Re: Official Apple II documentation?

["sfahey" <sfahey@a2central.com.remove-tpf-this>]

  To: A little note for Google
  Re: Re: Official Apple II documentation?
  By: A little note for Google to comp.sys.apple2 on Wed Jun 30 2010 04:59 pm

 > And you, Dr. Ken,  still have Brian Wisers  Applied Engineering scans
 > from http://ae.applearchives.com on your site even though you were
 > asked multiple times to remove it.    (Yes, we know they are Brian's
 > work because his signature is in them and he is the one who created
 > all the brochures.)  So get with the program and quit taking our
 > PDF's!

It's this kind of stuff that confuses me. I realize people went to the time and
effort to scan the material and that represents *something* but the fact of the
matter is -- those documents don't belong to anyone, except Applied Engineering
or whomever ended up with their assets after they shut down.

How can you demand someone take down a scan of something you yourself don't own
the rights to?

It sucks when you spend time making a really nice web site, scan content and go
to the trouble of making it look nice -- and then someone comes along grabs it
all, posts it somewhere else. It feels like they got a free ride on your all
your hard work.

But I have to ask, what were your motives? What did you expect would happen?

If you put something on the 'net -- it's going to get downloaded. It might even
get posted somewhere else. If that bothers you, don't do it.

We're at the point where retro site ops have to be content with the knowledge
that they've helped their community, did the good deed or earned that rare
donation -- if you're not content with warm fuzzies, you're more likely to get
nothing out of it at all.

And what's the deal with getting 'exclusive' rights to distribute OLD material?
I can understand it IF there is a commercial interest, with royalites or if it
was the only way to make the content available (because the copyright holder
had to be paid off). But if it's free, it shouldn't have any strings above and
beyond it's existing copyright protections.

For those that care, I think a person's reputation and standing in the
community -- the respect they've earned from being a contributor is a far more
valuable commodity to cultivate. People are going to figure out on their own 
who the producers are, and who are the leeches. Everyone knows Brian Wiser is a
is a producer.

This concludes my rant. I realize I've just irked some of you -- but this is
is how I feel on the matter.

Sean Fahey
www.a2central.com
bbs.a2central.com