Syzygist Media: MuseoStradale Web Updates for July, 2012
To Publishers: Use of MuseoStradale images by non-profit organizations, independent blogs, and individuals posting on social network sites is free. This project is mainly a hobby and I, the author, receive no compensation for work related to MuseoStradale. Accordingly, MuseoStradale.com is free of advertisements.
Use of MuseoStradale images by for-profit institutions is subject to a one-time use fee; this might seem to contradict the previous statement, but it protects those who do rely on the creative arts for their subsistence. In other words, a publisher taking in advertising revenue, subscription revenue, sales revenue, or any other kind of revenue should expect to pay a nominal fee for making a direct request to an artist for the use of copyrighted content. Serving a direct request takes time and actually does constitute real work, so the artist fielding the request must be paid a nickel for lifting a finger to help you make a buck.
To Enthusiasts: To quote a friend's website, You like cars? We like cars! That about sums up my sentiments for the following:
Download of essays and images is authorized for private use only. You may re-post images on personal blogs and enthusiast websites dedicated to providing information about classic cars. Just, it
would be cool of you to keep the MuseoStradale logo on the image, and even cooler if you provide a link to this website. Occasionally I see something of mine with someone else's watermark, and so
to be perfectly clear about it, I find this uncool. But for the most-part, in the whole wide world of the internets, people are respectful. Kind'a makes you feel good about humanity.
To Owners: Thanks for taking care of these automobiles. Those of you who've contacted me have always done so in the spirit of shared enthusiasm, and those of you I've met at shows have always been gracious. There is that bit of getting to the realization that this kid with a camera actually knows Gordon Buehrig from Virgil Exner, and can even pronounce Figoni et Falaschi, (with preference for Italian grammar, of course). Still, I've found myself in a few excessively dumb conversations with other enthusiasts while in the presence of your amazing automobiles. And it's taken me a while to realize that 9 out of 10 people walking around these shows really have no clue. For some reason, I always assumed that if you attend a fancy concours event, that means you're really interested in classic cars, and so it would be reasonable to assume you know about them. This is a faulty assumption, apparently. So, owners, keep educating us all, set us straight when needed (as it's been necessary with me from time to time), and please promise us you'll drive your cars just like we would if we had the chance.
To Environmentalists: As a sustainability entrepreneur myself, I don't like thinking about the millions of cars running across this great planet of ours. But more to the point, I see our deleterious use of automobiles not merely as the errant destroyer of natural resources and vagrant global contaminant that it is, but also as a great waste of inspiration and human creativity. If anything, the pages on MuseoStradale show us exactly how much we've lost with respect to beauty and passion. In exchange, we have cup holders, blue tooth connectivity, and sat-nav. Yay. Go wave a flag. Those of us who are pushing for better, cleaner living are finding that we share more in common with our grandparents than our parents. We want to simplify and de-contaminate our lives. Really, this should be the starting point, and the health of the planet would then just be a natural extension of our own personal imperative to shape up. That said, I have no love for the modern automobile. If they aren't already, cars are becoming more of a problem than they are a solution. My secret then, for sending the great automobile into exile once and for all, is that as much as I love cars, I love trains just as much. But that's a different creative project, and a discussion for another time.
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