scottfromiowa Posted December 14, 2011 Report Share Posted December 14, 2011 Government NOT allowing media into meetings on pricing...asking for signing of nondisclosure agreements...How's that for openness? http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/bizav/2081-full.html#205875 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyFromCB Posted December 14, 2011 Report Share Posted December 14, 2011 Are the charts copyrighted? I'm looking at an old approach book sitting at my desk from about 2 years ago and I do not see a copyright statement. What is stopping someone from scanning these things and distributing them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rangermb Posted December 14, 2011 Report Share Posted December 14, 2011 Since the charts are a product of the government, the intellectual property is suppose to be copyright free and available for public use. The government can charge a reasonable fee to recover the cost of production and distribution of the publication, but is not suppose to use that as a source of revenue. In other words, the information is free, but the media costs. Seems to me that the costs being tossed around for the distribution of electronic copies of charts and plates is a bit beyond covering actual costs. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1964-M20E Posted December 14, 2011 Report Share Posted December 14, 2011 I do not have a problem paying for something I use as long as it is reasonable. I think the electronic versions of the charts etc should be available to individuals at the same cost or less than the printed versions. Excluding the little guy or the individual for the benefit of corporations is not right. The corporations should be paying for the rights to use the electronic charts and they have the right to charge users for added value and data acquisition cost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottfromiowa Posted December 14, 2011 Author Report Share Posted December 14, 2011 The weird thing is the closing of the session to the media...What is going on here? We are not talking about spy drone secrets here... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1964-M20E Posted December 14, 2011 Report Share Posted December 14, 2011 I agree the meetings should be open to the public with no strings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cruiser Posted December 14, 2011 Report Share Posted December 14, 2011 Quote: 1964-M20E I do not have a problem paying for something I use as long as it is reasonable. I think the electronic versions of the charts etc should be available to individuals at the same cost or less than the printed versions. Excluding the little guy or the individual for the benefit of corporations is not right. The corporations should be paying for the rights to use the electronic charts and they have the right to charge users for added value and data acquisition cost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jetdriven Posted December 14, 2011 Report Share Posted December 14, 2011 Sounds like setting us up for Jeppesen to step in, get the lowest price, then sell it to all the other providers. Then we will be paying 600$ a year to update our iPads as well. This is the ugly side of privatization. The fleecing of consumers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrBill Posted December 14, 2011 Report Share Posted December 14, 2011 If they charged $1 per download of a chart from DAY 1, this would not be an issue. Organize the downloads the same as paper. AFD, Approach charts by area, etc. Make it $1 a download. I have no problem paying $4-5 / mo for what I use and if I wanted the whole US then I would expect a break. Like the AVWEB arrticle says, $5mil/ 300K users is cheap. BILL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Mazer Posted December 14, 2011 Report Share Posted December 14, 2011 To all those that claim that privatization is tantamount to a fleecing of the public, I submit that there is nothing the government does that doesn't really cost more than what a private organization will charge. It is just hidden from view and shows up somewhere else. Further, in my experience in the creation of content, I use to run a company that created content for educational publishers, the creation of electronic content in a usable form costs very nearly the same as content in hard copy form. The storage and delivery costs are more significant than people understand with all the computer and storage costs considered. I'm not saying I'm happy about the prospect of additional costs for my charts but I do believe the costs are real and our government appears to be spending a lot more than it is taking in (not that I agree with the priorities, mind you). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyby201 Posted December 14, 2011 Report Share Posted December 14, 2011 Can you say, "USER FEES". They're trying to get to us one way or the other. The justification they claim for doing this is to make up for losses that they have incurred on paper charts over the past year or two. However, about a year or two ago, they made the decision to limit sales of charts by changing their policy on returns of unsold charts. This knocked the little guys out of the chart business and therefore decreased the sales of charts in general. They created the problem they are trying to solve. I'm a firm believer that the information should be free from the government. The only thing we users should be paying for is a modest charge from the vendor for putting the information in a form usable to our equipment. And by the way GARMIN and JEPP, $500 a year for GPS updates is NOT a modest charge, it's highway robbery. (But that's a different rant and I'll save the rest of it for another time and place). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awful_Charlie Posted December 15, 2011 Report Share Posted December 15, 2011 I feel for you guys. Here in Europe, each authority produces charts, and may either make them generally available (eg the UK and France), or pass off the bare minimum ICAO requirement to Eurocontrol, and then charge for everything else (eg Switzerland and Germany) No matter what the originating state, if you want the data in a consistent format, or you want it for your GPS, then you have to pay someone like Jepp for the privelege. So although I can download all the UK and France plates as pdf's for free, if I want them on the MFD, then it's fee time. For instance, 400EUR (500USD) gets me the French stuff for the MFD for a year, but if I wanted to cover 3 hours flying from my home base, then it's a whopping 2AMU just for the MFD data, the GPS databases are extra! Coupled with the tax rob making avgas 10USD/gallon, and if you are more than 2tons MTOW (OK, that won't affect many Mooney operators) another charge for IFR (about 60USD/hour for an Aztec) and pretty universal landing fees, then it is hardly surprising GA in Europe is a fraction of what you see in the US. Lobby your politicians, engage AOPA, get organised, I wish you the best of luck Ben Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jetdriven Posted December 17, 2011 Report Share Posted December 17, 2011 Scott, you sound right, the closed meeting may have been in violation of federa law. How else can you screw the general peasants unless you hide it? http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=7812716f-001a-4a33-82d3-8f55746bda7b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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