Copyright & Other Important Issues
Dear friends,
As noted countless times throughout the site, WOW Zone is a COMMERCIAL
website. That means that it's NOT a non-profit organization, NOT a religion, NOT a cult, NOT a place for vulgarity,
etc. It is also CLEARLY stated that using anything from the site without permission is copyright infringement. That
is illegal, like shoplifting and theft.
It appears that many people don't know, don't read, or don't care. They call themselves "WOW" - but then
they take material from the wowzone site, and put it on their own sites, in forums, etc., without asking for
permission or giving credit to wowzone.com. We actually saw one of the stories that was personally written by Carmen Colombo
( Suicide - a permanent solution for a temporary problem; http://www.wowzone.com/suicide.htm
) in a popular forum, and the person who posted it had the nerve to sign it as his own story.
We are also very concerned about our poem called "Phoenix"
http://www.wowzone.com/phoenix1.htm
"Phoenix" was written in March 1996 by Carmen Colombo, and is on the site since we launched wowzone in
June 1996.
Following the 9-11 tragedy in the USA, it was suggested that "Phoenix" be made into a tribute poem for all
who were lost and those they left behind. For that purpose, we created a poster with "Phoenix" on it, and
then a page with other comforting poetry, which is linked to from many sites. The url is: http://www.wowzone.com/phoenix.htm
Some people, however, simply snatched "Phoenix" with no credit given to the author or to wowzone.com
Then, a new "Harry Potter" book came out, called "The Order of the Phoenix". This started
another round of "Phoenix" snatchers.
Despite asking politely that people not use it unless they put the
author's name and website on it so that it does not become anonymous, our politeness falls on deaf ears.
Herein lies our challenge and dilemma. We are WOW, so we don't want to go around suing everyone. On the other hand,
we must find a way to stop this.
Therefore we strongly advise people everywhere to write to us if you want to use anything from
wowzone. We are reasonable people, and this is for the purpose of keeping track of our work. We can do it anyway,
but why would you want to give us trouble?
As you know, we work very hard to do all the things we do, and all of it is brought to
you FREE OF CHARGE. However, we KNOW that there are people who do research on our site, get WELL PAID
for it, and don't credit our site or even say thank you. How nice.
But you know, nobody can live for FREE. We all have bills to pay. If you even scratched the surface of WOW Zone, you
can begin to imagine the cost of building, maintaining, and keeping it online for over SEVEN YEARS.
We have so much
exclusive, important material, and are involved in so many causes and events, that we actually have to turn many
away. It's awful because we KNOW that we can make a difference, but business is business. We can't do EVERYTHING for
FREE. Remember, we are a COMMERCIAL site.
Again, we STRONGLY advise those who use copyright material from wowzone without
permission to cease immediately and contact us. We do have legal council, and we WILL use the proper measures to ensure that our
copyright is respected. Please don't let us go there...we have much more important work to do.
Thank you for your attention.
The WOW Zone Team
July 2003
http://www.wowzone.com
Member of the Who's Who Historical Society
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