alexis park inn and aviation videos

Executive summary: Jay, I think you're doing good stuff with the
aviation videos (and commentary on them), and I don't think you're
relentlessly promoting your business, but I'm a little surprised you
don't see how some things could be taken that way by some people.

"Jay Honeck" writes:

so it now is clear that the aviation content (and possible copyright
issues) are directly linked to Jay's *business*.

That's an interesting presumption. How is this video page linked to my
business, other than the fact that it's a page (out of a hundred other
pages) on our hotel's website? (And this is merely for convenience' sake,
as I don't have another place to put them.)

I believe you. And it makes perfectly good sense. And you think of
the hotel as being "yours" rather than you as belonging to the hotel
business, I imagine.

Still, finding the videos on the hotel website leads to linking them.

There seems to be a widespread impression that "businesses" are
souless corporate monsters. The fact that it's true too often may
contribute to the general impression.

We neither charge for nor sell any of the videos, we give proper
accreditation (when known), and I will remove any video upon request. We
also provide links to NTSB reports, eye-witness reports, and any other
pertinent details regarding the video.

No one has ever requested that any video be removed. In fact, in every case
when people have seen their videos on the site, they have enthusiastically
sent me MORE of their videos. They know that this is a page that is there
for the good of all pilots, and they understand -- as apparently you
don't -- the sacrifice it has taken to put that page together.

This is one of those issues where copyright law conflicts with the
public good. You're taking the slightly risky approach of making
useful/interesting stuff available that often wouldn't otherwise be
available, without always locating the copyright owners and getting
written permission first. Since very often it's hard or impossible to
find the copyright holders of stuff wandering the net, you're probably
making available some useful/interesting stuff that wouldn't be
available if you took the legally conservative approach. It's only
*slightly* risky because the vast majority of the time anybody with
rights who objected would try asking politely first, before resorting
to big (expensive) sticks like legal action. And your experience so
far has been that nobody with rights to material on your site has made
known that they were unhappy, and quite a few have shown that they
were pleased, so that's good.

In fact, if you factor in my time, I have spent many thousands of
dollars on that stupid page, simply because it's interesting to me,
and Jav has kindly donated the bandwidth so that all pilots and
aviation enthusiasts may enjoy and (hopefully) learn something. NO
ONE is making money on the deal, I assure you.

Still, people inclined to see the worst in anything relating to a
business can point to the fact that that page is content on the hotel
website, and will presumable draw traffic to the site and hence
assists in promoting your business.

Oh, and the company selling Jav the bandwidth is probably making money
on the deal :-).


Assuming Jay's engaging in spam and copyright violation (and that's far
from a foregone conclusion), how is that an on-topic post here?

I know you're not saying this, but I'm curious: How can *I* be engaged in
spam? It is Martin who brought up the topic.

Martin was commenting on email he received (see message
). The bits he quoted had the appearance
and style of spam. What he didn't show was where the email came from.
It's *also* of the format of email I'd send to a list of friends
telling them about something neat I'd found; in fact I learned this
morning that email I sent yesterday had landed in a friend's spam
folder, presumably because it had very much the format of spam. In
fact I was telling her that some 170 Ansel Adams pictures, outtakes
from a 1950s Fortuna magazine article, could be found on the Los
Angeles public library web site. But (see my remark earlier about
assuming the worst about business) he may well have assumed that the
original email started out with something you sent out. (Cue stupid
quote about "assume").
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/