Posted By:
davidcyclebackI have to be honest that this MastroNet bothers me a great deal personally. I have never met or spoken with you, Mr Fogel, and have no knowledge of your experience with news service and wire photos, so am not offering any conclusion on this subject.
Several years ago I wrote a work about news service photos (wirephotos, etc), that I researched and published in pieces in a newsletter that I wrote (and many on this board received). I later published it as a short booklet and lastly posted it on my website. The booklet introduced the essential and largely unknown before issues of news service photos, including what is a wirephoto, stamps, etc. I sent complimentary copies of the booklet to MastroNet, as I did with many of my guides. I had consulted with MastroNet on a couple of photograph issues, and felt the guides would be useful to them.
This information was essentially unknown to the baseball hobby and never before published in the hobby. How can I say this? I had to point out that Yee was misdating some of his photographs (for example, UPI was formed in the 1950s). I also pointed out that an REA Joe DiMaggio photo was similarly misdated, and REA quickly fixed it. I also regularly tried to correct MastroNet's auction listings.
I posted my guide online as a free service to collectors, along with several other free guides. Obviously, I got no money out of this, but felt it was a good service to the public at large, and have gotten people from around the world telling me they used the guides. I've had a journalism studen in the Middle East to a banker in London to a 10 year old in Australia doing her homework email me about my online guides-- and that was the point of posting them online
I have a copy of the MastroNet book. I think it's a worthwhile book and has a lot of new information and in depth research-- information above and beyond what I did. However, it bothers me a great deal that the book uses and incorperates much of my published prior and copyrighted work. Not only was I not asked permission and was unaware (until I got a copy of the book), but was never credited in the book for my work. If MastroNet asked for persmission, I would have happily let them use my research so long as I got fair credit. I would have thought it neat MastroNet would have wanted to quote or mention my work.
Since this MastroNet book, I removed my online guides and only sell them as booklet to those interested in the subject. Whether guides will go online later I don't know (it's possible for some). And I certainly don't give complimentary copies to MastroNet anymore.
The MastroNet book is worthwhile, has a lot of worthwhile and new information and if someone interested in the subject wants a copy go ahead and buy a copy, but it has effected me personally a great deal and I felt I couldn't keep quite about it forever.