For what?? He pulled the repair guides and evidently isn't even making an effort to stop the torrents either.

Also a Ninja member and never got access to the guides--just to confirm: are you saying this something extra that I can contact Clay about and have access to?

TIA.

No, you have no choice but to get them from another member here or torrentsite..

I asked already...

Been a Ninja follower since I entered this hobby. He is the Master. // Error: Image 110990 not found //

I don't know how anyone could stop torrents from popping back up.
Once the genie is out of the bottle its hard to put it back in or un-ring the bell.

I paid up for Ninja access but did not know the original guides had pay access as well.

There is not paid access to the guides..

Well someone had a username and password to access them.......

I think a lot of you guys weren't around when Clay took the guides down:

Although Clay was careful to rewrite all the text himself (except for "about one page" of material, the Pinball2K section and a large section of the WPC document that was quoted from Williams), many of the photos and captions were from other contributors.

The contributors understood that the guides were to be a free web resource.

When the whole "Tilt Town" debacle went down, Clay took the guides down.

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinball-ninja-access-denied#post-663350

Then Clay announced that he was selling the guide on DVD-ROM.

The entire internet went insane with everyone who had content in the guides threatening to sue Clay.

Look it up on RGP, insane is not a strong enough word.

Paypal issued refunds; the money ($10) was supposed to go to the Pacific Pinball Museum.

Clay says in hindsight he wishes he would have retaken all the photos, re captioned them, and even rewritten the one page of text - avoiding the whole mess.

-

So, that is why everyone uses the torrent.

_{Post edited by vid1900 : Clarified erroneous statements}

A password is required to read the "Pinball Ninja" blog - there are no guides there.

I know about the PB Ninja login ( I am a paid member there)

Its this one -

http://www.pinrepair.com/gp/

No they didn't..

You guys know that I reference the PinWiki around here quite a bit...
As I come across new tech questions, I try to write a new article in the Wiki, which is growing every day.

An alternative to Clay's guide compendium...

http://www.pinwiki.com

--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.Team-EM.com
http://webpages.charter.net/chibler/Pinball/index.htm
http://www.PinWiki.com - The Place to go for Pinball Repair Info

Pinwiki is great! I am trying to help my friend fix his Tales from the Crypt that is blowing a few fuses. Hopefully I can find the info at Pinwiki or in Clay's guides...if not we will post a tech question soon

Well, until the past day or so, they were all up and easily accessible. Can't seem to access that site anymore though...luckily, while it was up, I Adobe Acrobated the entire site content into pdfs

_{Post edited by The_Director : removed link}

The water is not fine when moderators allow illegal content to be posted on the site.

Clay's guides are his property. Posting links to pirated copies is a violation of fellow pinball enthusiast's intellectual property.

Just sayin' Pinside doesn't appear to be very respectful of Clay in this instance.

I know I'll catch heat for saying that, but it's the truth. They're his guides. If any one of us created something and then decided to take it down, it should be our right to do so.

There are 1000's of users on Pinside, how would you stop it...once that info is on the net, it's there forever...illegal or not

It is not Pinsides fault it's on torrent sites...don't be so foolish!

I understand it's likely impossible to control. It's just a question of whether or not asking a guy to come out of the woodwork, at the same time you're condoning other people pirating his work illegally, makes sense.

I'm curious.. what if the CAD files for Cliffy's products found their way onto the net.. or the source code for Pinside? Would it be cool to post that stuff without the author's approval?

Clay is not hiding in the woodwork.

He is on this site every day.

Love 'em or hate 'em, we all owe a debt to Clay, who through his guides, have kept more games out of the dump than any other person.

I say right on Clay!

It may be worth noting that this is an old thread and Gweempose made that post over a year ago.

Right on Clay for sure! I think if you have ever benefited from clays guides, or have them saved to your computer, then go subscribe to his pinball ninja web blog. It is helping him out and you get a really informative blog.

LOL... oops. But still, important to note that unless the guy gives permission, it's probably not cool to link to pirated copies of his work.

I understand how the community may be torn on this. Those guides are really useful. But I put myself in his shoes.. what if someone took all my videos and put them on some other site without my permission? I wouldn't like that.

I agree with you 100%. Just wanted to point out that Gweempose may have changed his mind since he said that. It is really a shame that Clay himself has not offered a way to get them. Like I said, if you get it somehow donate to the pinball ninja web blog and relieve your conscience some.

People feel entitlement for different reasons.

1. The guides were freely available for a decade.

2. They were though by many to be a community resource with many people contributing.

3. Rumor always was that at least one of the torrents was Clay's (the one without the Pinball2000 chapter).

4. The guides are still online on various websites around the world, Google is your friend here.

5. Having the whole guide offline is great when you have no internet service out in the garage.

6. The torrent where somebody made everything into a PDF is much better than the html version of the website.

stfu donny

http://techniek.flipperwinkel.nl/wpc/index3.htm

I completely support clay and have donated to his pin ninja site and have also bought his repair dvds but I'm failing to see how its illegal to download a torrent of text that was compiled by clay and had various other individuals add to it and was available for a decade for free. Is there a copyright attached to it and if so how is that possible after 10 years has gone by. This isn't a matter of people trying to steal from clay this is about people trying to get their hands on the chiltons manual for all things pinball and if it was available from clay many people would gladly pay him for it, myself included.

Oh and just so you guys know all my forum post are protected I better not see them added to a torrent file, or "Ill sue your freakin asses!"

I keed I keed

2013-06-23-14-01-24-580515822.jpeg

Clay's guides have always had copyright notices on them. The argument over whether or not his guides are "public domain" is over. They're his guides. Nobody has ever proven otherwise, or that any significant amount of content in his guides came from any other source. This issue has been beaten to death on RGP in previous years.

A more valid argument on the public domain/who has-the-rights issue would be PinWiki. Whereas Clay's guides were always clearly owned by him and indicated as such. PinWiki's content "looks" like it's "public" but there is no clear statement regarding who owns the content other than "PinWiki.com" and nobody seems to know who that is.

Suffice to say, nothing is truly original. Everything is derivative. Nobody necessarily owns the rights to any "repair technique" but it does take a lot of time and effort to compile, organize and write these guides. That work can be copyrighted. Just like if you do a review of a pinball machine and post it on YouTube, the subject matter, the pinball machine, may be someone else's intellectual property, but your write-up of it is your own, and something you should be able to control as long as it doesn't infringe upon someone else's IP.

The only problem with the original Pin Repair guides was it was supposedly a collection of the efforts of others included & bundled together. If or when you try to separate yourself with bundled work it becomes a problem. Everyone enjoyed them for a long time and once gone a lot of people got mad.

What % of the work was Clay's is debatable but his effort and presentation was liked by all. Its for that reason alone I have no qualms about pitching in to the PB Ninja site and if possible to gain access to the guides online I would toss some funds Clay's way. The knowledge I was able to acquire saved me LOTS of $$ in repairs. On the flip side I am sure there have been others that attempted repairs (from the guides) that ended up in needs of a pro board repair service.

Love him or hate him he did a LOT for those of us that like to work on boards.

I really don't think we need to go this whole debacle at Pinside.
In short, Clay was trying to raise money for I believe a Pinball Museum by charging $10 for his guides, and the RGP had a huge hissy-fit about it, so he took them down for good.
If you go to RGP and search for it, I'll bet you'll find the whole story.
I've seen Clay post on here numerous times, and I'm guessing(but not positive) that if you email Clay and tell him you'd like to get the guides he used to have and would be willing to make a donation to his museum/charity(I forgot what it was), he'd find a way to get them to you.
For all that guy has done for pinball repair, he sure does that a lot of flak from haters.
He just sold a bunch of games on a thread here a week or so ago, for what I thought were really reasonable prices compared to where they're selling for now.

But back to the OP-hopefully you're able to acquire those guides, because they're extremely useful.

LOL. Too late.

If you search everywhere on the net, including all of RGP on this issue of "who owns the Pinrepair guides" there is a definitive answer: Clay. People keep propagating this myth that somehow a bunch of that content was created by other people.. It's not true. In the early days there were a few minor pieces of the PinRepair content that was written by some people, but that content has been long gone, and anybody who actually could say, "This part was mine" has never had any problem giving their content to Clay and letting him exclusively own the compilation.

So whenever you hear someone say, "PinRepair is a collection of others work.." notice how the person who is saying that is not one of those "others". It's some magical "other" that has never, ever stood up and said, "this is my content." It's a myth that continues to be spread even though there's no real evidence.

Clay is around. He reads this stuff. I don't know why he won't post publicly but you can contact him privately and he'll tell you about the guides and his position against the file sharing.

I'm curious.. has anybody that has been looking for the guides ever asked Clay himself to send them copies? I don't know if he would or not but he's a very generous person and it's worth a try.

IF I were a moderator, I'd close this thread.
This horse has been dead for a long time.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.Team-EM.com
http://webpages.charter.net/chibler/Pinball/index.htm
http://www.PinWiki.com - The new place for pinball repair info

image.jpg

But back to the OP-hopefully you're able to acquire those guides, because they're extremely useful.

Lets start the bidding at let's say $3,000.00.

pinguides_002.jpg

One of the most common questions is "how to I find Clay's guides" (It auto completes in Google), so obviously many people don't know how to find them, or what the story was with them.

Ooooooh, are the Pin2k guides on there?

That's a piece of pinhistory.

It is all on here and I don't know who gave it to me, I took some games to a show and when I got home this was inside of one with a note that said thanks for bringing your games.
This was right before the Big Bang and they were all pulled.

It's not worth that much without the translucent light green case it came in.

It should be closed. From the past we learned that there are a lot of sides, many of them right. And the only outcome is it hurt the hobby.

So time to hopefully let the healing begin. For the good of pinball.

LTG : )

Some of us just got the Pro, others got the LE's.
The LE is worth $3,500.00 easy.

Meh,

Most of are adults here and no harm, no foul if the language stays clean.

I asked Clay by email and he said no. I am also a donater to the ninja site.

I already have them saved like most pinheads do. But I would pay for a copy made properly by him.

Tom

Aack! Time to stop using them all as pinball leg shims in my garage and cash out.

I got the Pin2K guide printed out and bound with my RFM when I bought it. I never realized the value...

I feel kind of extra lucky at this point....

Ya...
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.Team-EM.com
http://webpages.charter.net/chibler/Pinball/index.htm
http://www.PinWiki.com - The new place for pinball repair info

I'm sure Clay is reading this, and no matter who they belong to, the guides should be available to ALL pinheads either for free or by donation. For the love of pinball. They are an amazing tool for tons of new pinheads and the old ones too.

93% of pinballpeople have no idea what happened to him or the guides...they just want their game to work!

I am a fan of Clay and what he's done for pinball. I am not a fan of the guides not being easily available for everyone.

Here is an idea:

Download the guides from whatever source you see fit.

Paypal Clay (PM if you need his addy) $10, the original asking price.

DO NOT put in the message that the $10 is for the guides (because someone would start suing someone), simply gift Clay $10, for absolutely no reason.

Clay can use the mystery money to buy some bowing games, pay his electric bill, whatever.

You can sleep with a pure conscience.

http://techniek.flipperwinkel.nl/wpc/index3.htm

I understand some of the photographs in the guides belonged to other people. Photographs can be and are copyrighted. The owners can "lend" their photographs to be used in a work by granting their permission to do so. The photograph owner can also "revoke" that permission at any time for any reason.

Pinside is nothing like RGP where discussion can quickly go south, and worse.

The content of the repair guides is a wealth of information and the next generation of DIY people could learn a lot from reading it. How they secure a copy is debatable since the official channel have been taken down which is unfortunate.

To me its similar to the Randy Fromm info which was coin op specific and he always charged for his stuff. I sprung for his videos and the "Big Blue Book" which are great , dry tech reading.

The info is out there and its worthwhile to secure a copy and read thru it.

Randy Fromm has copyrighted virtually all his repair information. His stuff is very good and worth the money from what people have told me. Randy actively enforces his copyrights.

The problem is that the material is copyrighted and I won't copy it and distribute it without notarized permission from Clay.
I am using it with his permission, I don't own it.
His stuff, his rules.