User:Allenbrown

I'm Allen Brown and am founder and editor of OldRacingCars.com.

My contributions to Wikipedia started in 2003 or 2004 but it was only 2005 when it occured to me that I should set up a login and "own up" to my changes. Most of those contributions were correcting falacies in areas where I could claim some degree of expertise but I also added ORC as a reference on some pages where I could see that it had been a major source. This was evident in the Formula 5000 and Formula Atlantic pages but the contributors had acknowledged ORC in most cases. Many racing drivers' biographical information, particularly dates and places of birth and death of more obscure drivers and team members, have been sourced from ORC and although these are acknowledged in the majority of cases, there are many where ORC is not given as the source. One day I'll figure out how to add the links. The only time I have contributed a new page was on the French hill climb championship which was not an unqualified success.

I am entirely supportive of the use of OldRacingCars.com as a trusted reference as long as its copyright is fully respected but my enthusiasm was dimmed somewhat when Wikipedia decided to use nofollow on links to reference sites. I understand the spamming problem that needed to be addressed but wish there was a way for administrators to denote a link as trusted. As a website owner, it is frustrating to write an article on a subject, see that article used as the basis of a Wikipedia page and then find the Wikipedia page receive a higher Google ranking than the original.

My support for Wikipedia does not extend to the copying of entire OldRacingCars.com pages onto Wikipedia. This has not happened often as far as I know but there have been two recent (August 2010) examples that I am working with Wikipedia administrators to resolve.

ORC is protected under UK copyright law, European law and International copyright law. In particular, it is protected by The Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997 (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1997/19973032.htm) and Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament. There has been a suggestion that the terms of Feist vs. Rural can be applied to some parts of ORC but this falls down on two points: firstly there is an element of originality and creativity in ORC that cannot reasonably be disputed and secondly ORC is published in the UK, not the US, and Jimmy Wales has said "Simply saying "Well, this is legal under US law, so let's do it" is not a very compelling argument" (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-August/027373.html).