Warbird Information Exchange

I once used the text box method, but I bought a copy of Microsoft's "Picture It". It is a good set of basic photo editting pictures for a decent price. It gives you the ability to add text like I do in my pictures...
http://community.webshots.com/photo/462 ... 9177RfmcMR

Mike

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Mike R. Henniger
Aviation Enthusiast & Photographer
http://www.AerialVisuals.ca
http://www.facebook.com/AerialVisuals

Do you want to find locations of displayed, stored or active aircraft? Then start with the The Locator.
Do you want to find or contribute to the documented history of an aircraft? If so then start with the Airframes Database.

The thing that really gets me about the Jeff Ethell site is that the know perfectly well they are dups and even the description of individual images on the site ID the photographer. But they're selling the image anyway. The fellow running the website is Jeff's widow's 2nd husband who never knew him. The whole thing leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.

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Don't touch my junk!!

Aren't official USAAF photographs public domain to begin with? That's what I have always been told. It's obvious that many of those photos are photos taken for publication in newspapers back home.

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Victory By Valor (Motto of the 20th Fighter Group)

Yes, any gov't taken photo is in the public domain.
What were talking about is original personally taken slides loaned by the owner/photographer to whomever and now being sold without permission online. Or downloaded from the owners webpages and being displayed or used in other ways with the actual owners permission.

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Don't touch my junk!!

Jack, that's what I thought.

Yes, there are numerous photos on that site that I know 100% who the photographer was in addition to numerous official government photos... I can't imagine they are making much off of the site it took them months to get back to me when I asked about a few of the images they had and I got the impression it was from lack of organization.

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Victory By Valor (Motto of the 20th Fighter Group)

The other thing about the fellow who took over Jeff Ethell's business is that the hardcopy collection has been sold to the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Not sure how much they sold it for.... but it must have been a lot. I was told by someone who knew Jeff well, that he'd been approached by a well known japanese aviation magazine who offered over a million dollars to buy the collection from him. He didn't sell of course, because it would have been an ethical violation, and Jeff was a very ethical man. This chap whose taken over does not seem to have any qualms about making money off other people's work though. It is a real shame, and Jeff must be spinning in his grave!

Richard

Something is seriously not right here.

Type in Spitfire on the search engine and you get two Mustangs shots and a Firefly shot misidentified in the first seven images.

PeterA

Just as a minor point of clarification because I don't really want to get into deep debate, I am Jeff's son, David, and I still work the collection WITH my stepfather. Please refrain from accusations about a person (my stepfather) whom you have never met. He did not know my father, that is correct, but he has been thoroughly excited by my father's work and is a wonderful proponent of his career and life's work.

Two other points: We as a family decided NOT to sell the collection to Seattle, so that information is incorrect. Also, we do recognize that many of the photos in our collection are duplicates of public domain images from the National Archives and from the Air and Space Museum. We are not selling "rights" to these images, but we do make them available through our collection. As public domain images, anyone desiring to receive these images can do precisely what my father did. They can travel to the Archives or the Smithsonian, find them and duplicate them for themselves.

We are just helping people interested in obtaining these photos skip a few steps, but again, I don't think anyone on our side has claimed ownership or copyright of these images.

We are very thankful for all the support we've received as a family over the years. We simply ask that if anyone questions what we're doing you please contact us directly instead of speculating.

Thanks so much,

David Ethell

David,
What about the images from private collections that are NOT public domain but were loaned to Jeff for use in specific projects?
Please note my concern from earlier posts in this thread concerning the "Hot Shots" book and the use of my images.
BTW Jeff was a good friend and we cooresponded frequently and always helped each other out. I saw him at Tillamook for the P-38/Young Pilots filming and again when he made his last flight.
Thanks....Jack Cook

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Don't touch my junk!!

Jack and all...,

Have you contacted them directly regarding the "Hot Shots" book or other problems? As someone who has a fairly large number of friends who know the family fairly well, I would suggest that if you simply approached them, that you would probably find at least a receptive ear. I would be willing to vouch for their good character.
Knowing the biblical pattern of reconcilliation, if you have a beef with them or with something they've done, first you should ask them personally, then with a witness, and then if you still can't find a solution, then there would be grounds to talk about it publically. Otherwise, we are just slandering folks who may not have realized that there were issues. I know you may sayt that "well I know that they knew", but I don't think that they would intentionally do this.
I know that if you approached them that they would respect you for this, and am sure that they would try to work something out if a reasonable solution could be found, assuming you are correctly stating the situation.

Ryan

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Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

I wrote the publisher after the book came out since I had no other contact info. They basically told me to get lost.
I was hoping David would answer here since he posted earlier today and responded to all but that specific question. I'm not just asking for myself but for all the many people who've loaned their precious material. In my humble opinion any material borrowed and copied from the original owner should not be displayed, reproduced or sold without their permission. I don't think Jeff would ever do that.

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Don't touch my junk!!

Jack,

We completely acknowledge the copyright of the original photographers. The collection has been in a state of suspension for many years and that has made it difficult for me or my stepfather to get things well organized, but we're working as hard as we can.

Our policy is that we never use pictures without permission. My understanding from my father before he died was that many, actually, most of the pictures in the private collection were loaned to him to duplicate for whatever future projects he needed as long as there was proper credit given. I was not under the impression that the photos were only loaned for one or two projects, but for whatever may come down the road.

That said, whenever we have a photographer ask for us to stop using their photographs we always comply. Many of these men have passed away along with their widows, but we always want to credit properly and comply with their wishes we much as we know them.

If there has been any lack of communication please blame me as my stepfather, Ovid, has worked tirelessly to get the collection better organized. I'm the one responsible for being the communication end so that falls to me. Whatever your wishes are for your images in the collection we want to comply.

Any other photographers out there, please note the same. We want to give proper credit and be accurate in our details. We have had, I think, two photographers ask us to remove their photos from circulation and we've done so promptly. Our desire is to have the best organized and detailed World War II color collection available, but only with the support and recognition of the men who sacrificed so much to take those pictures in the first place.

Regarding the Hot Shots book that my sister worked on, understand that she was working under the assumption from me that we had permission to use any of the photos in the collection as I mentioned above.

Please let me know if there's anything more we can do and if any of you have specific questions I can answer.

All the best,

David Ethell

David

thank you for these insights

a question regarding your statement




are these wishes (as far as they are know) only related to the duplicate / in your collection or to the picture in general ? - I am asking this because there is

a) the chance that with the passing of the original owners/photographers, the originals were lost forever for some reason and your dupes are what's left
b) there exist other duplicates with different instructions attached that might lead to confusions (I do have such duplicates for instance)
c) the originals have been acquired (including copyright) by other parties after Jeff made dupes

all the above mentioned scenarios could lead to discussions related to the future use of some of the photographs in your collection


also



What if there are projects 'down another road', i.e. some other authors are working on publications that would benefit from photographs in your collection but these authors clearly are not in a position to pay the fees as advertised on your site.

Would Jeff's spirit, i.e. the preservation of history in color images and making them available to others, also extend to other historians, authors, etc. in a non-commercial approach ?


I also was in direct contact with Jeff and he was willing to help me in some of my projects, but his death prevented this from happening.

Can you please enlighten me / us ?

Thank you
Martin / Swiss Mustangs

Thanks for your reply David. I can't speak for anyone but myself but here are some answers on questions or assumptions you posed.

We completely acknowledge the copyright of the original photographers.

Then why are they posted for sale?

Our policy is that we never use pictures without permission. My understanding from my father before he died was that many, actually, most of the pictures in the private collection were loaned to him to duplicate for whatever future projects he needed as long as there was proper credit given. I was not under the impression that the photos were only loaned for one or two projects, but for whatever may come down the road.

Jeff never said to me "send me all your stuff" it was "I'm working on this project. Would you have anything that maybe of use?"
I don't feel that loaning stuff to Jeff to use on his projects means someone else ie "Hot Shots" or whatever else that comes down the road can use them without my permission.
Do you have signed releases?


Regarding the Hot Shots book that my sister worked on, understand that she was working under the assumption from me that we had permission to use any of the photos in the collection as I mentioned above.

Assumption is irresponsible. As the saying goes.
Why would I want my beautiful slides used has cruddy small B & Ws??
I wonder if a vet or anyone else if asked for the loan of his slides and was told that they would be copied and sold for profit if they would have loaned them at all?

and finally............

I was not under the impression that the photos were only loaned for one or two projects, but for whatever may come down the road.

That maybe true in many cases but I doubt if "whatever" includes selling them??!!

Thank you for talking to us here. I think this is a good arena for this because of the many people affected.

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Don't touch my junk!!

Martin and Jack,

Thanks for your questions back. I haven't checked the forum in a few days so I'm a bit behind. Here are some responses in no particular order:

Martin,

Regarding the wishes of those who lent pictures for duplication, their wishes would apply to those duplicates. Clearly if the originals have been acquired and a copyright is established by someone else then we respect that. Copyright, as you know, is assigned to the original photographer, not to someone who may have the originals. And the copyright is established upon publication of a certain nature that meats a minimal criteria. So my publishing a newsletter with a circulation of 10 doesn't establish copyright, but as long as it meets a certain minimum then the copyright is established to the photographer. I'm not a copyright attorney, of course, but this is how we've been advised.

Certainly there will always be potential issues with the images in the collection and that's why we always want to err on the side of the photographer.

As for other authors using them, we do have many authors using them who pay the fees. I know my father was very generous in allowing others to use pictures as well, but that he also had intention to use the collection as his income generator for the remainder of his life so he balanced the idea of preserving the history with also making a living from using that history effectively.

In our position, we want to preserve that spirit, but we are not a non-profit museum and are using the collection to generate revenue. We work as well as we can with various authors to make the collection accessible while still having it stay a viable enterprise for us.

Jack,

We are not selling the images, we are selling access to our copies of the images to save others the time it would take for them to find and duplicate them. That's not meant to be a small symantical difference, but is a crucial idea. We are charging for the time and effort to keep the photos maintained and organized.

I hope that makes it somewhat clearer.

Regarding projects like "Hot Shots," sometimes people use the photos in odd ways. Certainly my sister didn't know they were publishing some of the color photos as black and white and she worked hard to get many changes into the publisher that were ignored. I have no idea why a publisher would ever choose to do that except to save cost, but that was their call.

I guess it would be helpful to hear from others on these issues as well. What would you do with a photo collection of this size and nature, mostly duplicates, where most of the photographers were since passed away? We are working the best we can to balance preservation of history with a profitable enterprise and are always open to other opinions and information.

All the best and thanks to both of you for taking the time to respond,

David