User:Kölner Domklaumeister

My first loot: image of the medieval crane on the south tower of Cologne Cathedral. This image is public domain in most countries, as the photographer died 100+ years ago, and in the U.S., as it was published before 1923.

Hello, and welcome to my user page!

From medieval ages, Kölner Dombaumeister is the chief architect of Cologne Cathedral and head of the masonry attached to the cathedral. I am not an architect, and not affiliated to Cologne Cathedral (beside being a member of the Zentral-Dombauverein zu Köln von 1842). Bauen means to build, while klauen means to steal.

This account, Kölner Domklaumeister, is a single-purpose sockpuppet account, created just to protect my other accounts (one with a nickname and the other with my real name) from trouble. Why? OK:

• there are spaces where taking photos is strictly prohibited. E. g. military installations, premises of intelligence services, facilities involved in the production and trafficking of illegal drugs, numerous museums, and Cologne Cathedral. The people taking up responsibility for these spaces tend to shoot photographers, or even file lawsuits and write nasty letters. I am not interested in being shot, sued for libel, or addressed in an inappropriate manner. My position is, that most places where photographing is prohibited should be open to the public, and it is part of the guardkeeper's responsibility to make the cultural heritage available to the public. For free, unless real individual copyright issues are involved. I just don't accept rules blocking the free access to cultural heritage.

• a large number of public domain works is available in the web, often accompanied by a copyright claim or a CC-BY-NC license, or has been printed in a book or periodical. I don't accept copyfraud, and I don't want to be forced into discussions about this topic. A simple reproduction of a two-dimensional work of art, which is in the public domain, can not be "licensed" for non-commercial use only, nor can the owner of the work (or of its photo or digital image) claim the copyright. It's public domain.

Nevertheless, I am grateful to those who make the artwork or other media in question available on the web. They can take pride of contributing to the dissemination of free knowledge.

If they chose not to take pride but to send assassins or lawyers, they should know my whereabouts. Well, I am a lucky guy, living in Sonoma County, California, the home of the famous Sonoma squirrel. Most weekends you will find me in my small house near Honolulu (in the evening, of course, sorting my digital loot after spending the day on the beach). You see, chances are bad for the common German Rechtsverdreher.