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Re: Weasel



tom wrote:
On Jun 4, 1:32 am, PZ <skierp...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Its not like he dug a defunct site out of the depths of the Wayback
Machine Internet Archive, and casually omitted the copyright notice.
This is a blatant act of swiping an actively maintained site, the
intent became clear once he put his name in place of yours. I agree
with the above posters, go after the host first, that should be the
easiest to access, then pursue more drastic measures, if that doesn't
work.  I don't think its selfish at all to want to protect something
that you care about.  This was and still is your baby.

- Paul

I agree.

This experience echoes that of me and some other faq maintainers from
way back (I used to maintain different ones, among them the
comp.emulator.apple2 faq).  In violation of the copyright notices,
some company just scooped up all the faqs and started selling them on
cd.  A bunch of the faq volunteers quit, since it was so easy for
their work to be taken.)

Abraham Lincoln made a reference to people "wringing their bread from
the sweat of other men's faces" in his second inauguration -- that
seems to apply here.  You put up the content, you did the work, they
swiped it, put their name on it, and seek to profit by it.  Those who
suggest this might be a good thing are ignoring the fact that this is
wrong wrong wrong and illegal.  No way should someone be encouraged to
profit from this kind of theft.

You also note that the straightforward legal procedures would involve
expensive lawsuits, a step you haven't taken yet.  I would proceed
with the actions with the isp host, and I think you can count of
support from some members of this forum.

Yes, your feelings and perceptions of injustice are quite reasonable.

But it's worth stopping to consider the reason for doing the work in
the first place.

If you did the work for your own benefit (money, power, glory), then
you have reason to feel thwarted by someone distributing your work
(particularly without attribution).

But if you did the work as a service to the community, then wider
distribution actually furthers your goals, regardless of the means.

I remember going through a very similar thought process many years
ago when I was trying to decide whether to release a program as
shareware or freeware.  I decided that my intent was never to make
anything from my efforts, so I released it as freeware.

Of course, there is a benefit in maintaining some kind of "version
control" over anything released, to preserve some consistency.  This
is sacrificed when copies are made, but that kind of physical diversity
is *exactly* what makes the information more durable in the real world.

-michael

******** Note new website URL ********

NadaNet and AppleCrate II for Apple II parallel computing!
Home page:  http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."