I would definitely pursue the Encarta infringement. Mr. Bill "deep
pockets" Gates needs a few lessons in etiquette, it would appear.
Art
Rob Geraghty wrote:
>
> Harvey wrote:
> > musical (intellectual) property is now a *very* hot legal
> > item.
>
> Only because it's worth billions to some very big corporations like Sony
> and HMV. If it was only the artists screaming, the care factor would be
> very small.
>
> > I maintain that the same will be true of imagery on web
> > search engines.
>
> I doubt it because of the relatively low "value" attributed to web images.
> They're not worth large amounts to any major corporations. It may be very
> important to a photographer like you or I, but we can't afford the sorts
> of legal bills required to chase these things. Want to bet that it wasn't
> any individual musician who chased Napster?
>
> >Beyond all of the above:
> >We don't like it when our images are appropriated.
>
> No. I am beginning to wonder how many of mine have been. I found out a
> while back that a scan I made of an opal was appropriated by Microsoft Encarta
> online - without a request or attribution of the source. Judging by the
> website logs, it appears that other images on my site are being used by
> other web sites who have actually linked to my site rather than copying
> the images - this means I am effectively paying for their convenience!
>
> It's hard to avoid this sort of thing. I don't have time to set up the
> means to avoid it. One quick method would be to use symbolic links to files
> and rename the links. Periodically renaming the links would ensure that
> anyone linking to the files would find the links broken, and the search
> engine links would break also. The renaming would have to be done by server-end
> code. Another neat piece of java code I saw recently pops up a message
> if someone tries to use the right-click save-as option on a picture. It's
> relatively trivial to get around, but at least it's *some* sort of discouragement
> of theft.
>
> It's a brave new world, and it's not easy for trusting folks to avoid being
> shafted by those who are taking advantage of the web's open nature. The
> web was oiginally conceived by academics for academics, not by anyone whose
> income derived from their art - and needed copyright protection.
>
> Rob
>
> PS I would also suggest that avoiding filenames which obviously relate to
> content is probably a good idea.
>
> Rob Geraghty [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://wordweb.com
