Re: Official Apple II documentation?

[Sean Fahey <a2fan@hotmail.com>]

On Jul 1, 10:02 am, A2Aviator <a2avia...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It's one thing to be an active contributor, but when practically the
> entire site is based on content that is sniped off other peoples
> labor, without so much at least the courtesy to admit where you swiped
> it from ...

I'm not the guy's lawyer -- but he appears to be attributing some
things. I don't know how selective or discretionary he is. <shrug>

> ..and I don't wanna hear a single thing about how long that takes. Dr.
> Ken obviously has time to paste his moniker all over the stuff as if
> everything on that site is labeled in some megalomaniacal way.

This IS something I'm frustrated by. People feeling the compulsion to
tag their scans with some kind of copyright is one thing (that I'm OK
with -- if it's your 'picture'), but it's quite another to tag it to
pimp your site and it's a whole new level of douchebaginess to remove
a previous tag, and substitute your own. It's like the crap eBaum's
World is famous for. I don't condone someone lifting pics, and editing
them without their permission.

> So what you are advocating is since shareware is placed online, it
> should not be paid for either? Maybe not 100% exactly the same, but
> pretty darn close.

Tony, I think that's a stretch. Shareware is usually placed online by
the author with the specific intention that it be distributed as
widely as possible. The ethical decision to pay for the shareware is
up to the end-user. Since many shareware titles (at the programmer's
discretion) are limited in some fashion, unless paid for, the user
decides if the limited functionality meets their needs or not.
Otherwise they would pay up or discontinue using it... or hacking it,
which is a wholly different ethical topic. So, no I'm not expressing a
personal opinion on shareware payments in this thread, because I don't
think it's applicable to the discussion.

> ..and more on the time subject, obvious intention of deceit is afoot,
> around the latter part of last year I spent a great deal of effort
> gathering cards and scanning to provide Alex Lee a good chunk of the
> missing items on the What is the Apple IIgs? site. Alex then spent
> even more time masking clean edges around them and filling them in the
> colored theme of the section they were posted in.

I have been talking about scanned documents -- *manuals* -- not
pictures. Manuals that -=none=- of us likely own any rights to. Scans
or pictures of "things" and scans of books (magazines, periodicals,
brochures, etc, ie original works that impart knowledge) are treated
very differently, legally. Only the copyright holder (and that doesn't
necessarily mean the author) can grant those rights.

> Many of these same images are now also posted on a2ol, mind you,
> WITHOUT any credit other than his own. Only Alex and I have the photos
> in unmasked form. Time was OBVIOUSLY spent de-masking them again, and
> it's pretty obvious they were, as there are hints of the color purple
> on the edges of some. But time was had to label them with his own
> email address.
>
> Nope, the intention of deceit argument does not fly here, so don't
> even bother filing a flight plan.

Look, if he's 'stealing' your artwork (that includes pictures, scanned
'things') and editing them without your express permission, then
you've got a beef. I'm not going to defend anyone who is chopping
sites and calling them their own. But complaining that someone (for
example) nabbed a scan of the DOS 3.3 source listing, or a scan of an
Apple manual and posted it elsewhere, doesn't even get a crank in my
book.

> I do think it's pretty cool that there are some hardware items that
> have been submitted that are pretty rare, too bad it seemingly took
> ravaging other peoples work to get that far.
>
> That has certainly put a damper on my desire to prepare and post
> stuff, I am NOT a fan of putting names and markings on stuff, and
> never wanted to resort to visibly tagging images, "protecting" (and
> branding) PDFs, et al.

Tag the pictures you've taken all you want, but why would you tag a
scanned manual? Did it require editing or layout -- maybe you can take
a bow for that, but if it's just a scan, leave it alone. The scanner
did all the hard work.

> Of course I would be insane to think any materials posted are not
> going to be "lifted", hell, I expect they will be. I save content
> myself. But to repost it all and expressly go out of my way to give
> the impression that it's all my content?

I repeat: I'm not the guy's lawyer -- but he appears to be attributing
some things.

> At least if I do tag and brand, and see that the tags and branding's
> have been removed- it certainly does establish intent of deceit.
> Simply ripping it off and reposting at least gives credit where credit
> is due.

Again, I am talking about scans of manuals/books, not pictures of
things, i.e. artwork.