People with Geocities webpages should read this
Synnoveah J Cooke
Good morning friends and neighbors. There are a couple of things
going on that I thought you should know about.
I am a member of an on-line community, which is called Elfwood. It is
one of the largest amature art galleries on the net, including fantasy
and sci-fi art, short stories and poetry. There are over 1000 artists
who post at the site, and over 200 writers.
Recently, it has come to light that a person or persons has been
stealing art wholesale from the Elfwood site. Now, it is not an
uncommon occurrance for people to take pictures that they like and
post them on their personal website. Happens all the time, and there
is really no good way to enforce measures against that. This
situation is very different, however, in that this person has not only
taken copies of the pictures, he has airbrushed out the original
artist's name and put his own on the pic. That's right, he is
claiming these stolen works of art as his own, and even has the
audacity to post them on his site as "copyrighted" to his name!
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Labyrinth/8842/
There is the link to his site, should anyone wish to verify. The link
to Elfwood will be below with my sig.
Now, while this is an interesting and sad story, it doesn't effect
most of you, other than to garner your sympathy. Let me now tell you
why it affects you if you own or operate a Geocities webpage.
The artists at Elfwood whose art was stolen were understandably upset.
Mr. Muniz' guestbook is now filled with some very vicious comments,
and many of the artists are threatening legal action. Mr. Muniz is,
at this point, should someone press legal action against him, facing
numerous counts of copyright violation and felony fraud/forgery
charges.
Several of the artists at Elfwood have also written to Geocities, to
explain the problem and to ask that the page be removed. Note that
Mr. Muniz has actually broken the law here, which is surely against
Geocities' policy, and that the artists ASKED for the page to be
removed.
Some of the artists have already received letters back, stating
roughly that it was an interesting problem, but Geocities was not
prepared to do anything about it. Let me repeat this again. A member
of their on-line community has committed crimes, several of them
felony charges, which is certainly against their TOS and code of
conduct. And they are not prepared to do anything about it???
I would urge all of you who have Geocities webpages to question them
closely in this area, especially those of you who have original
artwork or poetry or stories posted on your site. Apparently,
Geocities could care less about your work and it's copyright, and you
could be open to theft of your hard work.
And since Geocities will not at least look into the problem, one has
to wonder if they condone such actions.......?
Sincerely, Brian K. Cooke/Kayl MacLaren
http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/elfwood.html
PS: Many of the cat pictures that Mr Muniz has posted can be found in
the gallery of Peter Keres :
http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/lothlorien/artists/keres/keres.html
Synny
Dionysus, son of Zeus
Cultivator of the vine
Fill me with the divine knowledge
Of your fawn-clad Bacchanates
Mabon
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Love seeketh not itself to please
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease
And builds a heaven in hell's despair.
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I am who I am. You are who you are.
So be who you are, and not what you are.
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Brianna pics
http://home.twcf.rr.com/hug1shy/brianna.html
hubbys art gallery
http://www.elfwood.com/lothlorien/artists/brianc/brianc.html