Dishonest site: www.gsddata.com - Page 6

bicolor, Oli isn't whining.  Why speak so disrespectfully to him?  It will take years for him to recover all his costs and time setting up and running this site so far.  I for one appreciate his keeping me informed about PDB and what is going on.  I posted a photo of my dog on this site and agreed for Oli to display it, not for any other site to take it from Oli.  That is his point.  It now appears on gsddata.com and was never posted by me there and thus I gave no permission.  It is a violation of my copyright for gsddata.com to lift it from Oli's site and display it without my permission.  If you don't like Oli's site and/or forum just don't come here. 

Oli is a software genious, had a creative idea for a groundbreaking dog breed site, and put it all together.  He worked hard for years doing this and I hope he ends up making some good return for it.  Not only that many of us have told Oli a numbver of times that we are grateful for all his work and would be willing to pay a small yearly registration fee to use the site.  Oli is truly a unique software genius and we who cherish the GSD breed all owe him a debt of gratitude for his fine work and contrrribution to the breed.

There's a photo of one of my dogs on there and I only posted it here.  If you do need proof of copyright let us know and we can validate that no permission was given.

Brittany,  Please read a bit more carefully. I was NOT complaining about Oli having ads on this site. I was responding to HIS statement -"as soon as gsddata.com tried to make money (ads, paid subscription to get the data, etc...)  they where as good as dead."  and merely asked why he felt under the law he could make money with ads but felt gsddata could not.

I have  used gsddata all day today with no problem so I can not answer why you had access problems.

Oli, I do have to say my curiosity is peaked because you chose to ignore the paragraph where I asked about the original photos that you loaded to the database. Would you share with us where they came from?

Germanshepherdlover - I believe you are trying to close the barn door after the cows have left. You CHOSE to load a photo to a KNOWN OPEN database. You did not watermark it or put any restriction on it at the time of loading. You put it on the web were millions of people could copy or download it and did nothing to restrict that use. I can easily argue that you have placed the photo "in the public domain" and thus ceded any rights to it. In addition to have copyright protection there are statutory requirments beyond mere ownership. From the copyright office  "Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of U.S. origin" Have you registered your photo?

  Re my comments on style and format vs facts - From the Feist case  "The mere fact that a work is copyrighted does not mean that every element of the work may be protected."[165] Only those elements original to the author are entitled to copyright protection.[166] If a factual compilation contains nothing but facts, protection is extended only to the selection and arrangement of those facts, and then only if the selection and arrangement are "original."[167]Thus, the Court observed, "copyright in a factual compilation is thin."

Oli, Once again thank you for engaging in this conversation, it has been very informative.Perhaps you can correct me on one issue. I called the PDB an "open database" meaning that anyone can upload to it. I believe I was incorrect in that label and "open database" actually is a term of art that refers to an underlying programming structure which I do not know whether or not the PDB has. What is the correct terminology where the database is created or modified by a community of like minded enthusiasts?

Last time I checked US copyright law was like this.  For anything an author uniquely creates (photo, art or writing) that piece is automatically provided copyright under the law.  If  you sue someone for unlawful use (use without license ie infringement) and have registered it before the infringement, the infringer if found guilty pays your legal costs along with the damages which are automatically substantial.  If you didn't register your copyright then the infringer if he loses in court does not have to pay your legal expenses, just the damages (which are set at a high base level automatically).

Preston I personally think the application of intellectual property law is best left to the courts and lawyers because it goes well beyond the statement "that piece is automatically provided copyright ".  Providing copyright and applying and enforcing it are very different things. There are many requirements and exceptions and a fair body of case law about specific issues in IP. I also agree with the comment above that there are complexities to this situation that takes it out of "simple" application of copyright law.

Not being an intellectual property lawyer I do not know the definite answer but the law usually allows for patent and latent interpretations of language at issue. Patent meaning it is clear on the face of it.  The quote from above which comes from the U.S. copyright office ( google it ) appears very patent to me.  "Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of U.S. origin"  If you can't get to court you can't get to damages. So this is NOT speaking to damages but rather to the right to even bring an action.

Speaknow - the best comment yet "On this particular issue, I doubt I’d even consider mounting a legal challenge, well, not unless I had money to burn!"

Unfortunately people in this country are so into "their" rights and often victimhood that you can NOT get them to understand that there is a vast difference between having a right ( IF you do - frequently they get THAT wrong) and actually being able to enforce that right. The difference is all about money. For example, patents are ripped off each and every day by large national and multinational corp because they know they can get away with it. They know that the patent owner can not afford the litigation costs which they will drag out for years and decades and then spin off a subsidary of the company as a shell and let that fall on its sword so that even if a victory is attained it is a phyric (sp?) one.

All too often lawyers will promise their clients the sun the moon and the stars while knowing they will be lucky to settle the case for a few thousand dollars. More often than not the ONLY ones to win in litigation are the lawyers because of the fees they generate. A few years back one of the jury verdict services was doing some interesting statistical graphs on the winners/losers and draws from the settlements and jury verdicts reported to them. For all torts(injury to another which includes business litigation like interference with economic advantage etc) it was an exact equal split between plaintiffs and defendents as to whom was the winner. 50/50. Hell -decide on a figure and flip a coin and save yourselves the costs of the legal fees. The only tort where there was an overwhelming advantage was medical malpractice where usually the Doctor (the defendant) wins.

While I understand Oli's frustration, I do not see gsddata as his competitor. The two databases do very different things with the information and offer very different ways to manipulate and use the data. Each offers things the other doesn't. I personally think it would be a very expensive uphill battle.

The point is that gsddata is making money from images and database information which they didn't create, purchase for resale, or own. I do not know whether a dog's pedigree is in the public domain. I do know that the photo of my dog isn't. I took it, I own it, and until someone asks permission to use it, it's mine. Since my username is associated with the photo on PDB it's not hard to ask permission. Not doing so is copyright violation, and charging a fee for full access to the information without paying me a royalty is theft.

Speaknow, please don't hijack this thread with a complaint about a deleted post in another thread.

[quote]

Germanshepherdlover - I believe you are trying to close the barn door after the cows have left. You CHOSE to load a photo to a KNOWN OPEN database. You did not watermark it or put any restriction on it at the time of loading. You put it on the web were millions of people could copy or download it and did nothing to restrict that use. I can easily argue that you have placed the photo "in the public domain" and thus ceded any rights to it. In addition to have copyright protection there are statutory requirments beyond mere ownership. From the copyright office  "Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of U.S. origin" Have you registered your photo?

[/quote]

I live in Canada so US has nothing to do with my picutres being stolen.  All of my pictures contain my kennel name and the dogs name.  One of the pictures has my daughter in it.

I have spoken to a lawyer about this and all of my pictures are protected under Canadian Copyright Law as is the information.

I will be pursuing legal action myself and am very very happy to assist Oli in anyway possible.

I politely asked that they remove my information as they did not have permision to use it and they were rude about it.  So now I am forced to take the next step!