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Copyright? What the heck?

By Kshitij Sharma, August 26, 2005

Last week, I was browsing through various astrology sites to see what kind of services they offer. I came across a a website owned by a leading astrologer of India. He has published a lot of books and writes daily columns in leading Indian newspapers. While describing birth charts and chart matching, the web designers had basically copy-pasted definitions from my website. I sent a polite email asking the webmaster of the website to modify the content. They responded positively. The content was changed within a week. This incident made me think. I had a copyright statement prepared, which is now applicable to the website. The copyright statement essentially says:

  1. You may not use the textual material on the website and this blog without permission of the publisher.
  2. You may generate and distribute the birth charts, i.e. the applet, image generated and the html chart, without any charge or fee, provided the copyright of the author is acknowleged.
  3. Any astrologer may also use these charts and provide them to his/her clients, as per conditions in (2) and charge them appropriately if there is a genuine value addition in form of chart reading, preditions, remedial actions etc.

Here is the conversation I had with the webmaster.

From: [edited]
Date: Aug 25, 2005 12:09 PM
Subject: Re: Copyright violation of my site
To: Kshitij Sharma

Dear kshitij Sharma,
This site is not directly owned by us but by our reseller.
However your point is valid and we will ensure that they change
the content on this site.
We thank you for drawing our attention to this.
Regards,
[edited]

Kshitij Sharma wrote:

> Hello Mr [edited]
>
> I am the owner of site http://www.geocities.com/sharma_jyotish
> and have been operating this site from 2001 onwards. I observed
> your other website - [edited] and the descriptions for Kundali Milan
> and Birth Charts have been copied from my web page.
>
> I have proof to support my claim. Please look at the webarchive site :
> http://www.archive.org which is a non profit internet library.
> It maintains web pages archives from 1996 onwards. If you enter my site
> details in the web site, you can get archives for June-July 2001 where I
> have used these descriptions for Kundali Milan and Birth Charts.
>
> In good faith, I ask you to change the description on your web site.
> I do not ask for anything else at this point in time.
>
> Thanks and regards
>
> kshitij sharma
> --
> Kshitij Sharma
> http://kshitijs.blogspot.com/

It was good to know that a site like http://www.archive.org exists which maintains versions of webpages from 1996 onwards. I was plesently surprised to see old versions of my webpage. You may want to check it out…

2 comments

  • Comment by souvik roy on September 9, 2015 at 3:51 pm

    SIR I AM SOUVIK ROY,
    MY DATE OF BIRTH – 30/08/1990,
    TIME- 21:32(09:32:13 PM),

    Place: Suri (Birbhum), West Bengal, India Latitude: 023.55.N Longitude: 087.32.E
    TimeZone: 5Hr.30Mt.
    MALE
    I HAVE GURUCHANDAL JOG IN MY CUNDALI? WHICH HOUSE?
    SIR I HVAE READ YOUR POST, I HAVE BORN MALEFIC OR BENEFIC GURU CHANDAL DOS IN MY CUNDALI? IN MY CUNDALI VENAS 5 DEGREE CONJENCTION WITH RAHU? VENAS EXALTED 4TH HOUSE?

  • Comment by Parvesh Garg on March 31, 2017 at 9:19 pm

    MY NAME IS PARVESH GARG
    DOB: 09/07/1992
    TIME: 01:56 AM
    PLACE: DELHI

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