Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Things that Irritate Me

I have two things I feel like ranting about at the moment (who doesn't need a good rant every now and then?):

1. Disney's obsession with copyright: The issue of downloading coloring pages containing Disney characters recently was brought up on a listserv I'm on. Several people quickly responded that you should never ever use Disney images. According to them, Disney has a monetary rewards program for those that turn in people who use Disney's material without first obtaining copyright permission AND they have even attacked those using Disney material for educational purposes, which should qualify as fair use. Good grief.

2. The American Chemical Society (ACS): They charge incredibly outrageous prices for all of their products - journals, abstracts, databases, etc. I believe chemistry is the field with the highest journal prices, in fact. On top of that, in order to have an accredited chemistry program, we are required to have some of this material. And who are we accredited by? ACS. How convenient! Talk about ensuring that people have to pay your outlandish prices. That should be illegal.

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