General Info About My Site
including credits to others

Intro    Disclaimer & Copyrights    Webhost    Images    Credits

Intro:
This site contains information I have collected pertaining to the Dragonriders of Pern^® book series by Anne McCaffrey, as well as pointers to the Pern web sites I have found to contain useful or unique information.  I have deliberately not included links to specific  MUSH, MOO, and MUD pages, or sites about someone's MU* personas.  There are a ton of these out there, and I couldn't keep up with them if I wanted to.  If you're interested in finding these sites, or information about them, try the Pern Web Ring or the links on my Pern Fandom page.

Unless otherwise specified, all written material on this site is written and copyrighted by me, and may not be reproduced by others without my express written permission.

General Disclaimer and Copyright Information:
I have not intentionally violated anyone's copyright.  While the utmost in care has been made to avoid including any copyrighted text or graphics outside of the fair use doctrine or without permission, I still may have goofed somewhere.   If I have inadvertently broken copyright by reproducing any text or graphics, please email me at sariel @ srellim.org and I will remove it ASAP. 

I've had my site reviewed by Ms. McCaffrey's lawyer, Mr. Jay Katz, at my own request.  As a result of this, I have removed some material from my site, and am making sure all proper copyright and trademark notices appear where they should.  This does not imply that the material currently on my site has been fully approved; further objections can be made at any time.

I'm becoming more and more familiar with the copyright laws, having had exchanged several emails with Mr. Jay Katz, and from doing some of my own research on the web.  I plan to eventually write a page discussing Pern copyright issues and the web.  Until I do, I am happy to give advice to others in email.  Specific questions are easier to answer than the general "I'm curious about copyright stuff" question.  Keep in mind, of course, that I am not a lawyer and have no legal training.  While I wouldn't pass on any advice if I didn't believe it to be correct, my interpretation of the relevant laws offers you no legal assurances.  If you are truly concerned about keeping your website legal, you should consult your own lawyer.  Mr. Katz is Anne's lawyer (not yours!), and will not give general advice--only tell you of specific violations and ask you to correct them.   Knowing this, if you would still like to contact him, you can find his email address on his page of the website of the legal firm he works for.

Many authors generally allow excerpts of 300 words or less of their work to be reprinted without license or royalty fees, as long as the appropriate copyright notice is included with the excerpt.  Anne McCaffrey is one such author. 
Michael Whelan's website asserts that scans of book covers are legal; the underlying artwork (i.e. without the author's name and title splashed across it) is covered by copyright and may not be reprinted without permission.  While I have not had specific legal confirmation of this fact (that scanned covers are fine), it makes sense to me, as the reproducing the cover serves mainly to promote the book.  It's hard to see why publishers would object to that!  It also wouldn't make sense for it to be legal for bookstores like amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com to be allowed to print covers, and not the rest of us...

Webhost:
I now host my own site!
It used to be hosted by Burlee Networks, which provides top-notch features, excellent support services, and unlimited storage and bandwidth--and the price is a steal!  I shopped around quite a bit when looking for a new host, and these guys are a cut above the rest.  I still highly recommend them to anyone with a large site &/or high volume traffic.

Images and Artwork:
Most dragon graphics I've used originally came from Jen's free Dragon Art, or from Avinz's collection which no longer seems to be available.  I've modified these graphics to fit with my own theme.  My scribe's badge comes from the Pern Art collection of Lisa Lai.   I created the background myself.
The few cover images I have were scanned by me, but I may eventually include some cover scans that have been used by people selling Pern items on ebay.com (such as the original Analog magazine covers Anne was published in).  Also, sometime in the future I will include pictures of miscellaneous Pern merchandise (such as the Pern boardgame), which come mostly from images made by people selling said merchandise on ebay.com or from my own collection.

Credits:
My site has been improved in  small ways by a number of emails from various visitors, for which I am grateful.

Major contributions to the content or accuracy of my site come from the following individuals:
Elrhan, who works with me in taking notes for my Pern Primer and his own Pern Encyclopedia (looong term projects for both of us) and helps catch errors in the Cast of Pern.  
Anneli Conroy, who's checking the Cast of Pern with a fine-tooth comb, and provides valuable information on the differences between the DelRey (US) and Corgi or Bantam (UK) versions of Anne's book.
Hartley Patterson, who provides general tips on a variety of topics, especially on the DLG errata, and problems with my html coding.
All three have provided stimulating intellectual discussions of various aspects of Pern, in both private email and on the alt.fan.pern newsgroup.

My site would be much poorer without the input of these wonderful individuals, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart!

This site was created and is maintained and copyright by Sariel the Archivist

last modified: 8/13/2004