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Originally posted by lassiter
OK, first, I agree with Alex about this.
But second, no I don't think charging a fee is "stealing" or violating copyright. The gallery is obviously going to be freely available on other "free" TGPs or to anyone who knows the URL.
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Shareware is available for free, but you can't sell it. Microsoft Media player is downloadable for free, but you can't sell that either. Just because copyrighted material is freely available doesn't mean someone who doesn't own it can sell it. Copyright is about the RIGHTS of the owner to decide if and how their owned material can be used. If I take a picture and allow company A to use it for free, that doesn't mean that everyone can use it for free.
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Rand McNally doesn't "own" the interstate highway system either, but people will pay for maps that correlate physical data into an easy-to-use and convenient format. It's the effort put into the organizing and correlating the data that is being charged for here, not the "right" to see the gallery itself - a gallery that in fact is still freely accessible to the surfer who knows where to look.
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This isn't a good analogy for several reasons:
1. Rand McNalley did the physical work to create the maps from non copyrighted information. They are selling their work and images. Their maps are also copyrighted... try selling access to their map pages and see how long it takes for them to slap you with a C&D.
2. Roads aren't copyrighted.
3. Purchasing a map to see roads (or links) is not the same as purchasing access to use the roads (or links). Try standing on the freeway and selling access for people to drive on it or use an off ramp. With any luck you'll make enough to buy some cigarettes from your cellmate at the county jail.
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But again, the argument is moot since I agree that the surfers are gonna go where the data is already organized and presented for free, rather than paying for it, just like a for-pay search engine is not gonna compete with Google, no matter how good it might otherwise be.
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I agree, nobody is going to want to pay to access a TGP when there are so many great places like greenguy, tommys, the hun, etc, to get it for free.