Cap 'n Chris,
Both the owners and I have now asked, so "I" and "we" fit well.
WCMS are responsible for the surveys done in the 1990s and Unit 2 members in the years before this. Would you like the names of the people? or do you have access to the WCMS website, where you can read about the surveys and people involved with them?
Chelsea subaqua club I believe were also taking surveys at some point, but members of the other clubs made this difficult for them,by cutting the lines they laid through the under water sumps and passageways.
elusive link to another as yet undiscovered area nearby
From surveys prior to 1944, it is clear that many areas lay undiscovered, and possibly still do
Responsibility is a simple matter. Everyone is responsible for their own actions. If somone says it is alright to use someone else private land, because they have the access rights and control of the land, "one" is responsible if it is found that the person claiming access control had none, and "one's" actions had been unlawfull.
So who is responsible??? Check thier website and see how many visitors were encouraged to trespass on private land.
My idea of a resolution (I hope you will put your thoughts?)
The end result of a resolution should be that the landowners are happy once more for people to visit their land, and that these people can carry on the different researches that they have been doing, or want to do in light of the new information
Unfortunately it is not resolved
From what I know, the owners require to know exactly what activities have happened on their property and who sanctioned them. They want to know because no-one had ever been given the access rights to their property, and they discovered by pure chance that WCMS had been advertising it for many years, and using it for the benifit of WCMS and WCMS members.
If any contact had been made with the legal owners, they would not be asking others to try to obtain the information for them.
If anyone has a copy and would like to send it to the Harrison family, their address in Sussex is now known to WCMS, Croydon History Society (???), and the WCMS legal representatives, and should be known to anyone legally using their land. Please do not send any details to me, the owner require them
How do they inflame things?
How about phoning the owners and sending them letters asking about access, and after getting told that there will not be access for any WCMS member, phoning and writing again, and again?
Does this count, when it is the same member every time (and yes he is definately a member, and has been for a considerable time)?
Mine Explorer,
To be able to satisfy copyright, the author must have complied with English Common Law. I am sure that you would not condone the breaking of common law, and realise that it is the very foundation of the British justice system. I am sure that along with numerous other readers that you would not wish to be asociated with law breakers or clubs that condone law breaking, and that actively encourage it? (check out WCMS details on how to trespass on highways agency land without getting caught "No.10 Entrance, Merstham" 1995).
Trespass: covered by English Common Law.
Ooops, did some author of a survey forget that? How silly of him. As the mines were already known copyright law will not help the common trespasser, or the tresspasser duped into using private land to produce surveys for the caving clubs personal use!
I too realise why WCMS are not prepared to send details of their work or activities to the owners, so do most other readers. It's not fear of their work getting copied, it's that they unlawfully gathered parts of the surveys, and then allowed others to use the same surveys for their unlawfull use of the land. Now there is a thing not covered by the copyright umbrella.
It is very possible that other surveys exist. But eventually the people responsible for the newer ones will "cave-in" with the owners of the land. If it ends up a matter for the courts, they will have to produce it anyway, and then risk the bad publicity that the case will bring to their club, and any clubs also associated with the use of that area?
I do not think they will be handing out Blue Peter Badges, or the cub-scouts good citizen badges to all those people. Hey, maybe, just maybe they will only pick on a few to sue? Who should they go for then? The people in charge? The surveyors whose maps allow further intrusion?, the bats that use the caves? the scouts? Blue Peter?
HMmmmmm I wonder.
You suggest an alternative way that might the leave me open to action from the authors for illegally copying what they gained unlawfully. I welcome the challenge! If anyone has a copy they can leave lying around long enough for me to copy, please let me know, and I will take my chances.