Plans for this part of my web site abandoned
This page was originally intended to be a sub-menu with two items listed: a
page of jokes, and another page with various miscellaneous anecdotes.
These pages were never written, and, owing to difficulties in getting
copyright clearance for the use of much material I had hoped to use, plans for
these pages have been permanently abandoned. Therefore the sub-menu page which
was to lead to them has been removed also.
If you reached this page, it is probably because you bookmarked it earlier,
or else you are arriving here via a cached copy (now out of date) of another
page of my site on a search engine.
My apologies if my earlier announcement that these pages were imminent now
leads to disappointment for readers who looked forward to them. But unhelpful,
obstructive copyright laws which make no distinction between material that is in
print or long out of print give me no choice in the situation.
I'm left with the slightly bitter feeling that if I had not done the right
thing by asking for permission to use the material, and just put the material on
my web site, I would probably have got away with it: the owners might never have
found out, and if they had, may not have considered it worthwhile harassing me
about it, because after all the material is no longer in print and making the
publishers any money. I am sure that huge numbers of similar web pages that
display jokes are technically breaking copyright, and they seem to get away with
it. But, having asked permission and being turned down, I (perhaps crazily)
feel slightly honour-bound to abide by that decision - and perhaps just a bit
apprehensive about the possible consequences if I flagrantly ignore an explicit
ban on posting the material.
The pity of it is that almost all of this material is probably long out of
print and completely unobtainable, and most unlikely ever to see print again, so
that my use of the material would not deny any parties money they might
rightfully earn from the use of the material, and would at least make it
available to more people. Given the great potential of the World Wide Web to
make material easily available, it is to be hoped that one day copyright laws
can be modified so that it is easier to make available material which would
otherwise remain unavailable, but which is not earning its owner money anyway
under the current system.
If you wish to look at other parts of my web site, please continue from the
site map.
Michael Edwards.