eWRC Shutdown

[Eric_B]

Lier!

Mr Holmes helped us and we helped him! He sent the chassis of WRC cars by email to me even before public article of his newspapers and magazines.

I readed some mistakes here but it is fatidious tell all here. But please, don’t lie in name of a great man and mainly dead.

I am not lying, I knew Martin for more than 30 years. I know his opinions very well. Same like lot of other people.

[Andre Oliveira]

One thing is saying that his job lost importance cause the internet arrived, and eWRC by sides. Other is say we are the reason! Maybe one day will appear other technology that will make eWRC and others databases obsolete. It is evolution.

The main question is: who owns the data that you say we copy? And the others who copied us? And so on… We bought many official results in ebay and now other guy can copy and share in other pages… who owns that data? No one.

[Eric_B]

One thing is saying that his job lost importance cause the internet arrived, and eWRC by sides. Other is say we are the reason! Maybe one day will appear other technology that will make eWRC and others databases obsolete. It is evolution.

The main question is: who owns the data that you say we copy? And the others who copied us? And so on… We bought many official results in ebay and now other guy can copy and share in other pages… who owns that data? No one.

Be sure there are owners of the data. It is not only about data itself, but also about the way to collect them. All this discussion started with notice, that other rally related sites were closed. I only wrote the reason for their closing - they did not wanted to continue with their work, which is unscrupulously copied by someone else.

[Shacki]

It's unbelievable what nonsense is written here. You can't imagine how difficult decision we made and why we did it. Nonsense about stealing no need to comment, just wasting of time only. But people believe what they want to believe.

[Eric_B]

It's unbelievable what nonsense is written here. You can't imagine how difficult decision we made and why we did it. Nonsense about stealing no need to comment, just wasting of time only. But people believe what they want to believe.

I agree it is nonsense to continue with this discussion. Each of us has it's own truth to believe.

[focus206]

You're not infringing any copyright law by "copying" rally results from other sources. They are not strictly reserved information, and unless the organizers of the rally in question, for whatever reason, wanted complete ownership of the results and hide it from the general public (nonsense), then they are public, just hard to find. Of course, a mention of the source who found them is nice to have.
I've seen my fair share of people in various motorsport forums being "jealous" of their findings, not wanting to disclose results to other users for free, because they were the ones who put in the effort to find them. I find this ridiculous, imagine if historians and archeologists acted like that as well.
I've dug through many websites to make a list of all the national rally champions that I could find, few years ago. Often year by year and country by country, because full lists are usually unavailable. Is that copying data as well?

[Sardalense]

My problem about the "stolen information" is just because sometimes we spend a loooot of time searching for it and then in minutes someone copies it. It's internet, I know, I copy, you copy, everybody copies information. I usually try to add the source of the information to my excel file, but sometimes I forget to do it. But when people says that they are the greatest when I know that some information that took me 5-6 hours (or sometimes years) to get just took them 30 minutes to copy I feel angry, that's why I stop sharing information online. The website is great, is a great source of information, no doubt about that, but sometimes, some contributors need a bath of humility despiste their dedication to the cause because sometimes when things happen it's not because of their effort.

[AnttiL]

I've seen my fair share of people in various motorsport forums being "jealous" of their findings, not wanting to disclose results to other users for free, because they were the ones who put in the effort to find them. I find this ridiculous, imagine if historians and archeologists acted like that as well.
I've dug through many websites to make a list of all the national rally champions that I could find, few years ago. Often year by year and country by country, because full lists are usually unavailable. Is that copying data as well?

I've seen this attitude a lot when searching for rally maps. People hoard their maps and decline to even take photos. Of course not everyone.

Also often especially old school rally people seem to value only the original paper maps/results or scan of them, not a digitalized format (like inserting to ewrc-results or rally-maps). For me it's the other way around, the value of the digital format is that you can make all kinds of stats, lists and comparisons with that. Meanwhile, if I get some paper maps, I don't need to keep them after I've digitalized them.

I've spent hours listening to old rally interviews and transcribing them to ewrc-results to add detailed information about old rallies, but to me the principle is to get that information out there. I've gotten so much from the community, I want to give something back.

[focus206]

My problem about the "stolen information" is just because sometimes we spend a loooot of time searching for it and then in minutes someone copies it. It's internet, I know, I copy, you copy, everybody copies information. I usually try to add the source of the information to my excel file, but sometimes I forget to do it. But when people says that they are the greatest when I know that some information that took me 5-6 hours (or sometimes years) to get just took them 30 minutes to copy I feel angry, that's why I stop sharing information online. The website is great, is a great source of information, no doubt about that, but sometimes, some contributors need a bath of humility despiste their dedication to the cause because sometimes when things happen it's not because of their effort.

We have different points of views. If someone uses and publishes information that I've gathered (and I spent looots of time on it as well) I feel proud about it, not angry. Proud because I uncovered those information from who knows where and now they're under the eyes of everyone. Why would I research if not to make it available to everyone? (I don't have a website to publish, but I'm always happy to share what I have) To keep it for myself? I would have no reason to research then...
Crediting is nice, but even if they don't, I don't care too much. It's not a painting or a sculpture that I made with my hands, it's information I uncovered. I don't feel I have any real ownership on it.

[WRCStan]

You're not infringing any copyright law by "copying" rally results from other sources. They are not strictly reserved information, and unless the organizers of the rally in question, for whatever reason, wanted complete ownership of the results and hide it from the general public (nonsense), then they are public, just hard to find.

I'm not with you here. If the organisers don't want to share them, the public cannot even begin to guess them. We could stand with a stopwatch and walky-talkies nearby and do our own timings which would most likely be different. We can choose whether to share it or not but this doesn't make it useful for anybody because it isn't used in the organisation or outcome of the rally. Therefore hidden official results can't be public information as being widely observed and accepted 'facts', so surely they can be copyright protected?