Copyright Violation

I got an interesting e-mail today, one of only a half-dozen I've recieved in the three years since I set up this site. It's the reason why some of the graphics (icons and wallpaper) are missing. It pretty much speaks for itself. Posting this page is my reply.

-=DAH=- 1999-09-07

Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1999 13:58:10 -0700 From: "Michael O'Hara" <mohara@mna.mus.az.us> Organization: Museum of Northern Arizona X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Dennette@WiZ-WORX.com Subject: copyright violation Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-UIDL: c70cc3ba58525e1ebb3b86007f7fd472 In my position of Copyright Clearance Coordinator of the Museum of Northern Arizona, I must ask you to please remove the images navajo3.gif, home.gif, backgrou.gif, and navajo0.gif from your server immediately. The first is from p. 7 of "Summoning the Gods," Plateau 59(1), while the next two are graphics derived from that image without permission or attribution, and the last is from p. 19 of that same publication. Your unauthorized use of this image from Plateau, a copyrighted publication of the Museum of Northern Arizona, is a violation of copyright. Urging visitors to your web page to purchase books in no way absolves you of the copyright violations that you have committed. As an anthropologist and a scholar, I was quite taken aback by your web page on sandpaintings. In addition to being a violation of copyright, to put those scanned images up without proper citations as to the original publication or the artist is shoddy scholarship. To mount sacred images on the web where they are accessible to anyone is inappropriate and insensitive to Navajo beliefs. What if a pregnant Navajo woman happened across your web page? Unspeakable harm would be done. As a librarian, I must tell you that I was very disappointed in your list of references. Nothing by Leland Wyman? David Villasenor's works on Navajo sandpainting are very poorly regarded by anthropologists because of the numerous errors they contain [see David Brugge's review in Ethnohistory 11(2):190-191, 1964]. If you are interested in following proper procedures and applying for permission to use our images, please see our policy regarding the use of images from our collections at http://w3fp.arizona.edu/asm/cazmal/mna_contract.html, and contact Tony Marinella (tmarinella@mna.mus.az.us), our photo archivist. Some of our conditions include: An appropriate credit line must be given in all cases of publication, exhibition, presentation, or any other display of reproductions from the MNA Photo Archives. [you did not follow this requirement] No alteration of photographs by overprinting, cropping, or image manipulation by any means is permitted without prior written approval from the MNA Photo Archives. [you did not follow this requirement] The Museum extends the rights of privacy to include ceremonial objects and rites of Native Americans and requires the permission of the tribe's cultural office before releasing reproductions. [because of this requirement it is highly unlikely that you would be granted permission to use our images] Michael O'Hara Associate Librarian and Archivist Museum of Northern Arizona 3101 N. Fort Valley Rd. Flagstaff, AZ 86001 (520) 774-5211 x256 (520) 779-1527 fax

Last update: 1999-09-07 by Dennette@WiZ-WORX.com
<Who is this Dennette person?>