When Should A Gallery Be Deleted?

"Also if you don't own a cel anymore and the previous owner decides they do not want the cel in public and asks you to remove it, then it's not right for the previous owner to show it even if in the interest of the community"

The owner of the cel generally does not possess an overarching right in the image. If anyone possesses an overarching right in the image, it is the owner of the copyright of the work the cel appeared in (tho there is a strong argument that they do not have rights in the individual image, and even if they did they would be precluded by the fair use doctrine from preventing non-profitmaking use of a cel's image). Rubberslug policy can be whatever it wants; based on practice, sold cels are permitted when labeled as such. I see no benefit in taking cel images offline (I in fact see it as detrimental), and I see no reason to allow a current owner to force down the image displayed by a previous owner.

We're just going to have to agree to disagree Ted. No cel collector really have the rights to an image. It's the person who owns the copyrights that has that right and most of us knows this. But anyone who has spent some time in the community knows that some collectors don't care whether their cel images are used or not with or without permission. For those people who has no beef then that's fine. It's the other collectors who feels that they need to be informed when and where their scans are used that this becomes an issue. There are certain collector behavior that is generally observed in the community. Blatant disregard of this for whatever reason (educational, growth, knowledge, curiosity, stubborness, rudeness, etc.) especially from other collectors breed contempt and ill behavior that discourages collecting openly and thus defeats the purpose, which brings me to my original point no collector should have the right to impose on others their own ideas of what to collect or how to share a collection/piece they don't own. One can only suggest such things.

I'll end it here because I do feel that this is getting a bit off topic. My apologies to the original poster, I hope you get an answer as I am curious too on how this would be handled.

[br]hey matt! long time no chat! :) if you sent me feedback via RS-- I probably didn't get it (and I love to get e-mail) because my AOL acct has become my new spam box due to the pornographic link thing. I get all kinds of mail now from Barnes and Noble... ugh! Sorry-- try contacting me through PM via Beta or snag my personal email from someone.

after much reading and debate, i am leaning more towards the cleaning side of the fence.[br]

I, like you, have tried in the past and failed to get in contact with some of those "dead" or "inactive" gallery owners. It had even taken me to search for their new web site if they had mentioned it on their RS gallery page and most of the time the gallery was either never created or may have been moved and their host was deleted. I gave up.

If you have been gone for at least 5+ years and everything has been sold or nothing was done after the gallery was created, I would agree with freeing up RAM and bandwith.

Rights to scans in these galleries do belong to the public because they can be labeled as abandoned cyber property. Hence, it is up to the public what should be done with them. I will say that I abandoned my gallery for an entire year and half because I was dealing with life. But, I don't think that sporadic updating should be condoned either as many of us, including myself, do this.

I believe that if those members who didn't respond to Jason's first plea to keep your contact information updated should have their galleries deleted. That is my 2 cents.

Personally I don't care how long a gallery remains inactive, no matter how little, if anything, is on it as long as it adheres to the TOS.

That beings said, I believe the TOS should be amended to include:

1. A RS cel gallery must contain at least 1 cel
2. The gallery owner must have a current email for contact at all times.

Nothing is more annoying than trying to contact a gallery owner only to have bounce back.

I realize we have an issue with spam these days, and I know Jason is well aware and working on the issue in any way he can, but there should always be a direct line of communication available between a site's admin and their users.

i agree with you 100% Startyde.