[stihler]

My wife was recently looking at the Trains Magazine webpage and came across an interesting offer. They are selling a DVD containing 70 years of Trains Magazine for only  $149.95 and that cost includes shipping. Here is that offer: http://www.kalmbachstore.com/15100.html.

If they can do that it certainly seems reasonable that Zymurgy could do the same thing with the 30 or so years it has been around.

From time to time I've seen offers in which the complete set of Zymurgy is available with caveats that some issues are photocopies blah blah blah.

I've toyed with the idea of purchasing that set but to have it on DVD would be much better.

I still prefer to have a paper copy of Zymurgy but to have the entire (or nearly entire) set in one place would be great! Of course, with a DVD you could have a search function which would make it a great resource.

Of course, there is the issue of people pirating the DVDs and selling them or distributing them to their friends.

That is not an issue that can really be avoided.

However, I believe the Kalmbach Publishing (i.e. the folks who publish Trains Magazine) may have hit upon something. If the set is relatively inexpensive why get an illegal copy?

One could also add incentive to purchasing legal copies by including useful posters or other items that would be difficult to copy. You know, things that would make you want to purchase the set of DVDs from Zymurgy. Ideally it should be something that goes with the DVDs and kind of completes the set.

Perhaps included with the DVD set could be some sort of code to allow a one time download of...whatever. Yes, I'm being vague here. There is a reason I'm not in marketing.

I believe it would be great to have the whole set available on DVD. Sure you could put them online but they the likelihood of pillaging would be much greater.

The more of a pain in the butt it is to liberate the less likely pirating would be a real issue.

I would love to check out the older issues. I believe the original logo included a cheesy looking turkey. Cool!

Well, I've rambled on for long enough for now. What do you think?


Cheers,

Scott

[denny]

I think it's a great idea, but there are several hurdles.  Not the least of which would be digitizing all those issues!  We're currently planning on having Zymurgy available in an ezine format, so there will be some digitizing done.  But given the expense and time involved, it's gonna take a while.  I'll certainly bring your suggestion up at the next GC meeting, though.

[Hokerer]

I think it's a great idea, but there are several hurdles.  Not the least of which would be digitizing all those issues! 

Time for an AHA Member "Volunteer Blitz"? 

[denny]

I think it's a great idea, but there are several hurdles.  Not the least of which would be digitizing all those issues!  

Time for an AHA Member "Volunteer Blitz"?  

Maybe, but that's not my call.  I think ensuring quality control and consistency might be problematic if the task was distributed to various members.  But that's just my WAG...