General Info About My Site

Intro & History    Disclaimer & Copyrights    Images    Credits

Introduction and History:

This site contains information I have collected pertaining to the Dragonriders of Pern^® book series by Anne McCaffrey, as well as pointers to the Pern web sites I have found to contain useful or unique information.  I have deliberately not included links to specific  MUSH, MOO, and MUD pages, or sites about someone's MU* personas.  There are a ton of these out there, and I couldn't keep up with them if I wanted to.  If you're interested in finding these sites, or information about them, try the Pern Web Ring, the links on my Pern Fandom page, on the fandom links on Anne's site.

This site first went live on October 12, 1998.  Since then it has been through three major reincarnations in its design.  On February 14th, 1999, the first redesign was published.  It involved settling on just one background for every page of the site, which was a pale pink marble.  In the second redesign, which went live on August 3rd, 1999, the site went to a look of hide, an appropriate background for an archivist.  This may also have been when the site went to a framed style, but I don't quite remember!  In the third and current redesign, the site now has the clean-cut look of Bendarek's woodpulp sheets, but tinted like hide for nostalgia.  Also, frames have been discarded in favor of a table layout.  This latest incarnation went live on November 21st, 2004.

General Disclaimer and Copyright Information:

I have not intentionally violated any copyrights.  While the utmost in care has been made to avoid including any copyrighted text or graphics outside of the fair use doctrine or without permission, I still may have goofed somewhere.   If I have inadvertently broken copyright by reproducing any text or graphics, please email me [address at bottom] and I will remove it ASAP. 

I've had my site reviewed by Ms. McCaffrey's lawyer, Mr. Jay Katz, at my own request.  As a result of this, I have removed some material from my site, and am making sure all proper copyright and trademark notices appear where they should.  This does not imply that the material currently on my site has been fully approved; further objections can be made at any time.

I'm becoming more and more familiar with the copyright laws, having had exchanged several emails with Mr. Jay Katz, and from doing some of my own research on the web.  I plan to eventually write a page discussing Pern copyright issues and the web.  Until I do, I am happy to give advice to others in email.  Specific questions are easier to answer than the general "I'm curious about copyright stuff" question.  Keep in mind, of course, that I am not a lawyer and have no legal training.  While I wouldn't pass on any advice if I didn't believe it to be correct, my interpretation of the relevant laws offers you no legal assurances.  If you are truly concerned about keeping your website legal, you should consult your own lawyer.  Mr. Katz is Anne's lawyer (not yours!), and will not give general advice--only tell you of specific violations and ask you to correct them.   Knowing this, if you would still like to contact him, you can find his email address on his page at the website of the legal firm he works for.

Many authors generally allow excerpts of 300 words or less of their work to be reprinted without license or royalty fees, as long as the appropriate copyright notice is included with the excerpt.  Anne McCaffrey is one such author.

Michael Whelan's website asserts that scans of book covers are legal; the underlying artwork (i.e. without the author's name and title splashed across it) is covered by copyright and may not be reprinted without permission.  While I have not had specific legal confirmation of this fact (that scanned covers are fine), it makes sense to me, as reproducing the cover serves mainly to promote the book.  It's hard to see why publishers would object to that!  It also wouldn't make sense for it to be legal for bookstores like amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com to be allowed to print covers, and not the rest of us...

Images and Artwork:

Most dragon graphics I've used originally came from Jen's free Dragon Art, or from Avinz's collection which no longer seems to be available.  I've modified these graphics to fit with my own theme.  My scribe's badge comes from the Pern Art collection of Lisa Lai.  The few cover images I have were scanned by me, but I may eventually include some cover scans donated by others.

Credits:

My site has been improved in  small ways by a number of emails from various visitors, for which I am grateful.  Major contributions to the content or accuracy of my site haven come from the following individuals:

Elrhan, who works with me in taking notes for my Pern Primer and his own Pern Encyclopedia (looong term projects for both of us) and helps catch errors in the Cast of Pern.  

Anneli Conroy, who checks the Cast of Pern with a fine-tooth comb, and provides valuable information on the differences between the DelRey (US) and Corgi or Bantam (UK) versions of Anne's book.

Hartley Patterson, who provides general tips on a variety of topics, especially on the DLG errata, and problems with my html coding.

All three have provided stimulating intellectual discussions of various aspects of Pern, in both private email and on the alt.fan.pern newsgroup. My site would be much poorer without the input of these wonderful individuals, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart!

last modified: 9/3/2004

Site created and maintained by Cheryl B. Miller, copyright © 1998-2007, all rights reserved.
All references to worlds and characters based on Anne McCaffrey’s fiction are copyright © Anne McCaffrey 1967-2007,
all rights reserved, and used by permission of the author.