I’m not taking pot shots at you. I know you didn’t say that no-one else can have that idea. All I was doing was illustrating that it would be a little ridiculous, if say, hypothetically, that you would be so inclined to do so.

And yes, I do appreciate the history lesson. If I am wrong about the facts, then I’ll admit it. Evidently, I was wrong about See Lai borrowing from Conrad.

I’m not considering you a foe to be honest. I’m sorry if you get that impression.

And thanks… although I’m sure you’ll be bored soon enough!

I like your blog and style. I will be a regular reader.

Cheers!

I stand appropriately corrected on that point then.

One wonders then whether I should be asking your permission to run a “Top 100 Sexiest Asian Women” style poll system on my site (as suggested by this post).

Of course, if not, then I’d like it noted for the record it was my idea (if I was the first) so any subsequent Top 100 Sexiest Asian Women is now copyright by me, patent pending, etc. etc. Blah blah blah. It gets a little ridiculous if we start to copyright certain generic ideas.

Incidentally, See Lai is probably more suited to running such a poll than this site. So knock yourself out on that idea. It would be interesting to see so long as it isn’t completely dominated by porn stars.

See Lai did NOT borrow Conrad or Gweilo Diaries idea of girlies or models.

In fact, my first girlie pics were saying goodbye to Kaila Yu and I gave adequate credit to Conrad for Kaila’s introduction.

After that, I created a weekly, monthly, yearly model contest (mainly featuring Asian Models) and that was my idea (as far as I am aware) with reasonable polls.

And remember, I also re-hosted the Miss Chinese contest after thanking and informing the original contest sponsors.

I do not see ANY model contest at Gweilo Diaries or if I am mistaken, I will be glad for you to point out any similarities.

The reason why Conrad has had no problems with that is because, his girlie pictures, and my girlie section, including daily pictures with picture appraisals and comments are totally different.

Cheers!

I did not say that no one else can have Asian model polls because I came up with the idea.

Hell, if you visit some other Hong Kong bloggers, you will see that they too started polls about Asian women or female news reporters, or what have you, after I started.

In fact, I helped some of those bloggers with the HTML code for putting links in the poll host code.

About this latest Asia Web log Awards and all that, I don’t give a damn either way as I have always tried to stay out of such awards (including Phil’s last year – I can gladly point you to the post at my site where I stopped my readers from voting for me in the previous Asia Weblog Awards).

I was just clarifying that my idea was not new and definitely not copied from Conrad. Whereas in your post you seem to indicate that I was following Conrad or what have you.

Perhaps, there is a giant internet cache somewhere and perhaps a site called http://www.itere.com (belonged to me but now no more) and it’s cached pages from 1999 do exist somewhere.

The same weekly, monthly, yearly model picture thingy was posted there (by me).

Another history lesson for you then…

Gweilo Diaries was nowhere on the scene in 1999.

I don’t consider you a foe, too bad mutual feelings aren’t the same.

Enough said about I, I, me, me, now why don’t we, the Hong Kong bloggers, reach a consensus and promote ourselves to the world instead of this never ending thingy?

Cheers!

There is a significant difference between a regionalised distinct idea (which differed in form and process as well as geography from its ackowledged inspiration) and a near copy followed by a hurried change of name. The fact that he uses PHPBB polls for the backend rather than the self-built software of the first one does not make it different enough.

Your point about the cola drink is good and if I remember rightly there were law suits galore in the old days. Needless to say – even if you were right, the misleading emails (where he mistook an email saying I was planning on hosting it as its own entity for yes of course you can host it) and the original name sort of gives away his thinking n’est pas?

He was specifically riding on my original work which very much implies IP – you don’t have to have a commercial product to be protected.

As I said somewhere else, this saddens me because I like Giles and he has contributed a lot at flyingchair including ideas for a new logo.

However, as someone who is talking to potential sponsors so that this event can get some real promotion and go to a much higher level in terms of publicity and winners returns, the stakes are a little higher than what some people in the blogosphere have to say.

Asia Blog Awards is generic enough a title for it to be non-copyrightable. Much in the same way that a store that sells vegetables cannot concretely claim exclusivity to the name Vegetable Shop.

I know that a name cannot be copyrighted under UK law for example. If ownership needs to be established, it has to be registered as a trademark, and thus a graphic or a logo need to be submitted. Then, also, I think uniqueness needs to be established.

So hence, your custom designed logo might be considered your Intellectual Property. If Giles used your original logo then that might be grounds for legal action. Textually and name wise, Asia Blog Awards is not probably not sufficient for you to be claiming ownership of that name.

If what happened initially happened, it sounds like a big miscommunication error. Of course it might not have been. But if you do feel aggrieved, I believe you should be looking under passing off law, misrepresentation, or even fraud – the concept of representing a body when you don’t have their permission to represent them is probably covered under law. I don’t think IP law is the right area for you to build a case.

Of course, I might be wrong, but this is what I’ve learned setting up business in the UK and working with brands over the years. As I said in subsequent post, it’s always best to take it to court if you feel aggrieved about it. Opinions from the blogosphere on points of law shouldn’t be taken as the barometer of correct or incorrect.

And if you are someone who is talking to potential sponsors of your event, I’d suggest you focus your energies on making sure that they want to pick you rather than Giles for the sponsorship money.

“But it was my idea first!” isn’t a credible argument in front of sponsors who want to see a return on their investment. They probably won’t care about the niceties of who was first and who was second but instead on who can deliver them the audience.

Good luck to you with your Awards thing too. I’m not picking sides (well, any side’s except Gweilo Diaries), and just talking about points of law as I see it. I really am sitting on the fence on this one.

Well, I guess I should be grateful to Giles for bringing this controversy into the blogging world. It got me two new readers by the looks of things.

I think the matter with Ron was settled up. As I said, I was wrong about my assertion but you are right, I was looking for an example. And I appreciate him pointing it out to me so that other people can see the corrected story on that.

I’ve always maintained that Giles is entitled to run his own poll thing, but I’ve also felt that the launch was a little messy. Using the same name, and the reference to Phil’s version was probably a big faux-pas legally. There is following in someone’s footsteps and then there’s riding on someone’s coat-tails. But better legal experts than myself will have to debate that.

In the end, time will tell who has the better awards ceremony. The first-to-market always has a better time of it, especially if they were good, and Phil’s was. It’s always on the newcomer’s shoulders to prove that they really do provide a better alternative than the first.

I would like to confirm that my Totty Poll was inspired (if that is the word) by Ron’s Model Polls. However, my contestants are newsreaders, actresses, politicians and even regular people, and sadly I am unable to find pictures of them without clothes. I can imagine ….but it’s not the same thing. Indeed, for some of them I cannot find any pictures at all. You might even say that my poll is largely text-based, perhaps therefore more of a spoof poll.

Anyway, I digress. Ron did indeed give me help on putting the HTML code in, as well as on other tecnical problems which I, as someone whose technology ceiling is somewhere in the basement, have had from time to time. For all of which, I am grateful.

Indeed, it was Ron who put me onto Typepad when I was thinking about graduating from placing inane comments on other people’s blogs to creating a whole blog to showcase my stupid comments.

Ron is someone who is extremely generous to other bloggers. Why, he even links to NTSCMP!

I think you two guys were at slightly cross-puproses, which it seems you have sorted out. I didn’t read Eshin’s comments as suggesting Ron had copied anything (which he hasn’t) – merely making a point by analogy.

Eshim makes some good points on the copyright question – somewhat more sensible and measured than those made over at Gweilo Diaries.

However, I think Giles did misjudge things in two ways – one by use of exactly the same name as Phil had used, even _if_ the name is too generic to be copyrightable, and also, as Phil (whom I met for a beer at the _exact_ time as this thing blew up) points out, by stating that he was doing it _because_ Phil was too busy – thereby implying that his poll was the same. I say ‘misjudge’ – I am giving no opinion on the legal issue.

Anyway, Giles’s poll (renamed) is up and running, though there are not yet many votes, and hence the results are so far very skewed. My opinion is that the existence of a second poll will merely publicise blogs in general and will highlight Fliying Chair as the market leader.