Date: Dienstag, 29. April 2003
17:07 -0700 
From: madden  
To: info@a-blast.org Subject: censorship

Dear Mr. Freude, I accessed your website and read your material concerning
censorship and find your argument very valid. This is the problem
concerning my material. As a poet I communicate my message through a poem
and not by bits and pieces of the poem. The whole meaning of the poem can
be lost by allowing unlimited input to use only parts of my material. In
this way I am being censored from trying to convey my message. My message
frequently contains humor, if only parts are offered then the humor is lost
as well as the well meaning. When I posted, I was under the impression that
my material would be displayed for either one day or 30 days, depending on
the choice of the poster. When I see my art work displayed for more than 60
days then it is concerning. It is concerning because the original terms of
the agreement are not being met and also my artwork is not being displayed
in the way that it was intended. We don't place bits and pieces of statues
or paintings in a museum. We don't place the head at the entrance of the
museum and the legs next to the restroom and the arms by the fire entrance
and say this is the artist's work. We don't cut a Rembrandt in quarters and
hang them seperately with a picture of how it used to look in one piece.
Poetry conveys a meaning and It is interpreted differently by different
readers but it has to be viewed in its entirety in order for one to form an
opinion good or bad. I am not criticizing your project and if anything I
agree with what your trying to accomplish. I also respect your project and
hope you that you understand the problem facing my written works.
sincerely.....ken madden


-----Original Message----- 
From: Alvar Freude  
To: madden  
Cc: info@a-blast.org  
Date: Thursday, April 24, 2003 3:47 PM Subject: Re: remove


>Mr. Madden, > >If you keep at your opinion, please go ahead and accuse the
person that has used your work to supply it into the Assoziations-Blaster.
To find out who this person was, please > >- tell us the precise address of
the supposed infringed copyright > >- verify and prove that you have the
copyright for this work > >- make a complaint of an offence at a competent
district public >prosecution authority in Germany, against the person that
has posted the works into the Assoziations-Blaster. With the complaint of
an offence you can request us to publish the IP-adress so the person can be
ascertained. > > >We will then give the IP-adress to the disctrict public
prosecution authority, which can investigate who has infringed the
copyright. Without that ruling we are not permitted to give you any data.
But we can tell you, that this IP-Adress is coming from the same net from
which you are sending your e-mails ... > >We also have to warn you, that if
it comes out that you have posted the texts into the Assoziations-Blaster
yourself and you claim an copyright infringement, you incur a penalty
(because of wrong suspicion). > > > >We are not at all familiar with your
work or your name. If your material is available in some form anywhere, you
can be sure that anybody can do anything with it. Like for example copying
it from your web site and pasting it in a free network literature project
like ours. > >Our policy is to allow postings of any kind by anybody. And
only the community regulates what is allowed and what not. We, as the
creators of the community software (if you want to call it like this) do
not post or delete anything ourselves. And we deny any responsibility for
what people do with our software. > >Please consider if you want to attack
us as private people or net artists. Because first of all we do not profit
of your texts in any way. It's a simple art project that we did out of
interest and it wasn't even commissioned in any way. And secondly maybe you
overestimate the relevance of our project. The system is completely
non-linear, it is not possible to search for texts related to an author's
name, and only maybe by accident somebody might find a text that you
consider an offense being there. The whole system is based on "coming
across something by accident". If your name appears there and somebody is
in favor of what is written there, it's possible to look up your name in
Google and come to "official" information about you. If you think that text
on the site of our project would appear authentic to anybody, please think
again. > >Especially if you are an author -- actually we don't know, as
stated above -- you should understand that the Web itself is a medium of
it's own and there should be room for specific artistic expression there.
To hit a harmless project like the Assoziations-Blaster with the hammer of
copyright could also bring you more harm than profit. In the web community,
your name would be associated with the suppression of free expression. > >
>If you want to know more about the Assoziations-Blaster, read this: >
>http://www.eyestorm.com/feature/ED2n_article.asp?article_id=318 > > >Best,
>Assoziations-Blaster Team (Dragan Espenschied, Alvar Freude) > > >