Dear Samsung and Apple....

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Grow up, stop bickering and acting like a pair of spoilt children!.

I refering of course to the pathetic bloody squabbling that is currently taking place between these 2 giants of the technology world in relation to alleged copyright infringements.

Apple have managed to get the sale of Samsung products banned in some countries, and Samsung are now counter suing Apple on similar copyright grounds.

So where, Mr Samsung and Mr Apple, does your "valued" customer come amongst all your pathetic altracations?

Grow up the pair of you.

Thank God no smart arse patented the wheel......we would still be in the bloody stone age.....although the legal system would be a very wealthy industry!

Oh and here is an idea.  When you stop being arses can you donate the remaining legal fee cash to something worth fighting....like cancer ;-)
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"It would be funny it is was not so bloody tragic!" (Shirley Nolan)

Shirley was a lady who hated beurocracy and meddling people in crisp white shirts who didn't understand what she was trying to do.Today I had a taste of just the sort of thing she found herself up against all those years ago.

I called the BBC to ask if i could use the footage i have of Shirley's appearance on the program "The light of experience".All I wanted to do was put a 35 year old interview onto my website for people to see, so that they could get some idea as to what sort of a person she was. Result? After speaking to a lady who had A) never heard of the Anthony Nolan Trust B) Confused the hell out of me, and didn't seem to appreciate the fact that I was doing this for no gain.....NO GAIN.... (she quoted £700 for a 30 second clip!).
I have spent what seems like an age searching the BBC website for advice as to how I would go about "legally" posting their footage.........what a circus that is!.They almost never give you a telephone number to call, and if they do it is never quite the one you want.

So...BBC, can I just reitterate this point...again.....

ALL I WANT TO DO IS POST A 13 MINUTE INTERVIEW WITH A LADY WHO IS NOW DESCEASED ON MY BLOG TO LET PEOPLE SEE WHO SHIRLEY NOLAN WAS.THE FOOTAGE IS 35 YEARS OLD AND I WON'T BE MAKING ANY MONEY OR GAINING ANYTHING FOR MYSELF IN ANY WAY. IT IS TO HELP SAVE LIVES.

I am not a criminal, i have no intention to deny the BBC royalties nor do I have any alterior motive for my request.I simply want to remind the world of just who this lady was, and what she has done for thousands of people by establishing the Anthony Nolan Trust.........that's all :-)


Come on BBC,please.Can you drop all the copyright stuff and let someone who wants to make a difference at least have a chance of doing so ?

If anyone from the Beeb reads this and would like to help, then PLEASE get in touch! :-)
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Ramblings from early this morning :-).....well it was just after 2am!

Its 2.24 in the morning, and yet again i find myself inexplicably woken with my head full of thoughts and idea's pertaining to my search for the copyright owner of Shirley's book.So here i sit/lie with my laptop in bed adding another blog entry!.
As i have mentioned before, i am currently reading the story again, the second time i have done so, and yet again i feel compelled to carry on my search to identify this elusive goal to try to establish copyright ownership so that the book "A Kiss Through Glass" can be once more shared with the world.
What or who drives me on is any ones guess.Why, out of all of the people on this planet do i seem (on the face of it) to be the only individual who feels that it is morally wrong to consign this powerful,heartbreaking but ultimately inspiring story to the grey mists of time and the vault of obscurity and faded half remembered folklore. This is story to which possibly thousands, maybe in the greater picture, tens of thousands (including subsequent offspring),may owe their very lives too, and indeed the continued work of the Anthony Nolan Trust, which is still a thriving charity, pays testament to the labours of Shirley Nolan in her fight 30 years ago to save her beloved son Anthony.
The last few days have seen me sending off numerous emails to Australia as I try to widen the scope of my search, only yesterday I emailed the Adelaide Advertiser, a publication that ran several stories about the plight of Anthony during the early seventies. Even without receiving a reply I start to get that awful feeling that maybe too much water has passed under the metaphorical bridge of time for their to be anyone left at the publication who A) remembers the events of 1974-1979 and B) Would be interested in assisting my search. But maybe I am getting a little paranoid perhaps? Maybe tomorrow will bring something, anything tangible that could refresh my efforts, or perhaps, dare i dream, could even lead me to my ultimate goal.
It has just occurred to me that their is the slightest possibility that even when I (if I!) achieve my aim and find the copyright holder (that term is now starting to remind me of the "gatekeeper" in Ghost busters!), what happens if they decline my request to grant permission to republish the book? Why would they? What then? The truth is that I don't really know.I can't think why that situation would arise, but saying that, sometimes people or indeed organisations don't comply and do "the right thing".For whatever reasons are given, i must be ready (although it will be an awful blow) to be disappointed.
I have decided to start a group on Facebook called "Make A Kiss Through Glass into a film". The problem is of course that the vast majority of Facebook users are probably under 40, which means quite simply that due to the rarity of the book they are likely to be too young to have heard the story via the press as it was reported in 1974-1979...catch 22 as they say!, so I will have to refer members to my webpage and hope that my insane ramblings are enough to fire their imagination and gain their support.
Well, it's now 3.03 in the morning and the battery on the laptop is showing only 15 mins of life left (the laptop, not me!...hopefully!), so i will now end this post save it (if i don't get that right you won't be reading this anyway!), and then attempt to get 3 more hours of sleep before getting up, having a coffee and then returning for another fun filled day at the hospital :-). Bye for now.

The Copyright owner search......message from Australia has arrived :-)

I had a look at my emails this morning and found that my enquiry to the National Library of Australia has been responded too.

Yet again, frustratingly no ground breaking information, but quite a few suggestions of new avenues of enquiry.

This is the email that i received:

Dear Mr Ward

Thank you for contacting the National Library of Australia.According to information I found on the Internet, Shirley Nolan committed suicide in Adelaide (South Australia) in 2002. The only information I could find about her spouse stated that they had separated in 1975. The question of who is now the copyright holder for this book is unclear.The Australian Copyright Council's Information Sheet G51 Owners of copyright: how to find, states that,"If copyright was owned by an individual who has died, copyright is usually passed onto that person's spouse or children. You may be able to check who inherited copyright if you can get a copy of the person's will. If copyright has not been bequeathed specifically, it is presumed to form part of the residual estate. In Australia, contact the Probate Division of the Supreme Court in the State where the author died. Alternatively, if the work has been published, contact the relevant publisher."Contact details for the South Australian Supreme Court Probate Division can be found through this website: http://www.courts.sa.gov.au/courts/supreme/ and the email address given for Probate enquiries is: probate@courts.sa.gov.auThe publisher of "A Kiss Through Glass" was Gazelle Books, however I can't find any information to confirm that this publisher is still in business.Finally, the Copyright Agency Limited ( http://www.copyright.com.au/) is the major copyright collecting agency. It is possible that the author signed up with them.I hope this information is of assistance.

Good luck with your search.

Regards,Kate Boesen Reference Librarian
Information ServicesNational Library of Australia

Quite a lot to chase there, so it looks like this weekend will possibly be a busy on !

Many thanks to Kate for taking the time and effort to gather this information for me :-)

Off we go again!.............

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WMG or WMD ?

I ask the question because yet again i have had video's pulled from YouTube due to "copyright violation".
Before you say "well you were aware of the chance this may happen, and it did a few months ago..", can I just point out that WMG (Warner Music Group...you know, the ones who encouraged you to spend all of your pocket money on records,tapes and Cd's when you were a kid!)who have an annual profit of several gazzilion dollars (probably more!), are not exactly going to go bankrupt just because i have used (oh the shame of it..) a Phil Collins track in one of my CHARITY video's...gasp!.
In fact, i would argue that WMG may actually benefit from my use of the track and MAKE money when someone (who hears it on my vid) then decides later to buy the Album.
I think it is true to say that large corporations really excel in the field of alienating their customers, and playing the spoilsport with the large bank balance and the small heart. Maybe WMG could prove me wrong by donating cash to help some cancer charities find a cure for cancer......then again, sorry, i thought that they really gave a stuff about their public...my mistake !. Warner...Mean Gits !!.