A number of years ago, Compuserve took people to court for downloading software (freeware and shareware) and uploading it to other systems and BBSs. Perhaps you read 60-Second Windows #32 ...you saw our piece -- “Typeright” -- in the July issue of DT&G? Now consider this hypothetical situation.

#81 Is Compuserve a Pirate? Here’s a hypothetical question for you. If you read this, and form an opinion, let me know what you would do. Is there something wrong with this picture? Would Compuserve really do this? The basic story... Let’s say you’re an artist, and you love to use Illustrator, and over a period of years you just drew all sorts of images. Now, let’s say that the CD-Rom hasn’t been invented yet. You decide that you should start selling your work, so you begin putting together disks, and begin marketing them. You haven’t got a lot of bucks for marketing so you decide to market online. So, you upload a bunch of images -- each file includes a ‘read me’ file with a coupon to order a catalog. __ Things go pretty well, and you’re sending lots of catalogs, selling some disks and meeting lots of people who really like your stuff. __ One day you get this call from this guy who is putting together an ‘online’ library of clip art for sale on Compuserve. They want to include your collection and send you royalties. __ Hey! This sounds great, so you say yes, and proceed with a two year contract Your legal counsel says it’s okay -- so you sign. The online fellow already has a large collection of fonts selling well, and of course has a good mailing list. So you send a SyQuest full of the art. Now, the pressure is on... they want more before putting you up -- you ship the second SyQuest. Now you’ve got over 1,600 images out there, and you wait. __ Nothing after 6 months. After a year, nothing. They won’t answer your calls. They won’t answer your email. Another 6 months, a year, two years, three years goes by. Nothing. You give up. Oh well. __ Then out of the blue you start getting email. “Hey... we bought some of your art on Compuserve, and we really like it!” What??? Since your Compuserve account has long been dropped, you get a friend to log in and see what’s up. There you find your name, and your library, and thousands of downloads of your art. __ You call Compuserve, but can’t find a human. No one returns your calls. You send email, no one replies. No checks. Now what do you do? Best regards, Fred Showker

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Watch for the new “Rip Off” department in WebDesign & Review opening in August with actual pictures.