Shacks Gold & Copyright Theft
Shacks Gold, actually David Shackleton of Locust Grove, VA, USA is yet another dishonest website owner who has used our copyright image(s) without permission.
David Shackleton's E-mail Complaint
We received an e-mail from David Shackleton complaining bitterly that we had defamed him, abused his copyright, and more. As a result, we have made a few edits to this page. We reproduce his e-mail complaint below "*", followed by our response to it.
Copyright Theft is Dishonest - Can You Trust This Website or Person?
Using other people's copyright images is illegal, it is dishonest, and it is unethical. Using the hard work of a fellow dealer or website owner to sell the same goods in competition with him demonstrates an extremely low standard of ethics. We would not recommend anybody to transact business with this person or company. In this case, David Shackleton appears not to be a dealer, but as a website owner he has put himself forward as some kind of expert on gold and gold coins; this page does in a small way compete with our own pages, by making it easier to find his page than our page.
Who would have thought such an honest (although they do not claim this) reputable or expert
person would resort to stealing images from their competitors or other websites?
Contact Us Page
david.shackleton @usmc.mil David Shackleton
Domain Name Record
According to Whois Search:
MAGTF Planners
Shackleton, David
PO Box 405
Locust Grove, VA 22508
US
Domain name: shacksgold.com
Administrative Contact:
MAGTF Planners david.shackleton @usmc.mil
Shackleton, David
PO Box 405
Locust Grove, VA 22508
US
352-684-7889 Fax:
Technical Contact:
Netfirms Inc.
Manager, Domains
5160 Yonge St., 1800
Toronto, ON M2N6L9
CA
416661 2100 Fax: 4166610700
Registrar of Record: Netfirms Inc.
Record expires on 2010-04-17.
Record created on 2007-04-17.
Database last updated on 2010-03-30 11:56:21.
"MAGTF Planners" owns about 5 other domains
Email Search: david.shackleton @usmc.mil is associated with about 6 domains
What's Wrong?
It is dishonest and unethical to pirate and steal other people's work by using high quality copyright photographs without the owner's consent. To do so in competition, however remotely, with them is doubly devious. We can partially understand why they do it; it is quick and easy (but then so is robbing people).
In this case David Shackleton, owner of "Shacks Gold" could not be bothered to take the time and trouble of photographing a gold coin, himself, or paying a professional photographer to do it for him, so decided it was quicker and easier to steal ours instead. He probably also thought we would not notice.
For these reasons, we conclude that David Shackleton, and Shacks Gold is / are dishonest and unethical, and we recommend anybody to avoid doing business with them, or taking the content of his / their websites seriously. If they will cheat us by stealing our photographs, and still get his facts wrong after all this time, how can you place any reliance on the factual accuracy of his website, or the value of his opinions?
* David Shackleton's E-mail Complaint
This website page you built blasting me is malicious and simply untrue:
/shacksgold.com.html
The webpage (sic) you show displays a historic account of how gold has been a
part of our world history. I am *NOT* a coin dealer, *NOT* a gold dealer,
and* NOT *a salesman of any kind as you state in this malicious page you've
built. My website is a personal website for the hobby of gold prospecting,
not a business, store, or "competitor" of any kind.
The images I used to display world gold history were found using GOOGLE, *they
were not taken from your site, were not linked to your site, and were not
linked to your company or any company at all*. If they were, I would have
readily given your company full credit, as I earnestly do for ALL images
that are not my own.
The images you've reposted in these malicious attacks are *NOT YOURS *either,
and you have broken the same copyright laws that you supposedly stand so
firmly upon because* you do not have permission to utilize or repost ANY
images *that are not your own without permission from the owner. I guess
it's time to plaster the internet and all social medias with announcements
about *your own copyright infringements, lack of honesty, and unethical
business practices.*
The page you reference was removed many years ago when my webpage was
rebuilt. You didn't respond to me when I sent you an email years ago.
Choose not to respond and I will take appropriate actions.
David
Our Response
Our web page as not malicious, and was not untrue (sorry about the double negative).
If you look and think about it, you will see that for our copyright name and shame pages, we mainly use a template, which we try to modify for each individual case. Because so many people steal our images, we cannot afford to spend much time on each. In any case, to make each page perfect, we would probably need to get an expert specialist copyright lawyer to draft or check every page, and this would cost us several hundred pounds or dollars each time. Sorry but you are just not worth it! You should be happy we don't invest that much on every case, because if we did, we have set our lawyers onto you. Because you are in the USA, we would have used American lawyers, probably on a no win no fee basis, which means that the more you argued with them, the more their, and eventually your costs would go up. Would you like us to go ahead and do that (and make our day)?
Our wording "website owner / dealer" is intended to be catch all, to include website owners or operators who may, and usually are, also dealers, but also to allow for the possibility that they may not be. In any case, the name "Shacks Gold" sounds like a dealer, so you can hardly blame us.
The Google Defence
You state, not surprisingly, that you sourced the images using Google, but Google as everyone knows, is a search engine, not a content owner.
Google used to state somewhere in their image search results, that some of the images may be subject to copyright, and advised people to check with the images' owners before copying or using them. This was the case back when you copied our Aelius Roman Gold Aureus image, although it looks as though Google have stopped making it so easy to find their copyright warning.
If you look carefully at our page, you will see our photo of the head side a Roman Gold Coin, with the caption "Our Roman Gold Aureus of Aelius Obverse Photo", which clearly tells you which of our image(s) you used.
On our screenshot of your page, you can clearly see that you have used a copy of our photo. The small icon showing on this copy is actually a Digimarc watermark. If you used a Digimarc enabled web browser, you would also have been able to see this; clicking on the icon would have taken you to a Digimarc web page identifying us as the copyright owner.
We can half understand people who are newbies thinking that anything they see online is "free" or "public domain", but this is not the case. Even if we could believe you were originally so naive that you thought stuff found on Google was free to use, you have now had plenty of time to do some research, and find out the facts for yourself.
You accuse us of having abused your copyright by showing a screenshot of your page. International copyright law allows for "fair use", and our use of this is covered by this important aspect of copyright law. Please check this out for yourself.
If you had taken a few minutes to check your facts when you first saw our web page, you could easily have discovered the truth. We just did a Google image search for "Roman Gold Aureus of Aelius", and the first two results were the reverse then obverse of the coin we photographed years ago, and which you copied. Google makes it easy for you to view the original image on its own page, or the original web page it was taken from. This might convince anybody, even you, that this, is and was, our photograph. Of course, you could also have done this when you copied this and all the other images on your site, and you could and should have included a credit and link to each. You could and should also have e-mailed all the website owners to ask their permission, or at least to tell them what you had done.
History
You seem to think that because you have now removed or changed your page, that our page is no longer relevant. This is incorrect. Your site is historical, and that does not invalidate it; the same applies to ours.
When you read our page, and when you changed yours, you missed two opportunities to redress the balance, and publish a belated credit (and searchable link) to our websites. It is still not too late for this courtesy.
Clarifications
We have made a number of small edits to our page to clarify matters in view our e-mail.
Copyright Notice
Please see our "Copyright" page for further information.
Copyright Infringements Remedies
Our suggested draft remedies for copyright abusers dependent on category - competitors, bloggers, pseudo-expert & advice sites acting as eBay & Google portals, eBay & other auction site sellers.
Other Copyright Abuse
Other Copyright Abuse
Buying Gold Coins & Bars on eBay
Selling Gold Coins & Bars on eBay
Copyright Thieves on eBay
We already have a page naming and shaming dealers using our images without permission. It's time we did the same for eBay, although if we include them all, this could be a very long page.
Alphabetical Listing of Other Copyright Theft Sites
Other Scams
Other Web Sites
All comments about copyright also cover content of all our other websites including, but not limited to:-
|
|
Shacks Gold's Gold Coins Page
Showing Our Aelius Roman Gold Aureus Obverse Photo
Other Copyright Abuse
Our Images
Our Roman Gold Aureus of Aelius Obverse Photo
|
