RE: Image legality

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "David Trimmell" <humanb-at-chaoticuniverse-dot-com> 

After seeing this play out on the list (was gone the weekend) I have to
say that if you cater to the amateur community as amateurs, then expect
anything you place on the web as a "give away". If you wish to protect
your *Intellectual* copyrights, then use the commonly available digital
water marks. Yes, these can be broken, but then you have a legal case...

I also have to really give my respect to people like Terry Fritz (and
the many others on this list) who contribute many hours of their time
and money to the coiling community. Tesla was a man who failed in the
20th century because he really wanted to share his ideas with the larger
community of humanity, and greed was the American way. While, many can
argue that his downfall was from the many real technical failings he
had, others can say "if only he had been more like Edison!"

BTW, anything on WWW.Chaoticuniverse-dot-com is free for the taking (unless
it is borrowed from someone else (now that's the problem with the 'net,
huh?).

Regards,

David Trimmell

PS. If the GeekGroup is paying over $2000/year for their Web Space I
think they are getting bilked...



-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2004 5:53 PM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Image legality

Original poster: "Chris Boden" <cboden-at-thegeekgroup-dot-org>


Hi All,
      As many of you know, the Geek Group avidly supports the
dissemination of
scientific and technical knowledge by all legitimate means. All
pictures,
texts, and diagrams on our web site are published with the permission of
the
author(s) and credits are posted to the extent possible.  We usually
have no
objections to anyone copying pictures and quoting text as long as
sources
are cited and appropriate credit given. However, copying from our site
without permission, removing credit lines, and publishing materials on
another website as one's own, is intellectually and professionally
unethical
and, in the case of copyrighted materials, also illegal, even
internationally.

Because pursuing remedy claims internationally through the legal system
is
very slow, painful, and costly, we are asking the members of TCML, the
largest peer-review TC group, to consider this several-year-old
illustration
from our website:
    http://www.thegeekgroup-dot-org/projects/bucketcap/

and compare it to this recent website:
http://free-kc.htnet.hr/Kreso-Bukvic/Izrada%20VN%20kondezatora.htm

     and use whatever peer pressure they may be able to exert to remedy
this
situation without our having to seek legal recourse.
      While we realize that sometimes a copy of a copy of a copy of
something
may inadvertently be displayed without permission/credits However direct
plagiarism with deliberate editing out of names/logos is difficult to
see as
accidental.

Sincerely,


The Geek Group Board