User blog:KyleH/Introducing: Magazine Creator

Pretty nice; I won't buy a magazine though, but it might proof useful in some cases.

You can preview the magazine within your web browser by collecting the articles then paging through the magazine within the preview screen; however, there is no way to download the magazine to your computer. I can take a few pictures of a printed magazine if you'd like.

I have created a demo magazine at Magcloud.

Question 1: There are elements like buttons "edit facts" and the UI tabs (main and tree on the carl anderson page) that are irrelevant to the print version

• Wikipedia's books support has template tags like printonly and others. As I recall they set CSS styling info to turn on/off elements. Do we have any docs on those conventions for hinting the PDF generator, or any predefined classes that it recognizes?

Question 2: I imagine that professional genealogists might like to add value to their versions of Familypedia content. One way they could do this is to replace the family tree graphs with more pretty svg versions of the same. However, from what I see the MagCloud interface does not allow insertion of additional pages. They assume you have the master PDF and can simply re-upload it. One solution would be to allow the contributor to buy the PDF output from wikia.com or MagCloud, but I can imagine other solutions. All I want to know is what answers I have for the professional genealogist to maximize their value added, so they have the best possible come back to the customer question- Why don't I just create the publication for myself from Familypedia? I believe strongly in free content, but I would like to establish hooks into the professional and semi pro genealogy community, and I see this feature as an avenue towards that.

I see this as a substantial feature for Familypedia's still modest user base. Families typically pay substantial amounts for such books on their family histories. Nice thing about this is that it can include large amounts of family photos and what not. Thanks to everyone who made this happen.

In that case, forget it!

You'll have to place a link on the Wiki, it's not possibly to really "view" it.

However; it would be great to see the abillity to have the ability to place the magazine in a Wiki, by, for example, using <magazine=LINK></magazine>.

Question 3: Some content from our wiki (genealogies) can run into hundreds of pages. I note MagCloud has a maximum of 100 pages per publication. I don't particularly care which way the problem is solved: Eg:

• Do you know if MagCloud anticipates that longer size publications (eg with hard cover, and sewn binding options) would ever be in their portfolio of products? If not, does wikia have plans to work with printers who do offer this sort of product?
• Are there any plans to allow generation of file(s) in whatever format that a contributor can load into a desktop publishing program and they can aggregate on their own and go to a printer of their choice?
• .. some other method that would solve the print volume goal of genealogy sized publications?

Side note: I see that although only staple centerfold binding is available, they do use HP's Indigo Digital Presses.

Just to clarify there is NO charge to publish a magazine. Only to have it printed and mailed to you. We encourage people to publish magazines that others in the community (not just yourself) would want to print as well.

BTW, thanks for trying out the product, we're really excited to see all these magazines being created!

Just to respond to some of the other questions:

• The idea of using CSS to mark up areas to print is a really good one. If there's good demand for the product, we'll think hard about putting this in a future version.
• The option to output to PDF or an editable format wasn't something we wanted to do for this version, but again, if we see the demand we'll consider doing that.
• MagCloud's service does have a hard limit of 100 pages - I think they're set up best to do short runs like that. I'll ask them if they have any plans to expand that, and will post back here if they do.

Please continue using the tool, and let us know how you do! :)

BulldozerD11 - can you post the magazine you created?

This is not working! When I click on the widget I get this message: This type of page can't be added. Try heading to a content page!

Can you post correct and simple instructions?

Hey BulldozerD11 - thanks for posting up. That link is actually only valid for your login / session - did you publish the magazine to MagCloud? If so, you'll get a unique link, and if you could post that up, it would be great.

Hi anon - that's the message you get when you're on a non-content page (i.e. a category page, a special page and so on.) Right now, we don't support adding any of those types of pages into a magazine. Check out the help page at http://help.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Magazine_Creator - I hope this helps you out! :)

Hi Blogadmin - we don't have any plans to put this on non-EN wikis. The reason is that MagCloud only ships to english speaking countries right now. Of course, if we see demand, we can always change that.

gwarr?! why did you put thet on my talk page?!

Looks useful. My Wiki is still new and the articles are tiny but this magazine thing might be handy in the future.

No thanks!

Now I'm not a lawyer (I just play one on TV), but this seems a little fishy to me. It seems that in order for a magazine to be sent to a user when they publish it, there is a cost involved. Is that legal? Yes, the written content of wiki's is licensed under Creative Commons, but what about the images? Take Wookieepedia for example. It uses a number of fair use images that are owned by Lucasfilm. Wouldn't whoever produces the magazine technically be making money of the use of these images, which is expressly forbidden?

Maybe I'm just missing something.

Just...no.

It sounds stupid. Is that just me?

I will make a SSBR magazine. Oh, wait. NO I WON'T!

I Dunno

I'm gunna make an article of the Corporeal Beast, Dragon weapons, and Godswords!!!

This sounds really cool, I should try it with the best pages of Psych Wiki.

ok

TUGS

Ehh, it sounds interesting, but unfourtunately, my browser and javascript don't work too well... =X I doubt I'll be able to use this feature very well. And to pay for it doesn't sound like something I would do, even if it is cheap. SciZ

Can we make our Magazines savable to our hard drive so that we can keep a copy online? For instance, I would want to save it as a PDF and upload it to the Wiki for everyone.

--† This is Serious Business! Jesus Loves You and Died for You!! †  :)  :) ^{Oooh, Yertle is performing his signature Bible Bashing Move!} † 00:50, October 23, 2009 (UTC)

good idea but kets face it im not gonna pay 4 it anyway... ZOIDS!

Do we get advertising rights? Or is this just a cutesy thing like apple's Scrap book creator.

Cool.

I have to agree with Tedjuh10! It does sound great! :)

It's a good idea!!! From Spain, Barcelona...

Good function! Can I download also a magazine even arranged sometime?

How do you do that> it sounds amazingly cool.

I won't by a magazine. But that's pretty cool!

It may be nice, but I would not be able to order, or I am not interested in this.

I'm rather concerned about the image situation, too. I don't think enough thought has been given to how commercial use changes the balance of fair use. Wikia even promotes this feature with a frame from ABC television's "Scrubs"!

MagCloud's own content guide states quite clearly that copyright violations are a big issue. It is certainly possible to make a magazine from a certain selection of wiki articles that would include copyrighted images and still pass the fair-use test - depending on the wiki's content - but using such work for cover images seems to go far beyond that.

Pretty nice! But I don't think I'll ever use it, unless IO Wiki gets donations... But Yeah It's a cool Idea... [Captian Zaco]

Staff, there's an unaddressed issue at Forum:MagCloud for CC-NC-SA.

Sounds interesting

sounds nice but i dont have alot of time anymore to do this....

In the ad, it says Ying and Yang, it should be Yin and Yang. Just letting you know

Hmm.Sounds interesting.

Amazing!

I just wanna say, it never loads, any help man

I created this wiki and i'll try it.

that's cool.

I'll do everything in my power to try and help.

Greetings to KyleH and Shahid :)

I appreciate the invite to view and use this product, its a neat idea!

Not many have the knowledge, software, and sources to do this own their own, so this is a nice service that you are offering here.

I for one am a retired artist, wareas job was graphic art/giftware design.

Anywho i've created catalogs for my own business in the past, so I understand the price costs that they all are basically complaining about.

RE: Brandon Rhea & James T.Ford, in reply to comments posted on 10/22 and 10/23:

From my area most shelf magazines are from $2.99 and up to $14.00 per copy, course if you have a subscription the cost is lower.
The point i'm getting at is: Printing costs and shipping costs for each magazine printed and shipped.  $6.00 to me sounds reasonable.
But the fact remains, it costs $$ to print and ship, so if they don't charge the user/client something for it, then whom's to pay for it all?
In my business, I charged my clients and would be clients between $3-5.00 per printed catalog. ( I wasn't a millionare and had zero private funding via a grant, etc.  and I couldn't afford to just give every catalog I printed for my business.  The only time a client got one for free, was if they ordered over $100.00 in product...and most of them ordered at least $200 and up to $500 in product when I was in that line of business.)

RE: Green Reaper, comment 10/23: Copyright images:

1st of all, based on wiki site, as well as any other 'FAN SITE' on the net and any magazine with game content. 

Q1. What do they all share? A. Copies of photos and text copy taken from the game(s). Q2. How are they allowed to use all this content and photo's? A. Permission from the companies that created them. (Not to mention 'Newspapers,TV stations, TV networks all of them at one time or another have used copywritten images.) If the companies didnt give permission to the user of the product in question, then everyone that used a photo &/or text via imformation retrieved while using the product, would be able to be sued in open court for copyright fraud. -.-

Many players have either at least a blog &/or their own fan site that they use for their friends, and on them there is blogs about the games and some also display photos taken within the game.
The user/client of the product is allowed to do this under a freedom of speech and personal use-age by law, which is common between all game companies and news writers. (If it wasn't allowed then all that wrote something in a blog anywhere could be sued in open court for many violations....then no one would be buying or using the products anywhere. Which would put this world back into the stone age of advertising thru only word of mouth and/or only by visitation of the local establishments that carried the products in question.)
An old friend/teacher that used to run a riding supplies store and he was also an painter-artist once told me this: Every photo anywhere has been created by a previous image, so there's none that really can say its 'original' unless its the image within your mind, but still you had to have had something to give you that image in-order to have imagined it to create it on paper.

As he gave this example: Every morning you wake up and then see the Sun on a sunny day...then maybe later you decided to paint and/or draw that image, ie: the Sun.

So what did you do?
You copied a image of the Sun.
Is it original?
NO.

I rest my case on this topic.
Be well and Merry Be,
JC

Interesting to know this magazine exists. It might prove to be adequate in the future. Though, I do not not think I am interested in buying it right now. [[User:Lars Washington|Lars]] 12:40, October 26, 2009 (UTC)

Hmmmmmm......ok, I will ask Tigernose and see what he thinks.

An interesting point, but it’s one that could probably be countered. Ads are generating revenue based off the article hits, yes, however the magazine creator is reproducing the fair use content and then receiving money based off of that. Your point is a good one, but the reproduction of the fair use content involving a monetary transaction is the issue.

It's a tricky situation, but from what I understand there is a distinct difference between fair use images appearing on websites that generate revenue based on hits instead of content and fair use images actually being placed into something like this Magazine Creator.

The difference, as I understand it, comes down to this. When Wikia receives money, it's not actually based on content and therefore fair use still applies, as it's page hits. Whether or not the image is there is irrelevant. With the Magazine Creator, however, the fact that the image is there is relevant, as the user is knowingly creating a magazine with that image and, by default, the printer is knowingly printing it and charging money directly for the printing of that content.

So essentially, it's an indirect vs. direct issue. Indirect is pretty safe for fair use, but the direct one isn't. The Magazine Creator is directly printing the content and asking a person for money for the final product.

The MC still prints the content and financially benefits from it directly, and the MC is still responsible for the copying of that fair use content into a product that they then charge for, even if the charge is for the printing. As decided in "20th Century Fox Film Corp. v. Cablevision Systems Corp," a company that provides a means to copy copyrighted material is responsible for said material if there are any legal issues.

The company is considered to be doing the copying and the distributing, not the users. The user puts together the product, yes, and in doing so is also a party to the illegitimate use of the fair use material, but the biggest issue here is the money. MC is asking for and receiving a monetary transaction in order to distribute the copyrighted material to another person. MC is actually doing three things:

1. Copying (as is the user)
2. Distributing
3. Receiving a financial transaction in order for the distribution to move forward

I can't imagine a court saying that that's just fine and dandy.

And while Wikia may indirectly profit from those images, "profit from good content" because "it keeps the viewer at the wiki" is a subjective measure of financial success because "good content" is subjective. It'd be next to impossible to prove what images Wikia was and was not financially benefiting from, so there's really no issue there. You can just as easily say Wikia is benefiting from the written content, not the images.

And for the last point, the "purpose and character of use," that can very easily go out the window if someone starts making money off of it. It's not impossible to defend that, nor is it impossible to defend using something for commercial use in a situation like this, but it is very, very, very, very, very difficult. Copyright holders could still sue, and multiple people involved in MC (Wikia, the user, and MC itself) could be sued. The lawsuits may not be successful (although I think they stand a good chance at being successful), but it could embroil Wikia, MC, and the users in them for quite a long while, wasting everyone's time and capital.

The best solution to this problem is having a magazine creator that takes out the printing of hard copies, thereby taking out the financial aspect of this. If it could simply be converted to a .PDF, allowing users to print it out on their own, it would be virtually foolproof and astronomically less vulnerable to legal issues than it is now.

Because fair use images can be used in a commercial environment, a court would, in fact, end up looking at how that revenue is being generated and all of the factors involved in how the images are being used. It's not really a black and white issue. Fair use is much more complicated than just saying "you can do this and you can't do that."

wait this is confusing

While MyraPedia does not use content from any tv network or somesuch, many contributors are sensitive to the "making money off it" question, especially thoe artists from elfwood etc who are not involved in the project but allowed us to use their work noncommercially with attribution given. One way out seems to be, from where I stand, to disable the possibility to add to MagClouds service price for any CC-NC-SA wikia. Thus it would be clear that the creator of a mag-from-wikia does not profit financially from the nonprofit work (or the ccopyrighted content) of others. Just my 2cents (€uro-Cents, by the way) --IrasCignavojo 14:29, October 27, 2009 (UTC)

ya aya

Wow, sounds nice. Not so if it actually costs anything...

i want to say that is cool