ELL: ELs and copyright

[Doug Marmion]

Dave and Nick,

Have you tried contacting his ISP and complaining to them? What was
their response? Hopefully any ISP would be concerned about a having a
site that breaches copyright laws (though I note that he's removed
the material).

-Doug




>Dear EL list members
>
>This is to inform you of an issue that concerns the representation
>of endangered languages on the web. We are linguists working with
>Australian and Pacific languages who have also constructed websites
>providing authoritative information about those languages.
>
>A website based in Holland and calling itself a work of art has
>appropriated images and text from our sites without reference and
>without linking to our sites. It has introduced inaccuracies in the
>process. We requested that the author of the site remove images that
>he had no right to use and that he link to the sources so that
>information could be properly verified by users of the WWW.
>
>Of particular concern is his cavalier use of images of indigenous
>people taken from the website of FATSIL, the national body
>supporting Australian indigenous languages.
>
>He ignored our repeated requests, and then recently has closed down
>the Australian section of his site, making fairly outrageous
>statements linking our requests with the Australian government's
>appalling policy on asylum seekers.
>
>We support the free interchange of information, as long as it is
>properly referenced and its sources are acknowledged. There are
>particular sensitivities in the misappropriation of images of
>indigenous people whose confidence in us allowed us to make this
>information available.
>
>Our work is covered by copyright and moral rights legislation in
>various  jurisdictions. If we, collectively, are to have confidence
>in web publishing of information then we also need to be sure that
>(1) the information we produce will not be misappropriated (2) when
>we read information on the web we know whose sites are accurate and
>provide links to them.
>
>The site ('Small house of  languages') is not an authoritative site
>on ELs and the way it is constructed is not helpful to the broader
>aim of supporting indigenous people and small languages.
>
>
>Dave Nathan & Nick Thieberger
>--
>
>
>Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
>University of Melbourne
>
>http://www.linguistics.unimelb.edu.au/people/postgrads/thieberger/ntcv.html
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--
____________________________________________
Doug Marmion
Linguistics Department
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200 Australia
Ph: 02 6125 4457
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