the titles
• All work in progress relating to future issues of the titles
• Back catalogue of editorial material for the titles
• The Archive Collection
• All design templates relating to the titles
• Stock including back issues of the titles and all books and other documents relating to the subject areas of aviation and military history (excluding military ship history)
• All marketing/promotional material relating to the titles
• Exclusive right to use these titles and the assets in the future

Deleted for brevity

…. so do the bound copies at Hendon (Combined RAF Museum and ex-Royal Aero Club collections)

After Reed, title in The Aeroplane (1911-68) passed to IPC. In 2010, IPC sold the magazine it published at that time – Aeroplane Monthly – and the rights to its previous incarnation – The Aeroplane – to Kelsey Publishing. Kelsey then sold its aviation and military history portfolio (about 15 titles) to Key Publishing in 2014. So, copyright for The Aeroplane, Aeroplane Monthly and Aeroplane resides with Key, or its holding company. I have attached a list of property which transferred from Kelsey to Key at the conclusion of the sale. This is taken from documents that were publicly available at the time of the sale. I have edited the list to make it pertinent to only those titles being discussed.

The following titles in printed, digital and online format:

1. Aeroplane Monthly
2-8. Deleted for brevity
11. The Aeroplane
12. Deleted for brevity

The following assets in respect of the titles listed above:

• All goodwill relating to the titles
• All intellectual property relating to the titles
• All logos, trade marks (including UK registered trade mark 2135993) and copyrights in connection with the titles and associated activities
• All websites and any other social media assets relating to the titles including associated accounts

• All rights in internet domains in connection with the titles including: List of domain names deleted for brevity

• All subscription details and all rights and obligations arising from subscriptions, save as otherwise provided in the Asset Purchase Agreement
• The commercial information relating to the titles
• All data relating to the titles
• All work in progress relating to future issues of the titles
• Back catalogue of editorial material for the titles
• The Archive Collection
• All design templates relating to the titles
• Stock including back issues of the titles and all books and other documents relating to the subject areas of aviation and military history (excluding military ship history)
• All marketing/promotional material relating to the titles
• Exclusive right to use these titles and the assets in the future

Remainder not relevant & deleted for brevity

What known complete ‘public’ sets of The Aeroplane (weekly) are there? National Aerospace Library (Farnborough), RAF Museum Hendon, Royal Aero Club , Air Britain, Brooklands ?…any in the provinces or Scotland ,Wales and Ireland? Any overseas…Smithsonian? Is there a complete index anywhere ?(never seen one online)

I was given to understand that this was indeed unresolved. I guess neither side is sufficiently interested in placing The Aeroplane online to bother to come to a mutually acceptable resolution.

Is that copyright to Aeroplane (formerly Aeroplane Monthly)(1973 to date) or The Aeroplane (1911 to 1968) or both? I recollect that when The Aeroplane ceased publication in 1968, it was merged with Flight International. Flight International is owned by Reed Business Information. Maybe it owns the rights to The Aeroplane? However as Flight already has been digitised and put online, one might think that if copyright in The Aeroplane is vested in Reed, it might then do the same.