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Assorted Correspondence

Copyright Violation in Action: The Case of the Paul Kopeikin Gallery


Responses from AIPAD Members*

AIPAD Members speak out:

*At the 2003 edition of The Photography Show, the annual expo of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) held each February at the New York Hilton, one AIPAD Board member informed me that these postings -- and particularly my letter to Robert Klein of October 24, 2001 -- have generated what he characterized as "controversy" among some segments of the AIPAD membership. As I understood it, these individuals whose objections he reported feel that I have unfairly associated them with one AIPAD member's behavior (over which they had no control), and/or with the Board's decision in this matter (in which they had little say, since the matter was never put before them for a collective vote).

AIPAD President Robert Klein described AIPAD as "a membership organization" to an auditorium full of witnesses at the Thomas Struth talk on the morning of Sunday, February 9, 2003. And any member of a membership organization who does not formally and publicly disassociate him- or herself from documented public behaviors, actions, and statements of other members thereof -- including, if necessary, its elected officers -- is commonly and appropriately assumed to endorse, or at least tolerate, such behaviors, actions, and statements.

However, to my surprise, I learned that AIPAD members lack a venue in which to discuss this matter. The AIPAD website is not available to its members for such discourse -- not even in a password-protected members-only chat room. Therefore, in the interest of fairness, full disclosure, and open dialogue, and to make this as easy for them as possible, I decided to make available at my website as much public space as necessary for individual AIPAD members or any groups thereof to post responses to my comments and questions. I sent notification of this offer to AIPAD President Robert Klein, AIPAD Executive Director Kathleen Ewing, and AIPAD Board member Charles Isaacs on February 10, 2003, for circulation to the membership at large. The results appear below.

I will not edit, shorten, or censor those responses in any way, but will post them exactly as received.

Additionally, I want to indicate that I consider any AIPAD member who publicly takes a stand here or elsewhere in opposition to attacks on the the rights of makers of intellectual property rights as an exception to my comments about AIPAD as a whole.

-- A. D. C.
February 11, 2003

Copyright © 2003 by A. D. Coleman. All rights reserved. For reprint permissions contact Image/World Syndication Services, POB 040078, Staten Island, NY 10304-0002 USA;T/F (718) 447-3091, imageworld@nearbycafe.com