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Message: In Reply to: David posted by Jumpher on May 20, 1998 at 19:01:42: I am amazed and baffled over the whole response to this issue by the users of this forum. I rarely post on any Internet message board, but I feel compelled to add my personal perspective on this. Nearly every post in the forum attacks Pawprint for defending their ownership of the passages in question. Some even go so far as to suggest that they should EXPECT their writing to be copied if they post it on the Web. How truly absurd! Following this logic, I shouldn't own a car unless I WANT it to be stolen, shouldn't leave my home unless I WANT to be mugged, and shouldn't be born unless I WANT to be murdered. Many posts attack Pawprint for the way they are handling this matter. Yet, Pawprint sent the messages to Terry through private email. Terry apparently then posted them here. He is the one who has made this a public matter, not Pawprint. At least, he has not rebutted this statement by Pawprint. If the two emails from Pawprint which started this whole debate were intended to be public, I would agree that Pawprint handled this in a bad, inappropriate way. Since that does not appear to be the case, there is nothing...repeat, NOTHING...wrong with the messages. They are to-the-point, address the problem and present a resolution to fix the concern. Frankly, the emails are EXACTLY what they should be. A couple posts state that they have printed pages from the Pawprint web site for personal use and compare that to what has been done here. It is NOT the same. Although any unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted material is illegal, doing so for your own use is a non-issue. However, doing it and then posting it in a public way is completely different. I'm sure many of you have videotaped television shows to watch later. That is a copyright infringement, but does anyone care? Not really. However, if you videotaped a show and then broadcast it on the tv station you owned, it would be completely different. THAT is what has occurred here. The material was copied from the Pawprint web site, not to refer to later but to post elsewhere. Not only is this illegal, it is simply unethical and rude. You don't even need to know the laws about this, just common politeness would say you should get permission first. If basic etiquitte had been followed, this whole thing would have been avoided. Yet, somehow, Terry and the users of this message board fell they are the victims and that Pawprint is only interested in making money. How defenseive is THAT? What has happened to any of you? Who had their copyrighted material used without permission or acknowledgement? Myself, I have spent many hours taking to Pawprint on the phone, once in a panic over one of my sugar gliders. They have always been helpful, patient, and certainly seemed to want to do everything they could to help me and my pets. I might add that never once did they try to sell me anything. If you've been to their web site, it is obvious they care about what they do, want to help others with their pets and seem (to me) to have a high standard of ethics which they act by. I am sure this standard of ethics is at the root of their response to this matter - after all, it is THEIR material that someone else used without permission! Not the same advice, not the same ideas about care, but long passages of writing taken word for word from their web site. You make think they should share this freely, but they have no responsiblity to do so and none of you know what they would have said if they were asked first. Maybe I am the only person who ever comes to this message board who feels this way. It would appear so. Instead of defending yourselves individually (as if any of you've been accused of anything), maybe you should take a moment to see this through the eyes of Pawprint. Hopefully, Terry will just do what he needs to and this matter will be done with, but I do hope that some of what I've said is thought about. By the way, before it is EVEN suggested (which I'm sure it will be), I do not work for Pawprint and they did not ask me to post this.
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