AI Generated Album Pages - Curious On Feedback And Thoughts

I am not a fan of AI and am often a critic, but I vehemently disagree with the notion that AI and, by extension, the OP is "stealing or benefitting from other's work" - what a load of horse crap!!

The OP did not imply they intended to take credit for, distribute or profit from these AI generated album pages, they merely asked what people thought about pages made for their own personal use. Any information gleaned from the internet for personal use, whether by exhaustive research or help from AI, is protected by the Fair Use doctrine, provided that information wasn't taken from behind a pay wall or hacked from a secure database. For example: everything ever posted to the this forum is fair game for any individual to use for themselves, according to this doctrine.

Personally, I find it preposterous that people are more concerned with protecting their egos than growing the hobby. But if you don't want people to "benefit from other people's work", then why bother participating in this forum? We'd all be better off if you kept quiet and let your IP die with you!

Brian

That's not even close to a correct statement of the US fair use doctrine, or how it applies here. The four-factor test applies, at it has for decades, and under it, not everyone who copies a work wins. There is also no legislative answer or judicial consensus about whether AI ingesting works for training, or outputting copies of them, is fair use.

Love you Bro.

Thank you very much for sharing your ideas - 1. AI album generation; 2. "left-side" page providing reader friendly explanations for the adjacent "right-side" page exhibiting the stamps; and, 3. hoping to attract new collectors. All three ideas are timely and important.

1. AI hallucinations and garbage research results are behind us. I use multiple AI tools daily for any topic that interests me and no longer suffer from that early craziness. Bespoke stamp album pages - absolutely!

2. Left-Right facing album pages design. Yes! I began doing this when I returned to stamp collecting for exactly the same reason you have. I assume the person viewing my stamp collection knows nothing about stamp collecting (children, grandchildren, friends) and, just maybe, one of them will get interested.
A simple straightforward "design-type" stamp album I built that uses your left-right facing pages concept is here:

https://us-stamps-design-type.onren...-viewer.html

I really thought the ability to own every US Stamp design 1847-1947 for less than $10,000 would be attractive, but so far - ZERO feedback.

3. Hoping (and working) to Attract New Collectors: Well, we can hope! I applaud your efforts to do so. I have gone down most of the rabbit holes one can to attract new collectors. It has been "interesting." My most aggressive attempt to attract new collectors is here:

https://classicstampcollector.com Again - ZERO feedback. I have concluded that I am a horrible Marketeer!

The one idea that has worked was building https://stampplating.com in 2018 and then recently improving it (with some extremely competent friends) to include David Fusichen's PlateAi technology. You can read all about it in the August 2026 USPCS Chronicle.

Now there is some AI stamp stuff for you!

One can absolutely steal and benefit from others' work AND at the same time not intend to take credit for, distribute, or profit from it. Those aren't mutually exclusive concepts.



That's not how that works. And paywalls are completely irrelevant to this matter, too.

Before folks go off using AI to design album pages, perhaps they'd do well to turn to their favorite LLM and give it some simple queries regarding intellectual property and the law?

Chris knows better than most of us and certainly me that the matter of IP and AI is FAR from settled. I am aware of close to 100 ongoing major litigations regarding the topic. It's only going to get more complicated as AI becomes THE way that information is acquired and disseminated. Off topic but take music for example. People are "writing" songs using AI and AI is performing the songs using amalgamations of human vocals with a bit of this and a bit of that. Combine Chet Atkins with Slash on guitar and Dolly Parton with Lady Gaga on vocals etc. When a machine is harvesting all of this at a scale that is hard to fathom, IP will be "borrowed". The ongoing questions are who sets the guardrails and how do guardrails work when the machine is capable of overcoming the guardrails at will.

Back to the album pages. If you think that everything is fair game for AI, how is it that Scott publishing continues to claim 1, 2, 3, 4...... as protected property (IP)? Imagine where this is going with AI. What if AI built Siegel Power Search or Stamp Smarter or this forum and the owners had no control. Do you still trust the info in Power Search? You don't now know who is guarding the henhouse. Who do you complain to when the certificate info is wrong or Stamp Smarter has manipulated data?

I know that all of this is far beyond creating some album pages for personal use. It is interesting to discuss the bigger picture though.

I asked AI this:




AI answered this:




Pot meet kettle.

Prompted by this thread, I thought I'd try using AI to create an AlbumEasy file.
I was only partially successful, for two reasons:

Unfortunately, the only online reference documentation for AlbumEasy is very dated; instead, up-to-date documentation is only included with the application, so it's not actually available to AI.
I am planning on a new release of AlbumEasy in the next month or two, so I will probably also add the documentation to the website at the same time. I had a very interesting "chat" with Anthropic's Claude, who had some excellent suggestions to make it AI-friendly when I do.

The other issue is stamp box sizes, which are hard to come by and, of course, are an issue whether AlbumEasy is involved or not.
I am aware of one online catalogue that includes stamp sizes for some, but not all, issues. As far as I am aware, they give dimensions measured perf-tip to perf-tip. However, the UPS WNS site, which lists relatively modern issues, gives the image dimensions on the stamp.






Actually, Amos is no longer the Scott publisher. I can only assume that the current owners will continue to enforce this policy.

Some years ago, I received a cease-and-desist letter from Amos threatening legal action if I didn't remove albums containing Scott numbers from my website.

Personally, I don't believe one can copyright a list of numbers that is little more than a sequential numbering of stamps as issued. But given that my website is a hobby endeavour, and not wishing to get involved in expensive litigation, I complied.

Clive

Did they offer the ability to license the numbering, or immediately jump to cease-and-desist? While the cost may be prohibitive for a hobbyist, it seems like a self-defeating prophecy. Suppose all the album publishers and online web sites got free/cheap licenses to use the Minkus or SG numbering systems, then Scott would start to become an island and their monopoly on the market would dwindle. I guess they are counting on the US market being so entrenched in their numbering that it will never go away. Still, I don't get why they won't allow other album publishers to freely use their numbers with a "Scott catalog numbers copyright Scott Publishing" on the title page.

They immediately jumped in with the cease-and-desist. I responded by pointing out that albums using Scott numbers would actually benefit them, since people would need their catalogues to identify the stamps.

I also asked about licensing the numbers. They said that they don't deal with individuals. They also said I probably couldn't afford the licensing fee, which, although they were probably right, was a bit speculative since they knew absolutely nothing about me.

Clive

Clivel FYI Astra is able to run AlbumEasy inside its workspace and use it to generate PDFs

>Here is where I am at now on the 12th draft. If it changes any of your opinions.

My opinion is unchanged. I think you pages look fantastic! Thanks for sharing.