To my fellow American Freedom Train fans,

As many of you may already know, I am a major fan of the bicentennial American Freedom Train (just ask Kevin Gillespie!). As a result of the March 2002 4449 trip in AFT colors, I created a special American Freedom Train Yahoo Group dedicated to keeping the memory of the AFT alive.

This past weekend, a message was posted to the American Freedom Train group regarding the creation of a new site dedicated to the both the 1947 era Freedom Train and the bicentennial American Freedom Train.

When viewing the site for the first time, you can imagine my surprise when I saw that a majority of the photographs displayed were taken directly from the American Freedom Train group site (or our companion site, American Freedom Train Pictures). At the risk of sounding repetitive, this was done without my knowledge or permission.

Via email, I immediately dispatched a message to the point of contact, expressing my concern that the pictures posted to this new site were done so without my permission or without proper credit to the attributed photographers or me.

Needless to say, as you may have seen, the response was less than satisfactory.

I am proud that since the creation of the American Freedom Train Group (and the American Freedom Train Pictures group), I have never posted a photograph or document without the specific permission of the photographer or contributor involved. Luckily, every photographer that I have asked for permission has freely given it. I have always asked such permission with the understanding that they will receive full credit and that no copyright mark (if applicable) will be removed by me. Further, it has always been my policy that should I be made aware of an item uploaded without proper permission, I will remove the item immediately. I have always adhered to these principles and I always will.

Please know that any photograph that appears on this new site that has been copied from either the American Freedom Train Group and / or the American Freedom Train Pictures Group has been posted without my permission.

Over the last several days, I have posted several questions to the gentleman, asking his plans for giving proper credit and/or attribution to those that deserve it.

To this point, my inquiries have been ignored. I am consulting with legal counsel as to what options are available to me to protect my rights to my intellectual property.

I take seriously the trust that has been given to me by the many contributors to the group and I work hard to uphold it. I apologize to you all for any inconvenience; please understand that I fully intend to adhere to the agreement that I have made with those of you that have given me permission to upload your pictures and/or documents to the group.

Very respectfully,

Burlington John Lewis
List Owner/Moderator
American Freedom Train Group
American Freedom Train Pictures Group

Yeah, I saw those messages to. I love how he has some kind of declaration that all images are owned by other people, and he thinks that's okay.
One of my best friend is a copyright attorney dealing with international copyright issues in the Pacific Rim, and I have successfully sued three poeple through him matters of this type when they have used my drawings on their websites with similar declarations. I'd recommend him to anyone, but he's not cheap, and I only use him because he cuts a good deal for me as I do graphics work for his firm.

P51,

Thanks for the tip.

As an aside, I am a recently retired veteran of 23+ years of service in the Navy.

I work for a local attorney part time (got to have $$$$ for railfanning!). She is more than willing to assist in this matter. I doubt that cost will be an issue.

Mind you, I never raised the copyright issue. My primary concern was giving credit where credit is due and preserving my word (in that I promised I would always give proper credit/not repost, etc).

Stay tuned, film at 11.

Regards,
Burlington John

On this date in 1975 Reading T-1 2101 and the Freedom Train were on public display at Delaware Park. As far as I know Delaware, being the first state, was also the first stop on the AFT tour.