When you create an original work, you will automatically have copyright
protection
provided that, at the time of creation, you were:=20
1.a Canadian citizen or British subject, or=20
2.a resident within Her Majesty's Realms and Territories, or=20
3.a citizen or subject of, or a person ordinarily resident
in,a Berne Copyright Convention country, or a Universal Copyright
Convention country, or a country that is a member of the WTO, or
4.a citizen or subject of any country to which the Minister
has extended protection by notice in the Canada Gazette.=20
You would also obtain automatic copyright if your work was first
published in one of the above countries, even if you were not a citizen or
subject of Canada, or of one of those countries.=20
In short, virtually everyone living in Canada can enjoy the
benefits of automatic copyright protection. In addition, Canadians are
protected in most foreign countries since most belong to one of two
international treaties the Berne Copyright Convention or the Universal
Copyright Convention, or are members of the World Trade Organization.
Citizens of member countries enjoy the benefits of Canadian copyright law,
and Canada also extends protection to certain non-member countries by way
of notice in the Canada Gazette. Sound recordings are not covered under
the copyright treaties, but Canada does extend protection for sound
recordings to citizens of member countries.
{end of quote}
another quote
You do not have to register your copyright to have protection in Canada,
<end of quote>
I have the rights, but it's not like I will spend the money to sue them,
all I want is for them to say they are sorry for illegally using my
material. they are now saying that they are doing it because they respect
my rights. No offense to anyone here, but screw that sh*t. I mean, they
are taking it off line just to save their buttts, we know it, they know
it, but they think I'm so stupid that I will take their "respect for your
rights" crap as an apology. Maybe I should just get the law service thing
from my university to write them a letter, just to make them sweat.
Anyways, here's the e-mails, published for all to see. yeah, it's not a
nice thing to do, but I couldn't careless.
From=20vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca Thu May 15 22:18:15 1997
Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 17:20:12 -0600 (MDT)
From: Vince Cheng <vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca>
To: admin@bike-link.com
Subject: MTB FAQ
Mind putting my name in the main page of the FAQ? The way you presented
it, people can make the mistake thinking that one of your gurus did the
big FAQ. Also, since the FAQ is copyrighted, I would have liked a notice
from you guys, as I have said in the FAQ. Another thing, since the FAQ is
updated often, I would appreciate it if you guys update the page every
month or just put up a link the the ohio-state FAQ site.
Vince
-- *************************************************************************** Vincent Cheng**2nd Year Mechanical Engineering Co-op**University of Alberta vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca http://gpu.srv.ualberta.ca/~vccheng/ Creative Web Catchers HTML Designer*http://www.cwc.cban.com Edmonton Bicycle Commuters Society*http://freenet.edmonton.ab.ca/ebc/ Columnist-Gearhead MTB e-zine*http://www.gearhead.com/ Columnist-Edmonton Oilers Hockey*http://www.ualberta.ca/~mkozak/oilers.htm ***************************************************************************From=20vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca Thu May 15 22:18:36 1997 Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 17:28:23 -0600 (MDT) From: Vince Cheng <vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> To: admin@bike-link.com Subject: one more thing
Since your site is a commercial site, I hope you understand the implications of using a copy righted doccument without the my consent. Do me a favour and put my name and e-mail address in=20 http://bike-link.com/faq/index.html and always use the most updated version. I'm not very pleased with what you guys have done.
vince
-- *************************************************************************** Vincent Cheng**2nd Year Mechanical Engineering Co-op**University of Alberta vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca http://gpu.srv.ualberta.ca/~vccheng/ Creative Web Catchers HTML Designer*http://www.cwc.cban.com Edmonton Bicycle Commuters Society*http://freenet.edmonton.ab.ca/ebc/ Columnist-Gearhead MTB e-zine*http://www.gearhead.com/ Columnist-Edmonton Oilers Hockey*http://www.ualberta.ca/~mkozak/oilers.htm ***************************************************************************From=20vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca Thu May 15 22:18:45 1997 Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 22:36:48 -0600 (MDT) From: Vince Cheng <vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> To: sales@bike-link.com Cc: tech@bike-link.com, guru@bike-link.com, admin@bike-link.com, admin1@homeurl.com Bcc: Kristan Roberge <kroberge@magi.com>, Michael John Kozak <mkozak@canadamail.com> Subject: www.bike-link.com
OK, after reviewing your webpage again and saw that nothing has been changed, I'm considering persuing to press legal actions against your company. I have e-mailed your admin@bike-link.com twice earlier this week and you guys have no response for me. So obviously, you guys are just ignoring the situation. Well, get this, copy righted material on the net is covered in the copyright laws in Canada. And seeing that you have changed the FAQ(section 1C) to suit your needs, I have even more reasons to get mad. 1)You guys used an old version of the FAQ, 2)You never mentioned that I was the author, except for the little thing you forgot to erase in the author page, 3)you have changed section 1C, which makes you guys the FAQ writer. I was not aware that you guys are the one who wrote the FAQ and will be posting in the newsgroups. 4)If you guys are so incompetent that you cannot create your own html doccuemnt and use=20 http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/bicycles-faq/=20 mountain-bikes/faq.html, at least use the correct version. How stupid do you have to be, mountain-bikes is not the right one, but mountain-bikes_ is. 5)I have sweated over this FAQ for a very long time, and let me tell you, this is not the way I want to be treated. 6)you guys are so incompetent in your HTML skills that you can't even created the whole doccument, you have to copy my webpage at http://www.ualberta.ca/~vccheng/faq.html 6) and I didn't know that the FAQ page is the official one, seeing that I'm the author and I have the official site, you don't. Your gurus know nothing, stop pretending that you guys do and stop using my name for making profit for yourself.
Here's what I want: 1)post an apology in your webpage 2)remove the FAQ completely from your page. i don't want to be associated with you people. 3)A cut of the profit of the last few months. the page was created on Feb 03, 97, so it has been a while. I can do this, remember, it is a copy righted doccument, you guys even forgot to take that out. The FAQ might have helped you guys to get some business, maybe to make you guys look somewhat knowlegable. It might have increasedyour sales, and I should be entitled to some part of that.
Like I said, I"m extremely disappointed with your company and your lack of response. If I don't get a response back from you soon, you will be talking to my lawyer.=20
Vince
-- *************************************************************************** Vincent Cheng**2nd Year Mechanical Engineering Co-op**University of Alberta vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca http://gpu.srv.ualberta.ca/~vccheng/ Creative Web Catchers HTML Designer*http://www.cwc.cban.com Edmonton Bicycle Commuters Society*http://freenet.edmonton.ab.ca/ebc/ Columnist-Gearhead MTB e-zine*http://www.gearhead.com/ Columnist-Edmonton Oilers Hockey*http://www.ualberta.ca/~mkozak/oilers.htm ***************************************************************************From=20tim@homeurl.com Thu May 15 22:18:56 1997 Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 02:04:12 -0400 From: Timothy Rosario <tim@homeurl.com> To: Vince Cheng <vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> Cc: Dima-Law@web-magic.com Subject: Re: www.bike-link.com
[The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly]
Vince,
First accept my apology,
When designing Bike-Link, we councled with a lot of bicycle websites, because this was our first Bike Shop we designed. Before we used anything that was not custom created by ourselves, we asked the website owners if we could use something we might have found on thier pages. In some cases we were not granted permission, and in some cases we were.=20 Obviously the things we were not, we did not use, and when we were, we did use, in exchange for links on the site for a month. There were not many things we've used from other sites.
I was not aware that the FAQ text was yours nor did I receive any emails from you in regards to this before. This is the first time I received it, and so I'm replying promply as required by US laws.
I will take off the FAQ, at your request. That is required by law when made aware of copyright infringement.
As for the lack of response, the owner of the web-site has taken a break from the site in frustration that his programmer has not yet completed the search script that was to be the focal point of the site. It's clear that the owner did not profit from the use of "your" information on the site, nor any other information. There's nothing to either attract buyers without that search engine. =20
So once again I will remove the FAQ at your request, however you should be aware that I'm only doing this out of respect. I say respect because a large portion of your FAQ is not protected under copyright as per the Canadian & US Laws. It clearly states in the URL you refered me to that protection of copywrite is invalid on articles of fact and articles that teach. 99% of your FAQ fall under these categories. Also you did not have a valid copyright signature. The same URL also indicates that unless you register your copyright, you must note your works with at least the c symbol followed by author. Your site does not have that nor does the FAQ on bike-link have it. It should look like:
=A9Minister of Supply and Services Canada 1994=20
You just had @copyright
As found on that URL you refered me to.
The only time a unknown author can claim rights to a copy write is if the article has been registered.=20
I'm very familiar with the US Copyright Laws and I am now familiar with the Canadian Laws as per your refference. And I thank you for the great refferral!=20
I'm not trying to say that I should be or should not be using your information, I'm just trying to inform you of what you need to protect your works. I got your stuff from a Bike Shop Online, not a newsgroup.=20 I will try to relocate what bike-shop it was so that you can tell them about it being your work.
Once again... I respect you as the person who wrote the document, and I was under the impression I was using it with permission, and I will remove it from the site.
Please accept this as a formal appology on behalf of the owners of Bike-Link.com
Now let me ask you this....
Would you be interested in me referencing your site for the FAQ pages?
In other words, in place of having the FAQ pages on the Bike-Link site, there would be a link to your FAQ page site.
If so, let me know so that when I take off your pages tomorrow I will either place a link there for your site, or just remove all reference to a FAQ totally. You never know... If there programmer ever gets that search engine working, it might make for a lot of hits for you.
Also just to show good faith, If you could use some free online advertising, I run a banner exchange program, and would be willing to offer you some free sponsorship advertising.
I do feel bad because I do try to respect other's people's works, as I hope people do mine. And being that there's a mis-understanding, I can make good for it somehow.
Let me know your thoughts concerning this matter.
Please also note a copy of this message has been sent along with a copy of your original message to my attorny's office VIA email with hard copies to follow.
Thank you for your understanding in this matter.
Tim Rosario From=20vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca Thu May 15 22:19:13 1997 Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 22:52:11 -0600 (MDT) From: Vince Cheng <vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> To: Timothy Rosario <tim@homeurl.com> Subject: Re: www.bike-link.com
On Thu, 15 May 1997, Timothy Rosario wrote:
> Are you online now??? >=20
yes
Vince
-- *************************************************************************** Vincent Cheng**2nd Year Mechanical Engineering Co-op**University of Alberta vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca http://gpu.srv.ualberta.ca/~vccheng/ Creative Web Catchers HTML Designer*http://www.cwc.cban.com Edmonton Bicycle Commuters Society*http://freenet.edmonton.ab.ca/ebc/ Columnist-Gearhead MTB e-zine*http://www.gearhead.com/ Columnist-Edmonton Oilers Hockey*http://www.ualberta.ca/~mkozak/oilers.htm ***************************************************************************From=20vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca Thu May 15 22:19:45 1997 Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 07:25:12 -0600 (MDT) From: Vince Cheng <vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> To: Timothy Rosario <tim@homeurl.com> Cc: Dima-Law@web-magic.com Subject: Re: www.bike-link.com
On Thu, 15 May 1997, Timothy Rosario wrote:
> I was not aware that the FAQ text was yours nor did I receive any emails > from you in regards to this before. This is the first time I received > it, and so I'm replying promply as required by US laws.
Explain to me why you changed the section in 1C, if you weren't aware that the FAQ is mine. I wrote my e-mail address and the URL on there. You guys completely changed it =20 > I'm not trying to say that I should be or should not be using your > information, I'm just trying to inform you of what you need to protect > your works. I got your stuff from a Bike Shop Online, not a newsgroup.= =20 > I will try to relocate what bike-shop it was so that you can tell them > about it being your work. >=20 > Once again... I respect you as the person who wrote the document, and I > was under the impression I was using it with permission, and I will > remove it from the site. >=20 > Please accept this as a formal appology on behalf of the owners of > Bike-Link.com
OK, that's acceptable. =20 > Now let me ask you this.... >=20 > Would you be interested in me referencing your site for the FAQ pages? >=20 > In other words, in place of having the FAQ pages on the Bike-Link site, > there would be a link to your FAQ page site.
no, I will not be interested. =20 > If so, let me know so that when I take off your pages tomorrow I will > either place a link there for your site, or just remove all reference to > a FAQ totally. You never know... If there programmer ever gets that > search engine working, it might make for a lot of hits for you.
Not a big deal, I don't make money off hits.
> Also just to show good faith, If you could use some free online > advertising, I run a banner exchange program, and would be willing to > offer you some free sponsorship advertising.
Good faith for what? I have no faith in your company, why would I put in an advertisment?
> Please also note a copy of this message has been sent along with a copy > of your original message to my attorny's office VIA email with hard > copies to follow.
yeah, I can see that and this message is going to dima-law as well.
-- *************************************************************************** Vincent Cheng**2nd Year Mechanical Engineering Co-op**University of Alberta vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca http://gpu.srv.ualberta.ca/~vccheng/ Creative Web Catchers HTML Designer*http://www.cwc.cban.com Edmonton Bicycle Commuters Society*http://freenet.edmonton.ab.ca/ebc/ Columnist-Gearhead MTB e-zine*http://www.gearhead.com/ Columnist-Edmonton Oilers Hockey*http://www.ualberta.ca/~mkozak/oilers.htm ***************************************************************************From=20tim@homeurl.com Thu May 15 22:20:02 1997 Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 10:43:21 +0000 From: Timothy Rosario <tim@homeurl.com> To: Vince Cheng <vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> Subject: Re: www.bike-link.com
Vince Cheng wrote:=20 > Explain to me why you changed the section in 1C, if you weren't aware tha= t > the FAQ is mine. I wrote my e-mail address and the URL on there. You > guys completely changed it
I changed the information on there thinking that it was addressed back to the bike shop that I got it from. It would not make sense if I kept it there, so I changed it. Again it was not done in acts of stealing information.=20
> Good faith for what? I have no faith in your company, why would I put in > an advertisment?
Just to make amends... that's why I offered it. My company has not done anything to you for you to have or not have faith in us. But so be it.
All I could do, and did was appologize for using your information.
I will take it off later today when I get to the office.
Have a great day.
Tim Rosario
--------------------------------------------------------------------- Note to Dima-Law: ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Please file all correspondence in regards to this matter for further reference if necessary,
Billing for such has been wiaved as per conversation with Mr. Dimauro.
Thank you
Tim Rosario From=20vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca Thu May 15 22:20:53 1997 Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 17:15:32 -0600 (MDT) From: Vince Cheng <vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> To: Timothy Rosario <tim@homeurl.com> Subject: Re: www.bike-link.com
On Thu, 15 May 1997, Timothy Rosario wrote:
> I changed the information on there thinking that it was addressed back > to the bike shop that I got it from. It would not make sense if I kept > it there, so I changed it. Again it was not done in acts of stealing > information.=20
This doesn't make it better. Do you not read the information and see the copy right sign before publishing it?
Furthermore, note that under the Berne Convention none of this has anything to do with my explicit copyright notice; what you're doing would be precisely as wrong even if I hadn't included a notice. =20
> Just to make amends... that's why I offered it. My company has not > done anything to you for you to have or not have faith in us. But so be > it.
By international copyright laws, you do have to register the copyright, but there's no fixed timetable for doing so in canada, and simply using the (c) symbol is sufficient to indicate its NOT a public domain document. Get that right. Check the "printable version" of the FAQ, my copyright symbol is there.
ALSO Canadian copyright laws, do not protect the facts in a story/article/book. But they DO protect the way it is presented and written. ie, no matter what you say, you still have done something wrong, get that right.
> All I could do, and did was appologize for using your information.
Well, it's just the way you apologizing for it. Do you not realize that you have broken the law? I'm not asking for this because not I'm mean and you are nice, but rather I'm asking for you to make the changes because it's my right and I still have the right to get more. =20 Boy, this is getting me more and more angry with you people. Are you just saying that I'm being an idiot for asking for this and you are being so nice for removing it? That's what the last "apology" letter seems to say.
Do me a favour and bounce this to your lawyer.
Vince
-- *************************************************************************** Vincent Cheng**2nd Year Mechanical Engineering Co-op**University of Alberta vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca http://gpu.srv.ualberta.ca/~vccheng/ Creative Web Catchers HTML Designer*http://www.cwc.cban.com Edmonton Bicycle Commuters Society*http://freenet.edmonton.ab.ca/ebc/ Columnist-Gearhead MTB e-zine*http://www.gearhead.com/ Columnist-Edmonton Oilers Hockey*http://www.ualberta.ca/~mkozak/oilers.htm ***************************************************************************
From=20tim@homeurl.com Thu May 15 22:21:04 1997 Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 23:34:54 -0400 From: Timothy Rosario <tim@homeurl.com> To: Vince Cheng <vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> Subject: Re: www.bike-link.com
Vince,=20
you are right this is getting tiresome.
You contacted me requesting to remove your "So called Copyright information" I agreed immediatly without hesitation.
>Boy, this is getting me more and more angry with you people. Are you=20 >just saying that I'm being an idiot for asking for this and you are=20 >being so nice for removing it? That's what the last "apology" letter=20 >seems to say.
No where in any of my emails did I refer you of being an idiot or stupid. I did not say you were wrong for asking to remove the information, and I mentioned it many times that I would be happy to do so in respect to you and your request.
The information has been removed.
I don't see any need to communicate with us.
Especially in the negative tone that you have done in ALL your messages. We gladly complied to your request, we even tried to offer youa free service, just to show that we honestly did not mean any harm.=20 We were under the impression that we were using the information with permission. You say... did we read and see your email address in the article... Yea maybe we did... but we also saw a bunch of others! There was no clear indication that it was copyright to YOU "vince" as an individual, so I asked the website owner of the site I was on for the permission to reproduce it. I was granted permission. So you say you own it... I agreed to take it off... Simple Done!
I didn't call you an idiot, nor did I imply anything other than I was sorry that we did use it.
If you thik of an apology as calling you an idiot, then so be it. We acted in good faith and that's it.
So now your information is off that site.
That should end correspondence.
Have a great day! From=20vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca Thu May 15 22:21:16 1997 Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 22:10:51 -0600 (MDT) From: Vince Cheng <vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> To: Timothy Rosario <tim@homeurl.com> Subject: Re: www.bike-link.com
On Thu, 15 May 1997, Timothy Rosario wrote:
> Especially in the negative tone that you have done in ALL your
Next time if someone steal your work(especially one that has been worked on for months) and use it for helping them to make profit, that's just something I can't be happy about. Maybe us Canadians are jsut weird that way, but hey, what can you do.
> messages. We gladly complied to your request, we even tried to offer > youa free service, just to show that we honestly did not mean any harm.= =20
of putting up a banner for your site? no, you didn't cause any harm, but you benefited from my work, that's what I'm saying the whole time. I don't lose money either way, but people using it to maybe gain a few more bucks without telling me is no good.=20
> We were under the impression that we were using the information with > permission. You say... did we read and see your email address in the
Hey, next time you speed, tell the policeman that you weren't aware of the posted signs. That's doesn't work in real life.
> article... Yea maybe we did... but we also saw a bunch of others! There > was no clear indication that it was copyright to YOU "vince" as an > individual, so I asked the website owner of the site I was on for the > permission to reproduce it. I was granted permission. So you say you > own it... I agreed to take it off... Simple Done!
Read 1B, "A Few words from the author." <quote> Hi, my name is Vincent Cheng. I have been reading the rec.bicycles.*=20 newsgroups for a few years and have been participating on the mtb mailing= =20 list for about 18 months now. Every week, I see the same questions about= =20 mountain biking, however, no one has ever taken the time to write a FAQ=20 for mountain biking. Since I have nothing better to do, I have compiled=20 this little FAQ file. <^^^^^^^^^>
Now, you might ask... How is this the official Mountain Biking FAQ? Did= =20 someone gave me permission to make it official? Of course not! No one else would take the time to do it, and I'm the first one to actually complete the whole FAQ, therefore, this is the official one.
This FAQ is different from most FAQ's you have seen. Most FAQ's are a compilation of articles posted regarding the topics. In this FAQ, most of the material are written by myself. The articles are then later=20 published on the mtb mailing list for editing and revising. In the=20 following sections, the parts that were written by others will have their names on them.
<end of quote>
and yeah, you should know since it was in the article. and you were granted permission by? please forward me that doccument, I would like to know who did it, fax, e-mail, snail-mail, whatever, just provide me with this doccument and I will get off your back and jump on the next one. I don't just say I own the copy right, I AM THE AUTHOR, AND I HAVE THE COPYRIGHT TO THE ARTICLE, SIMPLE AS THAT. If you read the webpage I pointed you to, I have the automatic copyright to that sucker, simple as is. =20 =20 > If you thik of an apology as calling you an idiot, then so be it. We > acted in good faith and that's it.
No, but instead of just coming out to say that you guys broke the law and you are sorry for it, you are just saying you are doing this to respect me... come on, you broke the law and that's that. =20 > That should end correspondence.
We'll see. I just love it when you guys deny information that is clearly written in the doccument which you published.One of us is covering our butts for legal purposes, but I will let you decide which one of us that is.
Vince
-- *************************************************************************** Vincent Cheng**2nd Year Mechanical Engineering Co-op**University of Alberta vccheng@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca http://gpu.srv.ualberta.ca/~vccheng/ Creative Web Catchers HTML Designer*http://www.cwc.cban.com Edmonton Bicycle Commuters Society*http://freenet.edmonton.ab.ca/ebc/ Columnist-Gearhead MTB e-zine*http://www.gearhead.com/ Columnist-Edmonton Oilers Hockey*http://www.ualberta.ca/~mkozak/oilers.htm ***************************************************************************