Shop Made Tools threads being used by other sites

[George Bulliss]

For those that missed my rant last week in the “Shop Made Tools” thread, I’ll give a brief recap.

I had three members contact me, upset that a site (HomeMadeTools.net) was pulling their material and displaying it on their site without permission. The site had links to a for-profit site, Hotrodders.com and the members were unsure as to what their posts were going to be used for.

I have since been in touch with the owner and here is what I know about the situation: HomeMadeTools is intended to serve as an index of home built tools across the net. The owner claims that there is no commercial intent. The owner remains the administrator on Hotrodder.com, but no longer owns it.

As I had mentioned in my original post/rant, Village Press has no say in the second use of our member’s material and we don’t plan to do anything about this. I’ve contacted the owner only to help out members that may not want their material used. It’s your material to do with as you wish.

Should you not want your material displayed on www.homemadetools.net, contact me via a PM or email (gbulliss[at]villagepress[dot]com) and I’ll pass his email address on to you. He has stated that if you want him to remove your material, he will be happy to do so.

[oldtiffie]

That was well handled George, but in many cases once an item is "on the net" it could be read or ignored on the one hand or be used for what-ever purpose by others - or it could go "viral" - and provided it was not re-posted who would know?.

If anyone was going to use a post/pic for personal gain there seems to be little or nothing that can be done about it without some cost.

Nobody would ever know if any items were "lifted" from here - either in posts generally or the "Shop Made Tools" thread directly - at:

http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/threads/39202-Shop-Made-Tools

To some extent it is a risk that exhibitors take when they display a model etc. at a "show". Who is to know what a photographer is going to use the pics for? And how do you stop it - or can you? Some get it easier by using pics of a "show" posted on a "Show" web site?

And who here has taken pics of other peoples work for their own personal or "for gain" use? And who has not?

[RussZHC]

IMO: George, whatever that was it was pretty far from a rant...concern, well reasoned thought, clarity of situation defined are usually not involved with a rant

[Dr Stan]

I have yet to post to the shop made tools, but probably will at some point. I can certainly see how the OP's would be highly upset about their intellectual property being poached. In academia it is called plagiarism, a.k.a. theft.

George you did the right thing and if you catch anyone else poaching they should be held accountable. I do have one difference of opinion. The OP should not have to tell the poacher to remove his/her material. Instead a site like Home Made Tools should be required to request permission from the OP.

Just my $0.02 worth.

[danlb]

Just my personal opinion:

I post to a forum to share information and viewpoints. I do not to it to enrich the forum. If someone takes my post and provides wider circulation there is no harm as I am not seeking benefit from the post in the first place. Increasing the number of viewers would seem to be a good thing. I view my intentional posts to a forum as donations to the public discourse.

OTOH, I do like this forum, and would not like to see it wither because someone is siphoning off viewers.

It looks like none of my shop made tool posts made it to homemadetools.net. I guess it is a moot point for me. haha

Dan

[oldtiffie]

Nice sentiments Stan.

But how could "accountabilty" be enforced and if it can are the expenses, inconvenience and possible legal costs worth it?

Instead a site like Home Made Tools should be required to request permission from the OP.

How would you make that stick?

Some items here go pretty close to the wind as regards plagiarism - and if academia has lots of costs in even getting some - and certainly not all of it - how would the author or agent detect and take action against it here?

I think that in reality we just have to in large part just accept things as they are on the web and get on with life.

As I see it, in case of a pic that was copied from "Shop Made Tools" (here) to another site and given that as I understand it, ownership/copy right is vested in the creator of the original work/pic and that George/VP is only providing a platform for showing it here that the issue really is between the originator and who-ever copied it either for their own use or to another site. In short it is the responsibilty of the"owner" to take issue with the "offender".

My guess is that most here appreciate the risks and post anyway.

[Dr Stan]

how could "accountabilty" be enforced and if it can are the expenses, inconvenience and possible legal costs worth it?

That's the tough part. When I've had manuscripts published by peer reviewed journals I had to assign the copyright to the publisher. They were then on the hook for any and all costs arising from legal issues, including plagiarism.

Now back to reality. Would VP be willing and able economically to take on this role? I seriously doubt it and I certainly wouldn't expect VP to jeopardize its profits and possibly its working capital to take on a plagiarizer as most if not all of us understand just how expensive a court fight can become.

Probably the most that can be done is to:

1) restrict the Shop Made Tools sub-forum to registered members

2) Post in BIG RED LETTERS Thou Shalt Not Steal This Content

and

3) ban anyone who violates this rule

Again, just my $0.02 worth.

[John Stevenson]

At least he has assigned the articles to the original owners unlike some blogs / web sites that trawl round, post what they can and offer no accreditation at all, even hinting it's their own work.

[sasquatch]

I,m not sure what to think of this situation, i have been through part of the Homemade Tools site, and noticed quite a few names on each project posted there.

[oldtiffie]

And as it is the originator of the "work" that holds copy-right - unless it has been assigned previously - it would or may be encumbent on the "originator" to prove that it is in fact an/his original work and is not in part or in total a work that has been done by others. If he did not it may turn out that he is in breech of copy-right of another - even if unknowingly and unwittingly. And how might he find out?

Some things are best left alone.

[Harvey Melvin Richards]

I have several tools on the site and one that's been credited to me, but wasn't made by me. I don't mind the posting of my work. I originally posted it here so that others would be inspired by it. None of my tools are worthy of any sort of patent protection.

I like that this new site has made it easy to search for work by a specific individuals name. Some toolmakers have their own sites like Frank Ford, others like me, just throw their work onto a few forums.

[J Tiers]

Copyright no longer means much...... outside the US, at least.....

If you do not like the "lifting", you are free to go to your original picture source (you DO link from "the bucket" or other host, and do not embed*, right?) and replace them with a "homemadetools,net stole this posting" notice.

Otherwise, let it be. Basically you released it into the wild by posting it here.

* I don't know if embedding is possible here, I would never do it. It is possible elsewhere.

[wierdscience]

The stuff I post here is free for anybody to use since it was posted to be a benifit to someone in need.

That said there is a lot of stuff that I wish I could post but won't because I know my compitition might be watching.

It's the Internet folks,think before you unzip your fly

[Evan]

You can threaten to have the site taken off Google if you find your content on the site without permission. All you have to do is file a takedown notice and the site in question has a short time to either defend the appearance of the material or take it off line. While the forum owner is not responsible or liable for infringing posts made by forum users they are required to respond to a takedown notice. That is Google policy and is based on US law.

http://support.google.com/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1114905&page=ts.cs

What Weird said: You are free to use my posted material. I ask that you credit me if you do use it in public.

[Evan]

I don't know if embedding is possible here, I would never do it. It is possible elsewhere.

Otherwise known as "hot-linking". It is possible although a lot of sites will detect it and not allow it to work. Hot linking to other content is about as stupid as it gets. It isn't the same as stealing the content since it also steals the bandwidth of the content server. That I do enforce by scanning my server logs from time to time. I will replace the image with a warning and leave that up for a few weeks. If they don't take action then I replace it with something a little bit less friendly to remind them how foolish it is.