Re: Copyright concerns

[P3D Alexander Klein <klein@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: photo-3d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

P3D Tom Martin <tlmartin@xxxxxxxx> writes: 

> Fellow Photo-3Ders,
>
> I have been attempting to persuade someone the past few months that they > are committing a copyright violation, but have not had much success. I > was hoping that the Photo-3D list members might be able to assist with a > little friendly pressure.
>
> One of our fellow Photo-3D contributors, Alexander Klein, has several > Web pages listing the known Tru-Vue production titles, with marks= > indicating which titles he has and those he does not > (http://www.bawue.de/~stereo/truvue.html). Unfortunately, these lists > are a portion of a copyrighted article that I wrote last year for the > VTCA's "ReView".

[... rest deleted ...]

Well, folks, let me tell you the whole story: 

as many of you probably know, I'm building a 3D-database since 1988. So far, I have lists of magazines, movies, comic-books, books ... and Tru-Vue.

I had started my Tru-Vue page long before I even knew that Tom was (also) working on a Tru-Vue list. Like him, I was using all available sources of information, such as Tru-Vue Film-lists - and Waldsmith's book - and my own Tru-Vue collection.

As a member of the VTCA (of which I have NOT received ANYTHING for a long, long time - so why did I pay my membership fee??), I once read a note that Tom (if I recall this correctly) is currently working on a Tru-Vue list. Of course I was curious to see if he had any films listed on his list which I didn't.

As far as I remember (this is now approx. 2 years ago), I sent him a printed copy of MY list, asking him if he could send me his to compare. Bearing in mind, that I might want to publish an article about Tru-Vue in the future, I asked him for permission to reprint also his informa- tion in 3D-Magazin, should the need arise. 

I compared the list with mine - and found a number of films which I had NOT listed in mine - so I entered the information in my database. 

In the meantime, the article about Tru-Vue has been published in 3D-Magazin (although WITHOUT the list, due to lack of space). 

I honestly do not think that there can be a copyright on the CONTENTS of the list - it is public domain. To copyright something, there must be some OWN & ORIGINAL stuff in it. So the copyright on my pages refers ONLY to the HTML encoding and the presentation of the web-pages (i.e. with their background etc.), and NOT the contents. 

If I had reproduced his article, it would have been a totally different story. The (rightfully) copyrighted article Tom mentioned was published AFTER I had his information.

To calm things down, I will include a link to the appropriate page of the VTCA, once it has been finished - although I could feel tempted to call this club also "fraudulent" because they're keeping the member's money without publishing the magazines which are supposed to be included with the membership ...

alex


------------------------------