2004.01.14 23:39 "Re: [Tiff] http://www.libtiff.org/", by Joris Van Damme

By private email.

In case anyone is confused, the reason why I mentioned trademarks is that there is a standard formalized complaint mechanism for the .com, .org, .gov, .net, .biz, etc. domains to get a domain taken away from its holder due to conflict with an existing trademark.

If there is copyright infringement, then a complaint could be made to the ISP that hosts the site, and the site will be taken down if the ISP agrees that the copyright has been infringed. The fact that libtiff has a very liberal copyright clause may weaken the case somewhat, but if these web pages are not distributed with libtiff, then there is a good case for copyright infringement since I don't see any statement on the page which says it may be copied.

The last (remote) possiblity is that since the site appears to be supporting libtiff via PayPal donations, that it may be committing fraud since the site is not supporting libtiff. If so, the FBI or FTC may be interested.

Sure sounds very interesting. Can you tell us who exactly to contact on these issues? Like, first step seems to contacting the ISP, but who is that? I'm not knowledgable even on this <who is> dump we've seen, but you seem very knowledgable. Would you mind having a go at typing up the mail to send these people? I don't pretend to have any kind of authority here, though. I'm just the local big mouth who feels something ought to be done and is impressed by your knowledge. But feel free to contact me privatly at joris.at.lebbeke@skynet.be if you wish, or take it up with Andrey. Much appreciated, either way.

Joris