Jon,
I am contacting you in response to your recent post to the CR List regardin g VeloBase.com. As a direct result of said posting, I took the opportunity to visit your website for the very first time, and in the course of so doi ng, availed myself of the opportunity to glance at those digital images of catalogs and other literature which you have available for public viewing. It was at that point in time I was confronted with the ugly fact that seve ral of said catalogs, brochures, and posters were exact copies of ones whic h I have either personally digitized from my own collection and posted to W oolJersey or which appeared within copyrighted auction listings for materia l which I have sold on eBay. Sadly, I also happen to recognize more than a few other digital representations of literature which were procured specif ically from various other websites including EquusBicycle.com and several W oolJersey albums that are maintained by other CR List members. And while I cannot, nor would I presume to, speak for those other individuals whose ef forts and images are being re-used on your VeloBase.com website, I can assu re you that never once to my knowledge was my own permission sought, and in any case it was absolutely NEVER given, that those images and copyrighted materials I generated be re-used by VeloBase.com. Therefore, I hereby quit e publicly ask that you immediately cease and desist all display, dissemina tion, and re-publication of said materials and purge same from your website and its archives or otherwise face legal action instigated on my behalf to accomplish same in defense of my copyrights and those of others whose legi timate permissions for exclusive internet republication I obtained.
I do not know the particulars of that process whereby individuals might sub mit to VeloBase.com materials for use on said site, although I would like t o think that Jon Fischer and/or one of his designates would make at least a reasonable effort to vet said submissions so as to determine that they mig ht be used with permission of either the legitimate copyright holders and/o r those who took the time and effort to originally digitize such literature . I can state that in my own circumstance, I have taken the time to do exa ctly that and that I have on file the express, written letters of consent f rom the appropriate authorities. In fact, it is often the very time consum ing and thankless process of securing proper legal permission for internet republication that has slowed the already tedious process of digitizing the literally thousands of vintage cycling catalogs, brochures, posters, adver tising materials, technical publications, service manuals, and the like I h ad thought to eventually have posted out to WoolJersey so that other partie s might make legitimate personal use of same in due course of pursuing thei r individual passions and projects.
I will be quite honest in telling all of you out there on the CR List who m ight read this rather somber missive and whom I generally believe to be ups tanding individuals who have much to contribute in your own right toward he lping fellow cycling enthusiasts, if those who would purport to support our vintage cycling community either cannot or will not perform proper due dil igence with respect to submissions they might receive from others or which they obtain on their own so as to subsequently promote either explicitly or through complicity of inaction the illegitimate replication without accred itation and/or wanton plagiarization of materials generated by other partie s, profiteering in the process through increased website traffic by having effectively represented these as being their own, there is little or NO inc entive for persons such as myself who attempt to offer what assistance they might gratis to the masses by virtue of open internet access.
As a direct consequence of this unfortunate situation, it is with great sad ness and more than a few reservations that I have seen fit to immediately p lace all of that material which I had previously posted to WoolJersey for t he benefit of our greater vintage cycling community into a password protect ed mode - effectively rendering it private domain once again. Moreover, I am suspending all efforts on my part to further that online resource by no longer working toward digitizing all of that bountiful resource of other ma terial which I have on hand - possibly even going so far as to consider sca ttering it all to the four corners of the world by dumping it en masse on e Bay. Only at such time as illegal copies of digital materials have been re moved from VeloBase.com and a public apology for their (...hopefully uninte nded) replication is offered in this very forum as well as the main web pag e of VeloBase.com itself, will I once again allow unfettered access to that library of materials which has been posted to WoolJersey, resume my effort s toward growing the contents of same, and as before, ask that fellow enthu siasts and CR List members be mindful of employing their likeliness ONLY fo r personal use.
Robert Broderick Sioux Falls, SD - United States
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-> From: cuda2k@hotmail.com> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> Date: Mon,
18 Feb 2008 11:13:51 -0600> Subject: [CR]VeloBase.com February Update> > >
VeloBase.com February Semi-Monthly Update! (Classic Rendezvous Preview, th
e> email to velobase users won't be going out till Tuesday most likely)Firs
t > major update announcement of the new year. If you have been keeping tra
ck o> f the announcements on the website some of this will likely look fami
liar. > First for a couple of stats. Velobase.com now has over 350 users, a
nd over > 1550 bicycle components in the database. Beyond that there are no
w almost 1> 50 head badges, 90 vintage tools, 40+ frame parts, and 67 catal
og scans. Th> e site has been receiving somewhere between 1400 and 2000 pag
e views from s> omewhere around 200+ individuals per day. This is in no sma
ll part thanks t> o the contributions of many of those 350 members. Some of
the most recent a> dditions to the Component Database include Weinmann 610
single pivot brakes> , Ideale 41 Sports saddle, Stronglight Model 57 Piste
crank set and a First> Gen. Shimano Dura-Ace (Black version) shifters (and
other parts). Some of > the newest head badges include J.R.J. (early name
for Bob Jackson built fra> mes), a Bridgestone Grand-Velo head badge and a
JOCO brand (Dutch) badge. N> ew frame part additions include a bottom brack
et and fork crown from Georg > Fischer and other parts from Campagnolo, Col
umbus and Reynolds.In addition > to many new items in the databases, there
have been a lot of new features, > pages, and elements to the website that
I have been busy working on over th> e last couple of months. Some improve
navigation around the website, others> improve or increase the search funct
ions, while others are an addition to > the add / edit screens. Below is a
list of the more major additions to the > website since the last major upda
te. There are many other more minor change> s that can be reviewed in the N
ews & Announcements section of the site.1) T> he second page of the Standar
d Search is finally completed! Yes, the site h> as been up for over six mon
ths and the second half of one of the primary fo> rms of search was never c
ompleted. I knew that this hadn't been finished, b> ut just never really go
t around to finishing it, instead working on other p> rojects around the we
bsite. One reason was I thought that very few people w> ere using the stand
ard search. However I was informed by a number of users > this was not the
case when I tried to remove it from the left side navigati> on. This prompt
ed me to not only putting it back in the search list, but fi> nishing the s
econd page's operation. Another case of user's input helping s> hape the de
velopment of the website.2) The new Year Range fields have been > added to
the Component Database. These fields have allowed me to add a Year> s Produ
ced to the Quick Search screen. These Year Range fields have input f> ilter
s that prevent any character other than a number put into the exact ye> ar
section. A little touch to make things easier for users. Right now the Y> e
ar Range Search will only work if you select one decade, but I will hopefu>
lly have this error fixed later this week. I also went through every one o
f> the existing components and updated it to convert the old year informati
on> to the new format. There are still lots of components that never had a
yea> r range value, which is one area that I could really use some help in
over > the next couple of months.3) Auto Complete drop downs for the Name,
Group a> nd new Model search text fields on the Quick Search page. Start ty
ping in t> he brand name, group name, or model name that you are searching
for and a l> ist of valid values in the system appear that you can choose f
rom (or just > continue typing in exactly the search phrase you want). Addi
tionally I have> made it where you can search for multiple groups or model
numbers by separ> ating the values by ';'.4) Most Wanted Updates List. Just
like the name sug> gests, there are a lot of updates and missing data in t
he Velobase.com data> base and here is a place to see what needs what infor
mation added. If you w> ant to help improve the information on VeloBase.com
, this is a very good pl> ace to start. You can filter what information, wh
at categories, etc etc you> want to see the list for. By default it shows t
he top 25 components that a> re missing Date Range or Flagged for Incorrect
Information. See the list he> re: http://velobase.com/
aspx5) Component Search options> have been collected and put in a Menu on t
he left hand side navigation mas> t. Instead of each type of search listed,
they are all under "Component Sea> rch" which shows each option when you h
over over. This puts more of the fea> tures of VeloBase.com on the screen i
n that left hand navigation area. I fe> lt that many of the features of the
site were not getting noticed by visito> rs because the links to them were
not visible on the screen unless you real> ly scrolled down quite a ways.
This fixes that problem, to an extent. Likew> ise, I have gathered all of t
he options that were across the top of the Vie> w Single Component page (Ed
it, Photo Manager, Add Variation, etc) and put i> t under a drop down menu
to reduce the clutter at the top of that page.6) R> SS Feeds. There are cur
rently 4 RSS Feeds for Velobase.com. Recent Componen> ts, Recent Head Badge
s & Frame Parts, If you're a techie and knows what RSS> is, you'll know wha
t this is about. Else, check out the link on this page > for the wiki info
on this technology. http://velobase.com/
gs that I have planned or bugs that need to be fixed. I am > currently goin
g through some minor surgery to remove some moles as a preven> tive measure
to prevent a recurrence of skin cancer which is cutting into n> ot only my
cycling time, but also the time I have to work on the website. I> 've noti
ced some issues with adding / editing year information for Componen> ts, an
d that the Quick Search year check boxes will cause an error if you s> elec
t more than one of them. Both of these issues should hopefully be fixed> in
the near future. As always I am open to user suggestions, feedback and > i
deas. If you have any questions or problems with the site, feel free to co>
ntact me through the velobase email address or my CR List email.> Jon Fisc
her> Dallas, TXVeloBase.com > > > > > -------------------------------------
--------------------------------------> -------------------> The Greatest T
rophy of all is the sense of Accomplishment http://velobase.c> om | http://
thecuda.com > > > > --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---> multi
part/alternative> text/plain (text body -- kept)> text/html> ---> _________
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