I have to agree with Jim Gilley to a certain degree, I am beginning to tire of the copyright debate. ( not only that, the guy has the same first name as I do, and it is a little unnerving knowing you guys are very mad with "Rick" :-)) I still stand by what I said earlier though, "I will not tolerate in any way, use of my images without my permission".
However, here is some more food for thought, then I shall retire from the copyright issue. Mr. Gardner has done an injustice and he has broken the law. His admittance to retrieving images from other sources without expressed consent, has implicated him, he is guilty. However, I am going to fall a little short of prosecuting him at this stage for two reasons. One, he doesn't have any of my images, two, I am not convinced he realized what he was doing was illegal, even though legally, ignorance of the law is not an excuse, I think we should at least give him a few days to think what has transpired over the last 24 hours. This has all gained steam pretty rapidly. One other thing that has happened, a few of us are implying that we know exactly what he was thinking, and his exact motives. Unfortunately people, as much as you would like to fry the poor guy on this stuff, we really don't know for sure. He made the mistake of not only implicating himself, but he acted irresponsibly in replying to "our" simple requests, now everyone believes he is an asshole, moron, screwup, whatever, and everyone is out to string him up, but there is no way to know his exact intentions. If you can't tell from above, I am a little confused as to exactly what should happen next. And herein lies the problem. Mr. Gardner has, by the law, stolen from many photographers. As I said before, there is no question of his guilt, this is not an issue. Unfortunately, the images he has stolen and altered, are not of the quality that he could gain anything with. Hate to say it, the scans at the size we have on the SPORRS website, and on Mr. Gardner's are crap. He can do nothing with them for all intents and purposes, but display them on a web site. It would take a file many times the size these files are to be gainful for him. I agree we have to do what we can to stop him, if nothing else, for the principal of the matter. But as Jim has said, I have to believe the lawyers are going to laugh in our faces. Maybe he gets a fine, maybe not. He most probably won't spend anytime in jail, and all he has to do is remove the images from his website. One last problem, even though it affects the principals I believe in, and to clarify my point one more time, I own my pictures, and it is for me to decide how they are used, I personally don't have a case against him. With the exception of a very few, most of our group hasn't got a claim either. And those that do, aren't likely to fork out big bucks for the settlement they are probably going to receive. So lets be realistic here, what exactly are "we" going to do? Don't know for sure, but I have a suggestion. Lets give the guy a chance to be honorable, and remove the pictures that he has stolen. This will give us some time to formulate a plan as to what kind of action we can take, if there is anything we can do about it. I have strong beliefs, but a forgiving heart (for a short while). Lets just see what transpires, then those of you with the matches and wood can burn him at the stake. Rick Newton -> SPORRS: Serious Photographers of Railroad Related Subjects -> Web Site: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs
