AmSky Store
at CafePress

Temporarily Closed

A person I will not name claims to own the copyright to the images below. His claim apparently extends to any depiction of a galaxy with he words "you are here" anywhere in the depiction. He has ordered AmSky and CafePress to cease selling these items and CafePress has complied by suspending both AmSky stores.

I believe that his claim has no merit. He has apparently registered the copyright to a depiction of a galaxy with the words "you are here" in the depiction. However, under U.S. law, copyright extends only to an actual work fixed in a medium. Ideas and formats are specifically excluded from copyright. In addition, a short phrase that an English speaker would be likely to use in general conversation cannot be copyrighted, nor can you copyright a fact, such as knowledge of the approximate location of the sun in our galaxy. Therefore, his copyright only extends to the actual artwork the he created and not to its general idea, format, information nor the phrase it contains. Therefore, the following images, which were derived from a public domain (NASA) image -- although they may resemble a work which he owns the copyright to -- are separate and original creations and are owned by myself.

Naturally, I am outraged by this hijack of my own intellectual property and it is my inclination to aggressively pursue legal action against this person. However, merely registering the copyright to my images (a necessary step) would exceed the grand total of profits (approximately $35.00) that I have received over the two years CafePress has been selling these items on my behalf (no, these items are not putting my kids through college). I have decided not to pursue action to protect my intellectual property. I have also decided not to pay a $1.00 per item royalty, as others selling similar images have, because I believe that would be paying extortion and it exceeds my profit on most of the items. Therefore, items with these images are no longer for sale.

New Images Coming

If there is interest in items with my rendition of NGC 4414 (below) without words in the image I will make them available. If you are interested please contact me at the contact link on AmSky's TOC page . I am also thinking of replacing the image with the gorgeous public domain image from NASA here. If you are interested let me know.

Images Formerly Available