About the "legality" of scans currently hosted here...

[ilef]

Blame this discussion on me having too much coffee, if you wish, but i believe it will eventually turn up... so... i guess we can talk about this now.

As already stated elsewhere, the current situation isn't really "safe/bulletproof": sure, scans are the "be-all~end-all" source of information... no one would argue that... as well as no one would argue the fact that they still constitute copyrighted material, so... yeah... VGMdb is ironically - and illegally, in most cases - hosting/streaming TONS of pirated content in the form of booklets/obis/covers/CD pictures/stickers/...
With them being available pretty much to everyone (that takes into account unregistered users, too, although they get incomplete galleries with thumbnails), you're bound to end up in troubles, eventually. Yeah, i'm aware that a few composers/others involved with albums actually contributed better-quality scans... But the mere fact that their presence is tolerated by some - to date, and hopefully forever - doesn't really make it right.

Well, i'm here suggesting that scans become viewable only to their submitter(s) and those in the Trusted Editor/Staff groups. Again, i know it would be quite the hit to contributors and those who can actually make something out of the information contained within scans, but we all know that as far as law is concerned all those insights which booklets might provide... not to mention disc labels and everything else... pretty much the totality of an album should 'only' be available to those who own it (this applies to all instances where the manufacturer/copyright holder isn't the one giving away pictures, of course). The current setup will not work forever.