"Beware Exact Editions" Topic

I no longer suscribe to Miniature Wargames or the defunct Battlegames but did so for quiet a time.

I got the 'ezine' copy through Exact Editions.

I went on tonight to look back at some ads and lo and behold they are not there. If you cancel your subscription Exact does not keep the stuff you did buy on their server! So, several years worth of magazines, gone.

Perhaps I should have downloaded them, but I didn't think I needed to, I didn't read the small print if there was any, can't remember, just took it for granted they would always be there.

So if you have an Exact account and do not download, then do it now before you quit a subscription.

Same happened to me. It ducks and why I will never again subscribe to MW. Or any other e-subscription ever again.

sigh, MAGWEB, sigh

I have been looking at the small print on the website, needless to say I am a tad put out by the fact that I have lost all those magazines.

Anyway I am no lawyer but it seems to say you cannot download 'Material' and keep it, I have asked them to explain this.

So if indeed you cannot download the stuff, why get a subscription from them in the first place.

This should have been writ in large letters when publicised.

But if they told you it would all go away would you have signed up for their service? The idea of this happening is what keeps me from getting e-subscriptions.

Maybe they just sold you the right to look at the copies, but ownership remained in their hands. Sort of like a library. If they are selling you e copies of the originals, isn't that copyright violation?

How much was a subscription? I have never heard of this company before, so thanks for the warning. I typically buy the CD versions of the magazines from the publisher.

@ Striker: What bothers me about it is that perhaps I should have downloaded them, but that area is a bit grey now that I am trying to look it up. And no, I wouldn't have. The ditical issue is £29.50 GBP, not the kind of price I would pay for twelve magazines just to disappear. I await an answer from them.

@ Bobgnar : No this is done with the full approval of Atlantic Publishing.

If I was just daft then so be it, but if Atlantic and Exact Editions are quite happy to keep schtum about your magazines disappearing after you fail to renew your subscription for whatever reason, that is downright dishonest.

Ewhatever is a minelfield as Bruce Willis found out, if you think you own the music etc. you download online, then think again, you don't and it cost him a lot of money I believe to find this out :)

How were MW to know you did not bother to download them? It was your decision to cancel the sub and lose access to that information.

Exact Editions work with publishers and their copyrighted material to present it in a readable and searchable format for PC and mobile platforms. EE does not state on their website it provides a personal storage service.

If MWBG ever offers a pdf version, I'd go for it – but otherwise I'll stick with paper copies that I actually own and can deal with as I like!

Forgive my intervention, but this has been discussed online before and I fought long and hard for Exact Editions to make a PDF version of the magazine available to prevent precisely this issue. It was discussed at length both here, on WD3 and on the MWBG Facebook page.

The mag has been made available as a PDF version ever since the MW + BG combination was launched. The link is permanently available from the online version via your PC or Mac or tablet (using a browser, not the App): see

If you have any problem getting the PDFs for the issues you subscribed to from Exactly, then email me (the address is in the magazine) with your full details, including when your sub started and ended, and I'll sort it out for you.

Henry
Miniature Wargames with Battlegames

Thanks Henry, I obviously missed all that going on. I was actually only looking for an ad for anyone wanting a lead mountain, but again thanks for your offer.

@ EagleSixFive: Read my posts. I don't blame MW, I blame myself mainly, several times. I was offered an e-subscription, I took it at face value and thought the mag would always be there. And no they don't say they offer storage, nor do they make clear in a cursory glance that it all goes West when you stop your subscription.

Why is there always one with a knee jerk reaction, read the damn posts before grabbing the keyboard, sheesh.

I took it at face value

. . . except that doesn't work anymore. The digital economy doesn't work the same as the "real world" and many old reliable assumptions no longer apply. The whole concept of "ownership" is changing to adapt to the new conditions. While the conservative print industries, which are among the most threatened by digital publishing, have been forced to adapt to some degree in order to remain relevant, they are reluctant to communicate the exact terms of the adaptations because they still see anything digital as a threat. You got caught in the gap between what was possible and how usable Exact Editions was willing to make it, Old Guy . . . which is probably what they were hoping for, given that the only hint they provided was in small print, tucked away in an obscure corner of the page, when it should probably have been a big, colorful banner that said "DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE PDF HERE!!!!"

Before Exact Editions (and other digital publishers like them) were willing to make full-issue downloads available, you could still collect the individual page pdfs and then zip them together with a file merging utility (something I have done many, many times) to make your own full issues. I have made a practice of downloading everything I think is of value, archiving it in a useful way, and then backing it up on at least one other hard drive. Even so, I still make considerable use of the Wayback Machine to retrieve stuff that I didn't archive before it disappeared from the net. Everything digital is ephemeral and temporary. I'm perfectly comfortable in the virtual world, but I still don't trust cloud storage or online-only access . . . I prefer to have control of my own data.

I still have, and will continue to have digital subscriptions with Exact Editions (and others) and I recommend them highly, but it's up to each user to be aware of the actual terms of the agreement and adjust their usage accordingly . . . and many digital publishers are not going to do any more than they absolutely must to help you with that.