On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 07:11:41 +1000 wrote:

Strike <[log in to unmask]>

> Christian!  I didn't receive any reply from you re the posting of those
> pics.  I hope that you had a chance to look at them as they're being removed
> shortly.  (Last time I allowed pics up on a site prematurely for the benefit
> of the list - the diving cards - together with a brief description of what
> they represented,  "somebody" decided to share them both with as many
> publications > as he could think of and pre-empted my selling the article that
> I'd planned.You probably remember that!)

Strike,

I didn't, personally, go look at them because I've seen them before. I
just feel that they are part of history and could/should be shared.

As for pre-emption of them, there are ways around this and it comes up
all the time on photographic lists that I belong to.

Very briefly, you should copyright them, especially in the US (it's
quite easy and doesn't cost much at all, please ask me privately or
Viv/Bjorn/David H and others are also likely to know). Having said
that I believe that there is a general consideration regarding
photographic copyright in that pictures over fifty years old may, MAY,
it guess it depends on the jurisdiction, lose copyright. As well, you
took those pictures at the direction of and, more particularly. as an
employee of, the Royal Navy (RN), using equipment supplied by the RN
and that makes it likely, rather than possible, that any copyright is
actually vested in the RN.

Having said that I rather doubt that the RN is likely to jump up and
down about it, although they'd probably like copies if they've lost
their versions.

As for the Dive Cards, my understanding is that they were not as
scarce as originally supposed. Quite certainly the pics on the
websites (as you probably know, there are links to it from a number of
sources including the Diving Historical Society, or whatever it's
called) cannot be used to replicate/reprint the cards because the
resolution (the number of pixels per inch/centimetre) is nowhere near
good enough. Roger, for example, has a framed version of the cards up
on his wall which he bought somewhere. Two in fact, both front and
back. I wasn't, however, aware that someone had plagiarised what you'd written.

Incidentally, at Scribal we do have the original scans in "printable"
form and we certainly would be able to print them if desired. Being
very aware of copyright restrictions, access to these is restricted to
myself and Phil. The low resolution file, although restricted, is less so.

Some newer members of this list may not know of the card pages:

http://www.diegoweb.com/diving/cards/

I would think that the cards were originally photographs, therefore
monocolour (black and white) and have been "colourised" by an artist.
I particularly like the one of the guy in full suit and conventional
shoes, undoubtedly all leather, casually standing on a plank way above
the water and surveying the scene (Page 4, pic 2). Things were a lot
simpler (and quite possibly a lot more dangerous) in those days.

Cheers,

Christian
--
I haven't quite worked out the secret of life yet, but I just know it
must have something to do with lunch.