I Need some help

Hi Mason,

I am the individual who posted the short excerpt from Dan & Bill's book within PSO. My primary motivation was Marketing; i.e. to encourage potential buyers of the books to purchase them. It was a small annotated piece on a single topic (the zone system).

I received no personal gain from doing this. Morever, I admire both Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie a great deal, as I have known them since my chess playing days back in Boston more than 30 years ago.

If you would like to discuss this privately, you can e-mail me at pokeraser@yahoo.com. I hope this clarifies the situation in a helpful way.

Sincerely,
Frank N.

Mason and my two+two friends,

I just posted this in the PSO forum. So I thought I would share it directly before you hear it through the grapevine.

"Just for the record, one PSO member asked for an opportunity to visit Study Group "C" last week (a closed group). I granted his request as I had no reason to suspect any devious intent.

He then cut and pasted a number of quotes from within the group forum to an e-mail which he sent to (handle deleted), who subsequently used the information (out of context) as bait in his topics this past week (Zone sytem, copyright and player notes).

Anybody who reads what I shared within the group can plainly see that it was:
1) a condensed and annotated part of a single topic;
2) was used to reinforce my suggestion to all members of the group to purchase both volumes of the book; and,
3) resulted in no financial benefit whatsoever to me personally.

In marketing terms, it was a very positive quasi-book review presented to a group of potential purchasers. The same summary is also in my trip report, "playing for the hurricane victims". Once again, it was presented in such a way that the only possible impact would be more sales of the books.

I have a personal relationship with Dan Harrington and will call his home and discuss this situation with him. If necessary, will send e-mails to both Mason Malmuth and Bill Robertie. I will personally respond to any posts on the subject on two+two.

The only thing I am guilty of is trying to promote these books. Obviously, there is an individual trying to cause trouble in whichever way he can. I have no idea what could possibly be motivating him.

Best wishes,
Frank

P.S. Anybody who wishes to publish this note on two+two is welcome to do so. As I said, I have done nothing other than share with my friends here on PSO how valuable I think Dan Harrington's wonderful books are, especially in relation to the Zone System which he invented."

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Frank:

My feeling is that there is no problem here, so the issue can be dropped. Do be aware however that this is an area which we are concerned with and take very seriously.

Also, I believe that the person who contacted me only had good intentions. Exactly where fair use ends and infringement starts is not always clear and interpretations do vary among individuals. I think that's what happened here.

I will leave this thread sticky for another day or so in order for everyone to see that in my opinion this issue is resolved.

Best wishes,

Mason Malmuth
Publisher
Two Plus Two Publishing LLC

Hi Mason,

I see Frank has posted and addressed this. I've posted here at 2+2 before actually but it's been a couple years since I have and I didn't remember my log in, so I registered again to do so. [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

I am a long time member of PSO who goes by Hitman there, and am one of the mentors in their mentorship program. I am not an employee of PSO.

Thanks,
Dave

[oh3648]

welcome aboard frank and back aboard dave.

Well thank you Stephen (oh3648)! I have been lurking here for many, many months. This was the first time I have felt the need to pipe in.

BTW, many PSO members enjoy coming to twoplustwo...as well as doing their shopping here. At least four PSOers have posted to this thread alone.

Thank you Mason for addressing this matter directly before it could get out of control.

Best wishes always,
Frank

[brettbrettr]

[ QUOTE ]
Why not send an email to Mark Napalitano. He is a reasonable person it seems

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't really think he's reasonable. And FWIW, my first copy of Super System and my copy of Mike Caros book of tells came form the PSO Forum/website, printed it off at work.