Mr Kaplan

I have decided to remain silent on this subject for a while now but now that Pandora's Box has been opened let's discuss the issue at hand. I think this post should stand on it's own and not as a response to your attack on Rich Burgel which is where I had initially posted it.

The photos of rare chips that I and many other collectors take the time to DONATE to the NON-PROFIT organization of the Chipguide are to help and aid the hobby and it's membership. While you may think that donating a photo is giving you SOLE OWNERSHIP of said image I assure you that it is not the case. Photographers by trade make their living by the rights of their photographs being used or even sold. The photos in the Chipguide are DONATED for your use and not your OWNERSHIP. What makes you think that the images you display are different enough from what was donated to you to merit copyright? If you thinking cropping a photo makes it different and unique you need better legal counsel. Why don't you WATERMARK your photos if you want to make some sort of claim on any future use? Your obsession with the photos and their use obviously comes from your perceived notion that they are your sole property. Again, I assure you they are not. They are for your FAIR USE but this does not give you the right to dictate how they, in their unchanged form, are used anywhere else. AND for someone who is constantly policing multiple forums and social media for "theft" of your images....you have on MANY occasions "helped yourself" to photos for Chipguide. Here are just some examples

Example #1 - After showing a fellow member some photos of my chips as he was interested in the snapper version, you took it upon yourself to crop the photos and put them up on Chipguide. When I asked him about it he said he had no idea you had done that. Here is the correspondence between us.

Example #2 - there is a member who has done nothing but post wonderful and informative videos on chips and their history. These are made soley for the hobby and it's members. In your many hours of perusing the social media landscape, you saw one of his posts about a new find of chips you knew were not his and "ASKED" him for scans..even though the chips were clearly not his!

Example #3 - You just blantantly helped yourself to this guys chip find photos without even asking! You just assumed he wanted it submitted?

It is absolutely RIDICULOUS how you peruse the boards on here, as well as Facebook, waiting to catch some 21 year old kid looking for a chip to add to his collection. At some point you have to take intent into account. Someone using the images to to misrepresent ownership for a sale is one thing..but in almost all of the cases you are chastising someone just being active in the hobby interacting with other collectors. A hobbyist using the hobby’s best tool.

And while we are on the subject of CG submissions and who has the right to use, how many submissions are posted from people who don’t own the chip themselves? I can list hundreds of chips that were scanned from Paulson Chip Catalogs, Chip Chat Auctions, Ebay Ads, Google images etc…. Shouldn't the Chipguide need to have every submission submitted with the provenance of who submitted it and whether or not they own the chip? If they do not own the chip then they should state what source the photo is from and whether they have retained the rights to use said photo. Seems to me like CG uses names of old contributors on anonymous submissions more often than not. Some retired and deceased chippers seems more active than ever with their submissions.

In the dawn of a new boom in NFT's and the monetizing of images and intellectual property I am VERY CONCERNED that my photos will be used in the future for this purpose. I respectfully ask that all of my submissions receive proper credit under each image stating "Image used courtesy of Emilio Soto" This is the standard on almost every publication of note when it comes to photos. Why should the Chipguide be any different? It is IMPERATIVE that we set precedent here and now about the ownership of these photos and the rights to their use. I donated my photos for educational purposes to a non-profit organization. I did not give up ownership of them for future use by me or anyone else I deem entitled to use them. Please address this issue ASAP.

Emilio Soto
R-8784