Hi Roger,
 
You wrote :
 
> As you sent your comment via CONCH-L I want to answer your remark.
>
> You are correct the Photo of Metivieri comes from the book by Goto and
> Anseeuw. I sent it to James because a 13 year enthusiastic boy asked for the
> pictures for his private collection. You can check with him, I sent it for
> his private use and gave the correct source for every Photo scanned. I
> thought that this did not violate the copyright rules. But I will refrain
> from sending pleuro photos from your publication from now on.
> Sincerely,
> Roger Van den Berghe
 
You tell me this;  James tells me he didn't know where the pictures (8 or
so from our book, plus four lifted from other publications by you)
originally came from. Both cannot be true.
 
As for the rules of copyright, I would have thought someone with a career
in business like yours behind him would know about these things. Even to
copy pictures out of a book you have bought, for your own use, is illegal.
Like copying rented movies or borrowed CDs, it's something most people do
without a thought - but read the small print, you're breaking the law.
 
I used to scoff at this sort of nit-picking - 'get a life, for heaven's
sake' was my attitude to people who moaned about intellectual property
piracy - but that was before I became involved in the publication of shell
books and learned just how difficult it is to produce something of
acceptable quality within time and budget constraints. Believe me, your
attitude changes when they're your pictures someone's duplicating at ten
cents a copy.
 
As far as we (Elle Scientific Publications) are concerned, the matter has
been resolved as we have now given James written permission to use those
images with adequate acknowledgement, and he has modified his website
accordingly. As for the other publishers, it's up to them to decide what
they want to do. There's no use going on about this, so I will end with a
note for all on Conch-L : folks, the people who make shell books are not
fat capitalist plutocrats reclining on silk chaise-longues while eunuchs
drop peeled grapes into their mouths - they are shell people like
yourselves and often poor as church mice. We should all try not to
undermine what little return they make by taking liberties with their work.