[thelist] ie6 smart tags Long reply..

[the head lemur]

> If you don't want your images stolen, don't put them on the web.
<snip>
"Mike, If you want to keep your material virginal,
DO NOT PUT IT ON A WEBSITE!!
You will see this Material Again----Make a Note of it!"
</snip>
 Source: Piracy and the Internet - the head lemur
[Posted] June 08, 2000
http://www.lemurzone.com/edit/converse26.htm

Karma whore?

As a web designer/developer/network engineer/pundit/lunatic and now Karma
whore, having been surfing since 1994 with mosaic, when you needed a email
program, newsreader, lynx and the Trumpet dialer program to make
connections, to do all of the things a lot of us take for granted with the
new browsers, we sometimes forget that a lot of folks are just joining us.

Now that we have that out of the way, let's move along.

I have received more email on that page than anything I have ever done. From
"atta boy" to "()&(^%". The page in question is on my personal site.
http://www.lemurzone.com/ie6.htm

The original point of the IE6 page was to raise consciousness regarding the
evil of smart tags. Since the current reports from MS are 'smart tag'
technology  will not be in the browser, the page is Almost pointless.
(I have removed the JavaScript sniffer as I don't do it very well nor as a
general rule do I design with it. Besides. I made my point.)]

In answer to the original poster, my statement is:

"We have disabled the Image Tool bar feature to prevent the theft of our
images which are protected by copyright in over 180 countries worldwide.

They are not your images they are mine.

They are posted for enjoyment, not to be stolen wholesale as the Image Tool
Bar would lead you to believe is okay. It is not."

This "feature" IS in the shipping version.

I personally have had images, code and entire sites stolen and passed off as
someone else's work. I am not alone here, the evolt archives, the HWG
archives, and just about every other maillist archive has the same tales of
woe.

I now only do work for hire under contract, just to eliminate surfing the
web using the Alta Vista link:filename search and starting another round of
emails, phone calls and threatening letters to folks who are not bright
enough to use the idea and write their own code or at least rename the
images.

The primary reason is that my clients have made an investment in me, as a
professional. Being a professional in web design is far more than getting
stuff to show up in a browser, the odd search engine placement, and putting
up a site saying that you are.

As an earlier poster said, he had to show his relative that it was possible.
We all have downloaded code, images, and pieces. That is how I learned, that
is how you learned.  The majority of us already know about right click, save
as, rooting around the cache, using site rippers and other methods of
'borrowing' things.

Everything you see on the web belongs to someone. It is covered under the
Copyright laws of the country in which you live. Everything. It all is
copyright the creator unless you have sold, assigned, or place it in the
Public Domain.

It doesn't matter if it is a picture of my dog, your 12 hours of work in
photoshop, or a International Brand Name Logo. It belongs to someone else
unless it is yours.

As soon as it is posted and someone looks at a page the copying begins. From
the cache to site rippers. The browsers have given us this ability.


Because this ability is there, should we use it?  This freedom we are
currently enjoying has a responsibility side to it. Even in the most liberal
democratic societies, limits in the form of responsibility are drawn to
enable the largest amount of freedom with the minimum amount of
interference.

I make my living on the web. I do not it to be regulated, censored, taxed,
or turned into a cash cow for a few companies who would control what we see,
what we will be allowed to do, or be legislated out of existence because
someone with a very narrow world view doesn't think that I should see that.

You are reading this because a group of folks marked out a series of
protocols to enable this communication to take place. We have agreed to play
by these rules. You are reading this because this is sent from my machine to
your machine using a common set of rules. You have accepted this by being a
member of evolt. My freedom comes in the contents that I type. You can
agree, disagree, delete, mail me back, mail the list. That is where my
freedom ends and yours begins.

The nature of the code and the simplicity of using them along with the free
and in relationship to any other form of communication, very cheap tools has
made the internet the thing that it is.

The web has been called a publishing medium. A lot of the words we use
regarding the process from Ideas to Posting on a server come from the
publishing world.  It is much more, but it is regarded as a publishing
medium so that the laws that were written to cover thing like books,
records, videos are being bent out of shape to try and cover this web thing.

Copyright, Trademark, Fair Use, Infringement, Plagiarism and Libel.

There are courts around the world whose calendars are filled with lawsuits
on these issues. A large portion of the traffic on this list is concerned
with the mechanics of web page design, both front end and the incredible
capabilities backend and serverside. This is not a criticism, it is an
observation.

There are much larger issues that need examination and vigilance. Any
attempt to change the rules to censor, or to create an atmosphere of Fear
Uncertainty or Doubt must be turned back. If you attempt to ignore these
issues, someone else will not.

I look on the web as the greatest accomplishment of the human race. I see
the global village and the ability for everyone to share what they will, as
well as the ability to offer us products and services. These are not
mutually exclusive goals.

Does a 14 year old girl deserve to be harrassed by a company who uses the
same word in their product that she uses to post information about animals?

Do legislators who do not represent you or understand the internet get to
tell you what you can do or see on your machine at your house?

Do companies have the right to track you across the web and sell your
personal information to anyone with a checkbook?

Do foreign nationals giving technical lectures deserve to be arrested and
incarcerated for speaking about encryption?

Do university professors following the rules of a companies challenge
deserve to be sued for wanting to publish their research?

These are happening now.

Image theft may be small potatoes to you, but where will you draw the line.

When you find yourself needing a lawyer to defend you in a copyright
infringment suit, a trademark dispute, when you find someone has stolen your
work and passed off as theirs, when your domain name is taken by some
company who wants it for themselves, when you have to send your material to
a political commissar before you can post?

Or will you decide that it is too much work and unplug yourself?

the head lemur
Web Standards
http://www.webstandards.org
Evolt
http://www.evolt.org
lemurzone
http://www.lemurzone.com