…just to be snarky…

…don’t ask how or why I came to notice the copyright statement listed above–I honestly can’t remember. I can tell you that the site is a favorite of mine to visit from time to time…

So, why am I calling your attention to this notice? To be a smart-ass, mainly–and to express why I think such a statement is, well, a little ridiculous.

The site is–for the most part–an archive of information that was created for the purposes of sharing information (unless I am being extremely obtuse); furthermore, the grandest portion of the information that I have seen posted to the site is either factual–thus negating copyright–or already in the public domain, where copyright does not apply. Don’t believe my statement on factual information losing copyright?

Am I going to challenge Mr. Naff’s declaration of copyright by tossing all of his files up on another server? No, of course not–doing so would be a “true” copyright violation (which is what I think he was trying to convey–exact duplication/distribution without permission); but his statement–as it is currently written–tries to claim that if I wanted to include a quote of anything published on that server I’d be in violation of copyright law.

Um… No…

…as for this post…

Have I violated copyright by copying his copyright statement? Neah…

Though I did not get express written consent to capture an image of his copyright statement, I am protected under “fair-use” doctrine; this post is being written as a personal commentary for the express use of educating the public and is being published on a site which does not generate any profit…

…I could always go further and write something like:

The content of kg4vma.dyndns.org, kg4vma.wordpress.com, & kg4vma.livejournal.com has been written, compiled, transcribed, abstracted, extracted and/or edited by Jeremiah Palmer, except for content which has been submitted for use at the site by unpaid volunteer contributors or where otherwise noted, and he maintains all rights in these web pages as defined by the copyright laws of the United States of America.  No content of this website may be used at or viewed through any other website without the express written consent of Jeremiah Palmer. Persons violating this statement of copyright will lose all access to teh interwebs–which is like a series of tubes–and further agree to have sheep thrown at them; additionally, persons found in violation of this statement no longer can has cheezburgers.

…if I wrote something like that, I would then have grounds to argue that I would be covered under “fair-use” by means of parody.

I respect Mr. Naff’s desire to say, “Hey, I put a lot of time and effort into this–I want you to ask me before doing anything with it!”; trolling through the pages of information shows a man that put in countless hours of work–transcribing text of books; there’s dedication! But to try and put such a grip on all the material… Why bother publishing it? It’s like opening up a soup stand, and then screaming, “No soup for you!”

…c’mon, Mr. Naff…

Re-think your copyright statement–or at least make some clarification on which works are truly yours…

…or better yet, change the attitude of your site altogether, and declare the works as licensed under Creative Commons, which would be more aligned with what I perceive as your goal of sharing information–factual and historical information, at that!–with the world. (a creative commons license would also allow you have similar recourse–i.e. lawsuit–should anyone decide to profit from your work… go check out the different license types for details…)

…and, with regard to copyright, anyway….

Though the law is written so that *nearly* anything under copyright by its creator as soon as it exists, doesn’t one need to file with the Copyright Office in order to have a better leg to stand on?

…and–with specific regard to items on Naff’s site, like the Harrison Heritage News–certain items are “owned” by the person/organization that commissioned the work, not the persons that published or were otherwise involved in the authoring/editing/compiling/etc. of said work…

…hey, wait a minute…

…wouldn’t that negate an even larger portion of Mr. Naff’s claim to copyright? 😉

By the way, if the title of the post isn’t clue enough–I’m not being entirely serious with this post… Oh, and if anyone wants, feel free to copy this post, change it around, and profit to your heart’s content… but you may wanna get permission from Mr. Naff… 😉