Stephen O'Brien's Britain in Space Web Site

[Opssys]

Britain in Space is currently hosted on Yahoo GeoCities:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/6133/
and was last updated in 2003.

I have on several occasions tried in the last few years to find a way
of contacting Mr O'Brien with a view to either taking over the site
(and then adding new material), or at least persuading him to allow me
to technically upgrade the site and move it off GeoCities.

As Yahoo now plan to close GeoCities later this year, this matter has
become somewhat more urgent. I am aware that it is 7 Years since
Stephen O'Brien posted in this group, but as a long shot I am hoping
that one of the regular members has maintained contact with him and
would kindly ask him to contact me through the group, or via email.

Opssys,

[Opssys]

OM
Re your comments on Orphaned Sites - I have downloaded the Britain In
Space Site to my Server at Home.
At the last resort I will take it over by a sort of force majeure. But
I obviously I would rather do the honourable thing if at possible Too
many sites with useful content just disappear (including the Atlas
Site and more recemtly some interesting Aircraft Specific Sites),
often without any warning, but on this occasion there is a little time
in hand.

[Dr J R Stockton[_28_]]

In sci.space.history message <94c20a19-1223-40c2-9011-e634676301c1@v17g2
000vbb.googlegroups.com>, Sat, 2 May 2009 17:47:21, Opssys <douglas.ian.
> posted:

>Re your comments on Orphaned Sites - I have downloaded the Britain In
>Space Site to my Server at Home.
>At the last resort I will take it over by a sort of force majeure.

Republication is both immoral and illegal. The status of the proposed
act is not affected by the likelihood of actual punishment. It will be
clearly indicated by the international copyright conventions, and those
will almost certainly be reflected in your national law.

Rather than stealing the material, you should develop your site using
your own style (or one which you are otherwise entitled to use) and your
own text and materials, consulting whatever references you can for the
actual facts.

The original material is readily found on the Wayback Machine,
<http://web.archive.org/web/20050519220349/http://www.geocities.com/Cape
Canaveral/Launchpad/6133/>.
You can supplement your own material with a reference to that.

You should try to contact the originator by sending him an S.A.E.,
enclosed in an unsealed letter to him, enclosed in a letter to the
Registry of the institution implied by his E-mail address.

--
(c) John Stockton, nr London, UK. Turnpike v6.05 MIME.
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQqish topics, acronyms & links;
Astro stuff via astron-1.htm, gravity0.htm ; quotings.htm, pascal.htm, etc.
No Encoding. Quotes before replies. Snip well. Write clearly. Don't Mail News.

[Scott Lowther[_2_]]

OM wrote:
> On Mon, 4 May 2009 17:12:56 +0100, Dr J R Stockton
> > wrote:
>
>
>>Republication is both immoral and illegal.
>
>
> ...Frack you. If the author has abandoned the site, cannot be located,
> and is given proper accreditation with no major modifications made,
> then it's ethical and legalities be damned.

Congratulations. Yer both over-reacting.

My suggestion: take the site, republish it... and completely update it.
There's no particular reason to use the same formatting; change to suit
taste or as otherwise appropriate. Take the original page's statements
of forthcoming updates and either make the updates, or delete the
statements.

In short: use it as a "first draft" for a much enlarged, much improved
website. By the time you're close to done, it'll be an entirely new thing.

[Opssys]

Gentlemen.
I thought I better respond to the last set of posts as what was
intended as a request to find a way of contacting Stephen O'Brien has
become controversial and that was not what was intended.

Firstly Dr J R Stockton comments:
>Republication is both immoral and illegal. The status of the proposed
>act is not affected by the likelihood of actual punishment. It will be
>clearly indicated by the international copyright conventions, and those
>will almost certainly be reflected in your national law.
As someone who has been the victim of copyright theft in several areas
of my professional life, you maybe surpised that in general terms, if
not the language used I tend to agee with you.

In another place I have indeed expressed my moral dilemma of copying
over this site to one of my domains and then changing even the
technical side. However in this case I think it is worth the stain on
my soul to conserve and then move this site forward.

As for copyright law, well actually this site presents other
challenges as well as content copyright belonging to Stephen O'Brien.
This is because every image is Copyright and some have a copyright
trail, which during my investigation of the site do NOT lead back to
the copyright holder (neither current one, nor the holder in
1998-2003),

However I will be contacting each of the Holders requesting
permission to continue using their images (and ensure they get full
atribution). It maybe some will adopt the same view Dr Stockton and
therfore refuse, in which case the image will not be used. Most I
suspect most will be more pragmatic, especially as it will mean the
links to their current site will be updated instead of the site at it
stands where many links are defunct and images will have better
attribution.

Moving on to the the Wayback Machine: I had checked this out before
and have, before postting had another look. It is incomplete,
especially images and does not reflect the last updates. I think the
wayback machine is a good project, but is not the answer to this case.

>You should try to contact the originator by sending him an S.A.E.,
>enclosed in an unsealed letter to him, enclosed in a letter to the
>Registry of the institution implied by his E-mail address.
This is worthy of consideration although I suspect that as the address
has been defunct a long time (I think I attempted to use it 2005 with
no result), the UnoversIty Authorities will be in the dark as to
current whereabouts.

Moving on to OM's second post:
I think OM using different language in his reply to Doctor Stockon
encapsules some of my views on conserving the site and moving it
forward.

Moving on the the Stephenn O'Brien Copyright Situation. I full intend
he will be shown as the coypright holder of his content and as the
founder and creator of the site in its original form. A notice will be
included on the home page requesting he contacts me. If he does and
requests the site is taken down, then so be it!

Scott Lowthers Comments:
>My suggestion: take the site, republish it... and completely update it.
>There's no particular reason to use the same formatting; change to suit
>taste or as otherwise appropriate. Take the original page's statements
>of forthcoming updates and either make the updates, or delete the
>statements.
>
>In short: use it as a "first draft" for a much enlarged, much improved
>website. By the time you're close to done, it'll be an entirely new thing.

In some ways Scott has described my longer term aim. although I always
want Stephen O'Brien fully acknowledged.
and I want to bring the site over with minimal and primarily technical
changes to give Stephen as much opportunity to get it touch, before I
start expanding it.

I hope you are all now aware what I am planning to do, is not an
impulse, but something I have been thinking about on and off for a
long time. The issues of Copyright and as you now know not just
Stephen's has been a major stopper. Tracking down copyright holders
for some material especially when incompletely attributed is a
daunting task and when you have done it a few times, is something one
wants to avoid. But the planned close of Geocities has made me bite
the bullet and I will be starting that exercise in the next couple of
days.
Opssys

[Dr J R Stockton[_28_]]

In sci.space.history message <475402c9-0ff3-450c-b577-228c52ad8d12@n8g20
00vbb.googlegroups.com>, Mon, 4 May 2009 13:23:58, Opssys <douglas.ian.h
> posted:

>As for copyright law, well actually this site presents other
>challenges as well as content copyright belonging to Stephen O'Brien.
>This is because every image is Copyright and some have a copyright
>trail, which during my investigation of the site do NOT lead back to
>the copyright holder (neither current one, nor the holder in
>1998-2003),
>
> However I will be contacting each of the Holders requesting
>permission to continue using their images (and ensure they get full
>atribution). It maybe some will adopt the same view Dr Stockton and
>therfore refuse,

That is not entirely my view. A copyright holder is entitled to give
you permission to use their material without knowing how you may use it.


>>You should try to contact the originator by sending him an S.A.E.,
>>enclosed in an unsealed letter to him, enclosed in a letter to the
>>Registry of the institution implied by his E-mail address.
>This is worthy of consideration although I suspect that as the address
>has been defunct a long time (I think I attempted to use it 2005 with
>no result), the UnoversIty Authorities will be in the dark as to
>current whereabouts.

I suppose you mean that the E-mail address, which is the property of the
U, is defunct. That does not imply that they do not know his current E-
mail or postal address. Universities will like to keep in contact with
their graduates, in the hope of persuading them to be appropriately
generous in their wills.

Google shows at least two UK SO'Bs that you might write to on the
grounds that if they do happen to be him that are well-placed to be
nasty to you.


>Moving on to OM's second post:
>I think OM using different language in his reply to Doctor Stockon
>encapsules some of my views on conserving the site and moving it
>forward.

OM wastes his time in replying to me : he is a plonkee. Luke 10, 37.

>Moving on the the Stephenn O'Brien Copyright Situation. I full intend
>he will be shown as the coypright holder of his content and as the
>founder and creator of the site in its original form. A notice will be
>included on the home page requesting he contacts me. If he does and
>requests the site is taken down, then so be it!

If you describe material as being his copyright, then you must not alter
it in any way which affects the design or intellectual content.


>I hope you are all now aware what I am planning to do, is not an
>impulse, but something I have been thinking about on and off for a
>long time. The issues of Copyright and as you now know not just
>Stephen's has been a major stopper. Tracking down copyright holders
>for some material especially when incompletely attributed is a
>daunting task and when you have done it a few times, is something one
>wants to avoid. But the planned close of Geocities has made me bite
>the bullet and I will be starting that exercise in the next couple of
>days.

If you take only the intellectual content and express it entirely in
your own manner, but still expressing the same selection of facts, that
is still a breach of copyright. Rights over the material remain with
its author and his estate, until he has been dead long enough.

I am beginning to suspect that you may be British. If so, ignore
anything written by those who may be Americans on law or ethics.

Your correct move is to read SO'B and other authors, including
encyclopaedias, and write your own site in your own fashion. Google
searches suggest that there's plenty on the Web on included topics.

Avoid the folly of writing white-on-black.

--
(c) John Stockton, Surrey, UK. Turnpike v6.05 MIME.
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.
Proper <= 4-line sig. separator as above, a line exactly "-- " (SonOfRFC1036)
Do not Mail News to me. Before a reply, quote with ">" or "> " (SonOfRFC1036)

[Opssys]

OM Wrote:
> What's your next trick, "Doc"? You gonna try and track down the
> original owner yourself to tattle tale?
>
Well at least there would be two of Us looking :-)

The objective of my post was to Contact Stephen O'Brien. and although
there have been some useful and interesting discussions since, for the
moment reaching out to contact Stephen remains a priority,

On the Internet there are a large number of Stephen O'Brien's some of
whom are, as Doc says are British. As there is still time in hand, if
necessary I will write to those who I think might be the one I am
looking for.
Similarly attempting contact via the University, for some reason
(don't ask me why) I don't think this will lead anywhere, but it is on
the to do list.

If contact is made what are the possibilities:
a) He maybe planning to relocate the site Himself
b) He agrees to conserving the Site as is on my Host
c) He Agrees to me taking over the site
d) His says he wants the site to die - Which as creator is his right,
Whilst I would be sad about that as I wanted to keep Stephen's
contribution alive, which in the main reason I started this, But it
would be a form closure and then I could follow the Scott's advice and
create a similar site using my own research, In effect creating
Britain in space in own image :-)

What if contact isn't made:
Well I have already outlines my intentions and having discussed the
implications with others, the plan remains the same despite the 'Docs'
concern for my morals and copyright law.
What then if Stephen reappears and demand the site is taken down -
Then so be it, The fallback position would be as in d) above.