[extropy-chat] Images About The Future

[Robert Bradbury]

On 2/19/06, Mehran <mehranraeli at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> I was not criticizing your effort which I think is valuable, but just
> making
> an observation...
>

Mehran may not but I feel I must.  Examining the page reveals two things:

1) That the logo in the upper left hand corner is largely a massaged version
of the Intitute for Molecular Manufacturing's Molecular Differential Gear
designed by Drexler.  I know for a fact that that those images are
copyrighted by IMM because I investigated this when I wrote the
Nano at Homeproposal.

The logo image appears to be the molecular differential gear slightly
reorientated from the images on the IMM web site (http://www.imm.org/)
combined with another image whose origin is unclear (it kind of looks like
DNA but doesn't have the base structures or the proper element colors to be
consistent with the MDG).  Nor does it really make much sense to attach the
MDG to a piece of DNA.

Whether the copying and manipulation of the images constitutes a copyright
violation would be up to a court.

2. The image of a Dyson shell seems to be lifted directly from Thierry
Lombry's Astrosurf/Luxorion web site (
http://www.astrosurf.org/lombry/Images/dyson-sphere.jpg) which is dated Dec.
1, 2002.  That in turn seems to have been inspired by Anders' Early stage
Dyson Sphere construction image (
http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Tech/Megascale/d_early.gif) which must date back
to perhaps '97 or '98.  [Anders' images may not be copyrighted but Lombrey's
are.]

In no case is there any attempt to credit the image sources or confirm that
permission to copy them has been obtained. Even in cases where the images
are not copyrighted it does a disservice to the creators not to cite them.
It would appear to me that the page potentially has significant legal
problems.  It is also a disservice to the futurist community as a whole as
its current presentation makes backtracking the images to the original
sources (necessary for any type of in depth research or discussion) an
extremely tedious task.

I would urge that people not promote this page until such problems have been
clearly resolved.

Robert
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