Landships II - The Future

**CharlieC** · #1 12-10-2018, 04:38 PM

The Landships II website has grown over the years to be a significant source of free papermodels of vehicles (and some planes) from WW1 and the Interwar period. This is all down to the generosity of the model designers in sharing their work.

However, the Landships II website is facing a couple of issues - I thought I'd canvas the papermodelers' community to see if some possible options are feasible.

Firstly the website is hosted in Holland and so will come under whatever copyright regime is generated by EU Article 13. I think the smart move is to move the website outside Europe. Currently the website costs are sponsored but I'm fairly sure that won't be true if I have to rehost the website. If I asked for donations to cover the hosting cost/ domain name would people be prepared to toss in a couple of dollars/ year? I would only ask for enough to cover costs - I have no interest in monetising the content for my personal benefit.

The second issue is simply time - I'm not getting any younger and although I may have some productive years left I'd prefer the website didn't disappear on my demise. There are some new ideas to make content effectively immortal on the Internet - I've been looking at "ipfs" and think converting the Landships content to ipfs would resolve the issue of the website disappearing. (archive.org doesn't work for the papermodels). That's a convoluted way of saying the Landships website won't stay in its current form and (probably) it will become costless.

Let me know what you think?

Regards,

Charlie

**Thales** · #2 12-10-2018, 07:57 PM

How much content does it have and how much traffic does it get today? That may narrow down some of the choices.

**CharlieC** · #3 12-10-2018, 08:08 PM

Current total size is 1.543 Gb - this will increase to about 2 Gb when I retrieve the videos on the website from YouTube. (YouTube has been warning that most of their content will not be available inside the EU when Article 13 is implemented).

The models are 834 Mb with 716 Mb of .pdfs.

Bandwidth averages about 20 Gb/month

It's not a huge website so hosting costs won't be large - perhaps $A100-150/year.

Regards,

Charlie

**Wyvern** · #4 12-10-2018, 08:31 PM

I think a small annual subscription fee (say, $5 USD) to access the downloads isn’t unreasonable.

Another option would be a voluntary “ pay what you want” donation; the community would be on their honor to make a donation if they want to download models.

Wyvern

**CharlieC** · #5 12-10-2018, 08:56 PM

I like the "pay what you think it's worth to you" option.

It wouldn't be a huge amount of money per year so even if people valued the models at $1 per model I'd have more than enough to sustain the website.

Regards,

Charlie

**Don Boose** · #6 12-10-2018, 09:26 PM

I would certainly be willing to pay to have access to this priceless website.

Since I am even older than you are Charlie, I have no ideas on the other issue, but am in favor of immortality for Landships II.

Don

**Thales** · #7 12-11-2018, 06:29 AM

I use digital ocean for simple web servers. Looks like they'd do what you want for $10USD/mo.

https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/

**Thales** · #8 12-11-2018, 06:30 AM

Heck, for 2gb of data and 20gb of transfer, I'd be willing to dump it onto one of my web servers as long as it is all static. I don't wish to maintain a forum or dynamic content. There is currently plenty to go around.

**airdave** · #9 12-11-2018, 08:07 AM

Charlie...I don't understand the panic?
In many ways Article 13 is a good thing.
The only sites that will really be affected are large News sharing and Social Media sites.

Do you already believe Landships relies on posting copyrighted material without proper permissions?
If so, then article 13 will shut you down...good.

I honestly don't know what you think will suddenly change?
Landships is a normal forum to me, where most users post their own content.
If a photo is grabbed off the internet and is flagged as copyrighted material will be blocked, removed or a warning will have to be issued (for removal).
Anything that you have on the site, that is posted without proper permissions will just need to be removed.
Once again, if you think the site is dependant on copyrighted materials, then maybe its time for a cleanup?

Facebook for example, already has a tougher Content ID system in place.
It allows for reposting and resharing of copyrighted material within the context of facebook
but doesn't allow for willy nilly posting of any and all copyrighted material without permission.
And facebook has not collapsed.
The biggest application of this system is with regards to retail users.
To curb the misuse of unauthorized materials.

Sorry to be so blunt, but I think you are blowing this out of proportion.
What do you think is going to happen if and when article 13 is enacted?

...
Don't misunderstand me...I don't like the EU Copyright thing.
Its got a lot of elements that nobody seems to understand.
Its not very clear on how things are going to happen or how it will work to curb internet piracy.

I know a lot of internet users are fearing some drastic changes.
But seriously...nobody seems to know exactly what those changes are.

Here's a story that explains some of the negative aspects of the new Laws: https://gizmodo.com/the-end-of-all-t...net-1826963763

**airdave** · #10 12-11-2018, 08:33 AM

Charlie, I sent you a PM about webhosting.