Dishonest site: www.gsddata.com - Page 4

VKFGSD

It's actually not quite that simple.  Compilations are protected and copyright is protected no matter what Internet users may say.  Photos are copyrighted by law the minute they are taken,.  Doesn't matter if you post it on the internet or not, the still holds.  This holds true for every single photograph not explicitly given to public domain.  Copyright holds.

Try using the logo of Mercedes Benz for financial purposes (freely available in the internet) and see where it gets you.

No,  My disclaimer asks the users to make sure they are or have permission from the copyright holder,  giving me a break due to the Millenium Act by Bill Clinton (I have to remove pictures if someone can prove they own copyright though).

But by stealing the pictures, they are clearly in the wrong and it wont even go to court, it's that a sure win.

I know that they probably mixed numerous data sources.  But I can prove that they at least used mine also,  (no matter any later differences,).   Compilation of data (even though individual data is free) is copyrighted.  Same laws here as apply to human heriditary data.

Though data is freely available doesn't mean its freely usable by any.  BIG distinction in law there.  And as soon as you try to make money on the stolen information/copyright your a sitting target in regards to the law.

I will sue and I will win,  my legal counsel have assured me of that,  probably wont get anything but a big legal bill and the closure of the site,  but I will make it happen.

Go get em Oli.  They have picture and pedigree of my dog there too which has only ever been posted to this site.

WoW .. my Alf von der Karl-May Höhle is listed there. Alf was stolen July 2002. Ear Tat RB0194 if anyone knows of his where abouts, I'd be very glad to find him again. I never posted a picture of him on this website ... that website looks to have a picture of him but my puter just has a image x ... darn it. Ya Oli, I'd be going after that site too.

I guess since the information is freely available I do not perceive it as stolen. This is an open database that people have freely put  up information KNOWING it will be available to all on the web. Just saying if  I was on the jury I would not be sympathetic to such a claim. Even you said above " I probably wouldnt have done anything if had just been the pedigrees, those are open for all (at least as long as the dog is registered with..) "  He has not taken your style or formats AND  there are significant differences in the data between the sites. Granted individual photos may be a different issue but as I said if the copyright does not lie with you how can you enforce it? Plus if they are also available on a users home page and not protected there by copyright how does one not know whether they were mined from there and not the PDB?

I do believe in the U.S. re the compilation of public data (and info entered on an open site can be construed as public) the data is not protected tho the style and format may be (see phone book cases and private databases of U.S. public records WHICH ARE SOLD to the business and legal communities. Some of those databases where created by using robots and miners to harvest public data off the web)

A question if I may. You said  "Yeah i did open up schafer.is in 97,  but I didn't really open it up as a social entity until in 2001,  until then it was just me importing pictures and inserting pedigree data.  :)"  Where were you importing photos from and where do those copyrights lie? Perhaps for those items if you are the owner there would be an issue , IF there is no other source they could have been obtained from by gsddata.

Mercedes Benz  is a different scenario - not copyright. That is a trade name and trade logo - very different. The analogy there would be someone trying to use the Pedigreedatabase name and logo.

If what you say is true "Though data is freely available doesn't mean its freely usable by any.  BIG distinction in law there.  And as soon as you try to make money on the stolen information/copyright your a sitting target in regards to the law" it may still be a moot point since he/she has been offering free access to the site.

As I said I use both databases - for different purposes. I feel it would be a shame to destroy gsddata.com as it offers information formatted in a way not available here or anywhere else.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.

ps.  forgot one thing.   

In regards to the phonebook analogy.  It all depends on the disclaimer and copyright terms.

Phonebook data is open,  Wikipedia is open,  Code on sourceforge.net is open,.  and they all **state** the fact.

Technical knowledgebase on microsoft.com is not.,  (even though its open).   A small novella (even though distriuted in print freely) is copyrighted unless otherwise noted.  Open news articles on nytimes.com are copyrighted (even though open,)  same with free distributed newspapers.

and..........    the data on pedigreedatabase.com  

Your points and opinion VKFGSD are widely believed and I understand where they come from.  But I have read up and aquired counsel of how these things work legally.

as soon as gsddata.com tried to make money (ads, paid subscription to get the data, etc...)  they where as good as dead.

That said,  My main goal will be now to have gsddata.com remove and delete beyond retrieval all images gotten from pedigreedatabase.com..   

If they won't do that,  I'll take the whole procedure to legal steps and get the whole site shut down, which will happen. 

Oli I think ya scared the webmaster because now you cant view the pedigree let a loan the Bloodlines linebreeding and the results.

Oh and on my dogs page, they removed the HD and ED. it was there before.

But wait - you have ads - what's the difference????

PS  The reason I raise the phone book cases is because unfortunately I am old enough to remember when we only had ONE phone book in this country AND remember when it was litigated. ATT did claim copyright and had posted copyright notices - to no avail. You can not copy style and format (that is what makes a compilation unique) but you can copy data.