Craig,
Thanks for the response - you have raised a very valid point about donations to any organisation which I hadn't thought about. When making donations to any group under any circumstances, it should be documented within the terms of the transaction what the rules are regarding access to the donation and rules that the recieving organisation should comply with to retain the item(s).
If I donated something on the understanding that I could have have free and reasonable access to the item(s) only to be told that either I couldn't or would have to pay I would seek to have the item(s) removed from the juristiction of the organisation.
I do know that the only caveat placed on the donation that I'm involved in is that the recieving society wish to have the ability to deal accordingly with items that duplicate others already in their archive. This, to me, is a responsible position to take. I think, and therefore I may be wrong, that the societies archive is only to be opened for pre-arranged visits and "on demand" visits will not permitted, again this is okay for a voluntary organisation.
I have found that parts of my own website have been "lifted" by other webmasters, a Spanish author who didn't ask but did mention Snr. Hamilton in the credits (but got the URL wrong), it is mentioned in a Brazilian book about articulated steam locomotives (with the correct URL) and information has been used by a UK magazine without prior permission. In each case I would have given assent to the use as long as credit was given. I have deliberately made the pictures too low resolution for publication purposes.
There have been several cases that I know of where publications and organisations, both commercial and governmental, have taken pictures from the internet and used them without, at the very least, credit being given. I've got to the stage where I'm giving serious consideration to "water marking" all the pictures on my site - probably with the words "some thieving b*stard stole this image from....."
/rant
regards
Gavin
P.S. The cat is NG and far too old for mousing - so much so she has been known to bring in bits of stale bread a neighbour has put out for the birds
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