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Thursday 29 December 2011

Stealing My History of Olivetti Typewriters

Downloadable from:
http://issuu.com/bintphotobooks/docs/100yearsofolivettitypewriters/1
Way back at the start of my series on typewriter history, Richard Polt and others kindly commented that these posts and this research might be used by future typewriter historians. I was touched and encouraged by that, and soon after was pleasantly surprised to find this blog being used as a reference by Wikipedia.
Imagine my shock, however, to discover a few weeks ago that an organisation called bintphotobooks in the Netherlands had, in September, taken all five posts from my 100-year history of Olivetti Typewriters, put them together as a downloadable "book" and presented them on the web as its own work. Of course, bintphotobooks has never contacted me about this.
I wouldn't mind so much if bintphotobooks had given credit where credit is due - which is to recognise the original author and creator of these posts. But all there is is a small line at the end of the documented saying, "posted by Robert Messenger".
So, given this is all my work, I have decided to put the downloadable document on my own blog for the use of my own blog followers, if they are interested. But be warned: it is not very well edited or presented. It is word for word what I wrote back in April-May, plus the images I included, without any attempt to exclude first-person references or tidy up the layout.
I am thankful for small mercies in that bintphotobooks don't appear to be profiting from my work, and it is free to download, but then I can't be sure.
As far as I can tell, you can log in through Facebook or other means to download for free. As many of you will know, I am not very savvy on IT, so I'm not sure how these things work. If anyone can advise on easier access to this book from my blog, please let me know ...
Happy New Year!
Robert Messenger
Australian Typewriter Museum
Canberra
Australia
 
 

3 comments:

Dwayne F. said...

Wow. What amazing jerks.

By the way, your Olivetti series is wonderful and worth stealing.

notagain said...

I am constantly amazed at the things people will do out there. Have you contacted them? You should download their download, make your name more prominent, and offer THAT here, daring them to come at you.

notagain said...

p.s. the series I'm hoping for is the one on Litton. I see their logo on so many 70's machines it's mind-boggling.