Marc Washington, from Budapest via Philadelphia and New York

[PaulMarcW]

Hello All:

Please allow me to introduce myself. In the Old World / Ainu thread, Ishtar said, "I think it would be a good start if you could come on to the Guest Book section and properly introduce yourself."

I'm Marc Washington, born in Liberia of Episcopal Church missionary parents from the states. After too many bouts with malaria, we returned to Philadelphia when I was five. Having lived in New York for ten years, and after meeting my Hungarian wife-to-be, moved to Budapest for a six-month visit that has extended to well over a decade.

Our meeting was charming as though I am Afro-American she said it was not until after we had been together for three days that she realized that I was black. She was oblivious to the color in me. We adopted two girls here.

At one point, I became interested in understanding how we got here and started writing a book called the First Three Seconds back in the early 90s. The link is below.

http://www.mightymall.com/1st3seconds/index.html

A number of major publishers were interested in it but I never felt the work was complete and it evolved into THE SECOND BOOK OF GENESIS - THE UNIVERSE AS A SCIENTIFIC PROJECT. Starting with the big bang, it, shadowed the Book of Genesis beginning with the Word (okay. my adaptation); followed by the creation of the heavens, the earth, life, the human being, language, and civilization. Somehow there'd be a chapter or so for each and a number of international scientists found favor with the early manuscript. Here are some of their comments:



http://www.beforebc.de/s2.htm

From the above comments you can predict, knowing that the work is the Second Book of Genesis (surely a poor and unworthy job), that the next phase is the emergence of man, language, and civilization. That is where I am now.

I doubt the project will ever finish. No book will ever be written as there are just too many loose ends for me to bind everything neatly between two covers. Always questions to pursue and ideas to get down. Never time to sum it all up. And that's okay.

So, in the end, this work and these endeavors of mine are just one big, exciting hobby to me.

Nothing much more to say.

Cordially yours,

[Ishtar]

Welcome to the board, Paul Marc.

You certainly have some interesting ideas, many of which we regularly discuss on this board.

I read all sacred texts as if they are mostly mythology, rather than literally true, but there's a wide range of views on this board and so I'm sure you'll enjoy posting here.... if that's your intention.

But I'm still curious as to why you're marring photos with copyright notices that aren't your own, and are already freely available in the public domain - i.e. Google images. You haven't really answered my question on that... or whether or not you're really just using us as a ready made market research group....which I guess is legitimate, but a level of transparency would be helpful as speaking for myself, I can happily talk for hours and hours to a fellow enthusiast and honest seeker, but am less likely to want to do so with someone whose only aim is to get stuff out of me and then slap their own copyright notices all over it.

[Forum Monk]

Welcome. I see you actually joined a number of years ago, shortly before I did. I look forward to some interesting discussions from your unique point of view.

But I'm still curious as to why you're marring photos with copyright notices that aren't your own, and are already freely available in the public domain - i.e. Google images.

So perhaps Paul Marc thinks those little lighting bolts struck across the images makes them his property? Wouldn't be surprised if that is challenged one day.

[PaulMarcW]

Hi Ishtar. I have a voracious appetite for things I'm interested in. I guess like everyone else holding interests. However, as my medium of choice is terse, stand-alone web pages where space is a premium, I am fifty times more likely to download and use picture material than text - if I can't present a view in a few words or sentences, written material doesn't have much value to me. So, that's my Achilles' heel.

As to why I place a bar across images, I think it's only fair to do that to show a degree of respect. I don’t think using bars makes things mine. Things with bars have no value to others.

During the summer, I am often only near the internet from Sunday through Wednesday mornings though next week I'll be around all week. I mention that so that if someone comments and I don't respond quickly, they will know there is a good chance I have no computer access.

Having said all the above, though, I don't want anyone to feel forced, coerced, cajoled, or tricked into communicating.

[Ishtar]

I don’t think using bars makes things mine. Things with bars have no value to others.

I think that's what I object to.

My purpose on this board is to freely share what I know so that it is of value to others, whether in pictures or words. I also learn from others on this board because they too freely give me their time and their knowledge, in the spirit of friendship, so that I can gain value from it.

So why are you being so stingy about giving value?

Your approach goes against not only the spirit of this board, but also the internet which is vastly changing the old adage "he who owns the information owns the power".

Here are just two of the marred pictures on your site that are very easy to get on the internet - it took me less than five minutes to find and download them both.

Ishtar and her cult animal, the lion



Aphrodite rising from the waves



I could understand you marring and copyrighting the above if you were Botticelli, but you're not.

So please tell me, why should I freely give of my time to give you information that is of value to you when you are so mean about giving value to others?

[rich]

Hi PaulMarc. Welcome.
I have no problem with your marking those save for that it actually detracts from your own site. I can't for the life of me figure out why a person would do that to something they take so much time and effort to put together, especially once you put it out on the internet. By putting it out on the internet you already have a precedence date for when you put it there - so if anyone who would want to "steal" it - you have a record of date for it already - just by virtue of it being on the servers.
If you value it - you should show it's beauty - not detract from it.
But that's only my thoughts on it.
Anyways - enjoy.

PS - if you're worried their servers may get destroyed - see if they can make a dvd of your files for you with the date notations - if not then maybe you can. It would be a good safeguard in either case to do so.

Oh - and also - I'm not entirely sure but you may need to provide reference to where the photos came from even in the case of public domain photos if you intend to use the work for making any monetary gains. You need to check on that.

[Forum Monk]

Maybe I'm off base, but I don't think he is marking the images to be mean. I think he is marking them so you don't want to steal them from him. ex. If I posted a lovely pic of flowers, you may want to "borrow" it for use as a desktop wallpaper. But if I slash an "X" across it before posting it, you will likely leave it alone. I don't feel its a reason not to have dialog, but I fully agree with Ishtar: if the intent is take others ideas and copyright them, then it could be a big problem.

In some threads, Mr. Washington, I have asked some direct questions but been ignored. Are you put off my approach to asking or is there another problem?

[Ishtar]

I think it goes further than that FM.

Imo, a desire to inhibit people from benefitting from your research goes against the ethos and the spirit of this forum, which is a sort of free and open democracy of information.

You have to ask the question - why doesn't Paul Marc want people to download these pictures? What is to be gained by that? Is it so that he can charge people people to download pictures that are not his own? Or is it just because he wants to be asked - but then, what does that achieve?

If his point of view is that people freely downloading his pictures amounts to 'stealing' or 'lack of respect', then how does that differ form him downloading them in the first place from whichever website he found them on - wouldn't that be 'stealing' too?

Having said all that, I hope Paul Marc does continue to post here because, judging from what he's shown us so far, I'd say that he's been on his own for far too long.

We've all basically got the same questions: Where did I come from and how did I get here? We just use different paths - archaeology, geology, geneaology, mythology and so on - to try to find the answers.

But you cannot do this stuff on your own - it's far too big. You need others from different disciplines and with diverse points of view to feed their stuff into yours. Otherwise, you just end up going down one blind alley after another - I speak from experience!

I think we'd all benefit from Paul Marc's research so far, and that he would equally benefit from ours. In my view, he just needs to drop the desire to own the information, and then I'll be happy to talk.

[War Arrow]

Well, as anyone who uses my own words or images inevitably finds themselves assimilated within the memetic gestalt of my extended media-phenotype, and is thus in essence reduced to little more than a remote drooling mouthpiece for my will, I say go ahead - quote me.

Fools. You will all feel the strength of my power!!! Bwah-hah-hah-hah!!!!

[Forum Monk]

Well, as anyone who uses my own words or images inevitably finds themselves assimilated within the memetic gestalt of my extended media-phenotype, and is thus in essence reduced to little more than a remote drooling mouthpiece for my will, I say go ahead - quote me.

uh...waiting....still waiting....

Not feeling it WA.

[War Arrow]

Well, as anyone who uses my own words or images inevitably finds themselves assimilated within the memetic gestalt of my extended media-phenotype, and is thus in essence reduced to little more than a remote drooling mouthpiece for my will, I say go ahead - quote me.

uh...waiting....still waiting....

Not feeling it WA.

Ha ha.. and yet little do you realise that this is exactly what I wanted you to say!!!

[Ishtar]

In some threads, Mr. Washington, I have asked some direct questions but been ignored. Are you put off my approach to asking or is there another problem?

[EDIT - content deleted by Ishtar 4 July]

[MichelleH]

IMHO the posts look like photo scans for presentation posters at a lecture or seminar. Is it possible it is not the pictures being claimed as copyright, but the content and chart design or the presentation itself?

Just a thought…..

[Ishtar]

Someone has PM-ed me to say that they think what Marc means is that he is marring the photos pending his own application for permission to use them. This, however, is not how it reads – and if this is the case, it’s a mis communication from which I and others have made the wrong inference.

Copyright on the internet is a murky area and tends to vary from country to country. In this case however, unless Marc expects to profit from his website, his use of the photos would probably come under Fair Use and Fair Dealing, and thus not require the owner’s permission.

Marc has told us that he is only an interested amateur, after all.

But in any case, he has no need to marr his photos. He only has to put “Copyright applied for” and everyone would know what it means. At the moment, it’s ambiguous. He also wouldn’t then be liable if someone did decide to download them and break the copyright.

Here’s Wiki’s take on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright# ... ir_dealing

Fair use and fair dealing

Main articles: Fair use and Fair dealing

Copyright does not prohibit all copying or replication. In the United States, the fair use doctrine, codified by the Copyright Act of 1976 as 17 U.S.C. § 107, permits some copying and distribution without permission of the copyright holder or payment to same. The statute does not clearly define fair use, but instead gives four non-exclusive factors to consider in a fair use analysis. Those factors are:

1. the purpose and character of the use;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.[10]

In the United Kingdom and many other Commonwealth countries, a similar notion of fair dealing was established by the courts or through legislation. The concept is sometimes not well defined; however in Canada, private copying for personal use has been expressly permitted by statute since 1999. In Australia, the fair dealing exceptions under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) are a limited set of circumstances under which copyrighted material can be legally copied or adapted without the copyright holder's consent. Fair dealing uses are research and study; review and critique; news reportage and the giving of professional advice (ie legal advice).