MESSAGE FROM THE WEBSITE OWNER
Some of you are maybe asking yourselves why isn’t there more period correct pictures on this website? The reason is very simple: copyright… and the Shrine’s willingness to respect it.
When starting the Rally Group B Shrine project three years ago (the first two years were on my personal blog), I, as are most of you, felt placidly entitled to media (images, videos, etc) that was publicly accessible from the internet. As such, I used a lot of pictures (from image searches) that I fully ignored had been already stolen and unlawfully copied from the copyright owner. One such amazing visual database is the property of the McKlein Publishing company, made famous by the amazing work of motorsports photographer and author, Reinhard Klein.
I recently came into contact with the Klein family after purchasing more Group B related books from their publishing house. I was proud to share the work I had done on this website by proposing some sort of cooperation. However this was soon thwarted since I had been unknowingly featuring some of their copyrighted pictures in the website. I already fully respected claims to copyright (and willingly shared sources for attribution as fully explained in the website’s disclaimer) so I offered many options to “make it right”. Even if the Kleins were not happy of the situation I was told that they didn’t plan retribution against fan sites or the Rally Group B Shrine, and to simply “forget it”.
However, this caused a conflict in my own personal ethics as I too do not like when I stumble upon my work elsewhere on the internet (which is mostly always blatantly lacking proper attribution). Furthermore, the Shrine is becoming VERY popular hence making the chance that the McKlein library be unlawfully spread on the internet an exponential problem. As such, I have undertaken 100% voluntarily the time consuming task of hunting down every picture from the McKlein Publishing house that was featured in the website, even if that meant losing much of the period correct pictures and vastly diminishing the quality of the Shrine’s visual library. It took much concentration and hours of research but the work is done!
However, all is well since I received good word from the Kleins that I will be allowed to display their Eifel Rallye Festival image database that features modern high resolution pictures of Group B & S cars. Look for these images to be implemented in the website as I continue the 2017’s full article revamps! Again, I wish to extend my apologies and thanks to the Klein family.
That being said, please be conscious and respect other people’s work: do not copy or redistribute any kind of information or media without first asking permission! P.S.: No watermark or copyright sign on a picture or text doesn’t mean it is not copyrighted!
