List postings and copyright

[Henry Ambrose]

(1) Mark Gatehouse (2) Donal Taylor (3) D. Kevin Gibson

Are these all the same person posting under different names? Who is this guy?

[David Van Gosen]

You're quoting that thread as an example of copyright violation? Please. It's a lame joke, not a technical breakthrough or an artistic statement.

You're gonna have to try harder than that if you want to pick on Frank.

[Paul Butzi]

I don't see a whole lot of harm, here. Yes, it's a copyright violation, but it would be tough to prove damages. As a policy I'd suggest that Frank should choose another path in the future, but it's hard to see this as worth getting anyone's knickers in a knot.

That said, Frank writes "But I do not like this invasion of my privacy - frankly, it gives me the creeps."

Anyone who claims that pointing out to the world something you've published on your own website, on the WWW, is an 'invasion of privacy' is being a little unrealistic. If there's a more public place than the WWW, it's awfully tough to imagine. And putting the page in some backwater, difficult to navigate to place in your web site structure makes absolutely no difference at all to any search engine - if there's a link to the page anywhere on the WWW, the search engines will eventually find it, they don't care how buried the link is, nor do they care how old the page is.

If you don't want people looking at stuff on your website, I suggest you stop putting stuff in publicly readable pages there.

[Dave Schneider]

Invasion of Privacy? It disturbs me how corrupt our language has become. I don't see how viewing something posted on a web page and telling others about that web page is an invasion of privacy. Unless, Frank, you are claiming that someone broke through a firewall or in some way hacked into your computer. Invasion of privacy is a term, like censorship, that has no meaning anymore, because it is applied indiscriminately.

[tim atherton]

and then someone posts this over on photo.net

"Alfonse Deluer is an alias of Frank Petronio himself. I'm sure he would be too shy to disclose that by himself."

Alfonse Deluer was the initial poster in the lifted thread in question... curiouser and curiouser - maybe Frank is discussing it with himself?

[Annie M.]

Yikes!..... What the heck is going on..... I have received a sequence of notices from the photo.net robots that people are requesting my e-mail address from that site... I assume that it relates to this posting as I am one of the ever so clever people that has a guest appearance in Frank's weblog... and as such I am now perhaps suspect as being the shy off-forum sniveller that has been in 'discussions' with Mr. Gibson about this matter. I know this posting may be tedious and paranoid but I went through an 'incident' on another forum where my credibility ended up in the toilet and I don't want this to happen here as I value this resource and community.

Frank..... I encountered your web log the other day on a routine google search about focusing....and I know for certain that I was not stalking you but trying to discover what technique Adrian Bregazzi used in his landscape work..... So the web crawlers have indeed been through your site..... In fact you came up third in the search results.

Recently I have discovered myself on several sites where I have never been.... It is amazing what I get up to when I'm not around!..... This prompted me to send a note to one of my photopals (not Mr. Gibson) from this forum.... Here is the letter (I assume I can quote my own letter)....

"Hey XXXXX.... You are usually know about this kind of thing so I thought I'd ask you.... Recently I have found several of my postings and even entire threads that I have participated in from the forums appearing on web sites and weblogs.... for example here is a thread here that we both participated in on photo.net... http://www.frankpetronio.com/weblog/Pages/focus.html I don't see it as a big issue that people are clipping my drivel from the forums but I am considering starting my own weblog and I am wondering if people can for whatever reason abscond with entire pages of my (ever so brilliant!) blog and move it elsewhere on the web... any info or links about this issue would be sincerely appreciated. Thanks Annie....."

In reply my photopal mentioned that someone else had previously sent him the same link......this was the full extent of my participation in this matter and I just wanted to make it clear that I in no way condone 'outing' people in the manner that has occurred in this thread... I feel it would have served the community better to initiate a generic discussion about blogs and copyright and contact Mr. Petronio privately. Cheers, Annie.

[Ralph Barker]

Notwithstanding photo.net's far-reaching copyright language, I'm not sure that quoting a thread of discussion in a blog is clearly a copyright violation. It could just as easily be argued that such non-commercial use is "editorial" in nature, and thus exempt. Common Internet practices have certainly blurred the distinctions.

I'll also admit some confusion over the identities (and potential agendas) of (1) Mark Gatehouse (2) Donal Taylor (3) D. Kevin Gibson, as well. Absent some unexpressed agenda (i.e. "hidden"), I agree with Annie - it would be more appropriate to "initiate a generic discussion about blogs and copyright and contact Mr. Petronio privately" regarding his blog.

[Michael E. Gordon]

This is truly lame. It makes the digital vs. traditional threads on APUG look like good reading.

Go make some photographs.