RE: Image legality: you've got to be kidding !!??

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Chris Boden" <cboden-at-thegeekgroup-dot-org> 

This is quickly flying wildly off topic please direct replies off list.

Scott, you obviously don't *Get* me.

Ok, lets overlook the fact that I've dedicated my life, my house, my job,
and nearly all of my money to building a company for the expressed purposes
of teaching anyone with "a sincere and passionate desire to learn" about
science and technology. I have no problem at all with people taking info off
our site, in fact, I freely encourage it (as is proven by the fact that I do
things like host the audio lectures we passed out a while back). I've bent
over backwards a thousand times to give out information, it's what we're all
about.

What I have a problem with is one of our members took hours to create that
image for the Group. I pay thousands of dollars a year to host it. I built
the server, the rack to hold it, and wired the power that feeds it. I pay
the electric bill to keep it all going. And he hacked half of it off to get
rid of the little thing on the bottom that shows where it came from.

I don't mind if he keeps the image on his site at all. All I ask is he keeps
the credits on there.

Now, I know that you personally think of myself and my Group as some sort of
joke or ragamuffin group of high-school kids, this doesn't bother me, you're
not the only one, and those that are ubercritical of me keep me on my
PR-toes.

The original post wasn't written by me (as is obvious, he uses things like
grammar and punctuation), it was penned by a member of the Board for the
Group. The Board takes things like this seriously. We take people getting
bent out of shape about the Group seriously. We take our job, our Group, and
the Dream seriously. This isn't a game for us. This isn't some sort of hobby
for me and my staff. The Group exists for a reason, to teach. And normally,
I'd let something like the edited image slide, but the guy who did it
decided to talk a lot of smack about the Group. And we don't dig that.

For the same reason, you (and the rest of the world) will have the pics and
data on the cap collection when I'm darn good and ready. I have neither the
time, nor the inclination to dig through the packed, cold attic of the
garage for a few buried milk-crates of junk caps just because someone wants
to get my dander up.

Good day sir.


-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2004 22:21
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Image legality: you've got to be kidding !!??

Original poster: "Scott Hanson" <huil888-at-surfside-dot-net>

Chris -

You absolutely HAVE TO BE KIDDING!!??

Such righteous indignation about "intellectual and professional ethics"??
"Plagiarism"?  Please give us a break!

(People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones ....)

"Bucket capacitors" in many forms and permutations were developed by many
experimenters years before you first pressed your tongue against a 9 volt
battery. Salt water filled, aluminum-foil lined, wine-bottle clustered,
bucket-within-a-bucket, etc, etc were all done by others long ago.

Just because the Geek Group site specifies the use of Corona beer bottles
add no new technology, breaks no new ground, provides no improvement over
past implementations, or introduces anything at all of value: its all been
done before.

Reading Kreso Bukvik's posts to the TCML over the past few months, it's
obvious he's a young experimenter who has developed a strong interest in
Tesla coils, and is doing his best to learn the technology and make sparks.
Despite the language barrier, he obviously reads and understands what's
being discussed in this forum, and is trying his best to scrape together
materials to build coils under rather difficult conditions in his native
Croatia. Given Nikola Tesla's Croatian origins, I'd think you'd be bending
over backwards to assist him rather than pompously threatening some
"international litigation".

As far as I can tell, the ideas, concepts, materials, implementations,
configurations, test data, etc, etc, discussed on this list are all provided
freely for the free, universal, unencumbered benefit of all.

If you have developed something so new, so revolutionary, so far beyond the
current state-of-the-art, then patent it and freely pursue "plagiarists" and
others who seek to infringe your intellectual property.

Otherwise .....

Scott Hanson
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2004 5:52 PM
Subject: Image legality


  > Original poster: "Chris Boden" <cboden-at-thegeekgroup-dot-org>
  >
  >
  > Hi All,
  >      As many of you know, the Geek Group avidly supports the
dissemination
of
  > scientific and technical knowledge by all legitimate means. All pictures,
  > texts, and diagrams on our web site are published with the permission of
the
  > author(s) and credits are posted to the extent possible.  We usually have
no
  > objections to anyone copying pictures and quoting text as long as sources
  > are cited and appropriate credit given. However, copying from our site
  > without permission, removing credit lines, and publishing materials on
  > another website as one's own, is intellectually and professionally
unethical
  > and, in the case of copyrighted materials, also illegal, even
  > internationally.
  >
  > Because pursuing remedy claims internationally through the legal system
is
  > very slow, painful, and costly, we are asking the members of TCML, the
  > largest peer-review TC group, to consider this several-year-old
illustration
  > from our website:
  >    http://www.thegeekgroup-dot-org/projects/bucketcap/
  >
  > and compare it to this recent website:
  > http://free-kc.htnet.hr/Kreso-Bukvic/Izrada%20VN%20kondezatora.htm
  >
  >     and use whatever peer pressure they may be able to exert to remedy
this
  > situation without our having to seek legal recourse.
  >      While we realize that sometimes a copy of a copy of a copy of
something
  > may inadvertently be displayed without permission/credits However direct
  > plagiarism with deliberate editing out of names/logos is difficult to see
as
  > accidental.
  >
  > Sincerely,
  >
  >
  > The Geek Group Board
  >
  >
  > ---
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  >
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  >
  >