From: Sam Sloan ISHIPRESS COM> Date: 24 may 1998 Subject: Re: The Fraudulent "Ishi Press" web site I am extremely enraged at the e-mail I just received from Mr. Pieter Stouten. I have been receiving a steady stream of these nasty notes from Mr. Stouten for more than two years. I believe that my contribution to the promotion and development of the game of shogi is vastly greater than his and that he has no right to threaten and address me in this manner. My company, Ishi Press, is the publisher of the book "Shogi for Beginners" and of "Shogi World" magazine. We were involved with shogi probably even before Mr. Stouten learned the rules of the game. When somebody steals our work product and violates our copyright, we have every right to say something about it and indeed we must say something about it as soon as we learn of the copyright violation or else forfeit whatever legal rights we have. An unknown group (I have reason to believe that some new people are involved in this who may not know the background) are offering for sale on the Internet both "Shogi for Beginners" and "Shogi World" magazine. I feel certain that they do not have any books, because "Shogi for Beginners" has been out of print for several years. If they do have the books, I am certain that they have no intention of paying Mr. Fairbairn, the author, his royalties. Based upon their past history, they intend simply to take any money sent to them, deposit the checks, not deliver anything, and, when the customer complains, say that it is Sam Sloan's fault and that because of me they did not get their books. Regarding Mr. Stouten, in the more than two years that I have been on this list, I cannot recall ever posting anything that he did not complain to me about. I even dropped out of this list for a while, the unfortunate result of which was that I missed the 1996 US Shogi Championship which was held in New York where I live, because I never got the announcement. Later, to my great surprise, he invited me to rejoin the list, which I did. I can understand that he regards my "Girls of Shogi" web page as "smut" and he objects to my posting anything on this list about it, but several members of this list have written me privately to say that they appreciate and enjoy my web page and have downloaded all or part of it. I also understand that he objects to my saying anything about the shogi scandal in Japan involving Hayashiba Naoko which was on the front page of almost every newspaper in Japan when it broke. Nevertheless, this unfortunate incident has probably done more to increase the public awareness of this game than anything else within memory. (I have posted a front page photograph of Miss Hayashiba taken from a Japan newspaper at http://www.ishius.com/tosupo.htm ). However, Mr. Stouten also objected publicly when I posted my own version of the rules of Shogi and George Fernandez responded and made suggestions of his own. Mr. Stouten cut us both off saying that he (Stouten) had already written the rules of shogi and posted them in his archives and that there was no need for further discussion about shogi rules on this shogi list. Mr. Stouten most directly objected to the response by Mr. Fernandez and not to my original posting. Mr. Fernandez did not say anything about this but dropped out of this list shortly thereafter and has not returned, which is most unfortunate because Mr. Fernandez is, with the exception of Mr. Kaufman, the most enthusiastic promoter of shogi in the US. Mr. Stouten has often said that he is not a moderator and that his opinions are merely advisory only. However, he has directly threatened to ban me from the list. I believe that Mr. Stouten has no moral or ethical right to enforce the censorship on this group as he has been doing. On 5/9/98, Mr. Stouten sent the following outrageous message: "Please do not start a discussion on SHOGI-L as to whether the recent posting about "hits on photos of Japanese go-go and shogi girls" belongs on SHOGI-L. In my opinion it does not and I have asked the sender to refrain from making similar contributions. You are welcome to send your opinions on this topic to me or to the sender or to both of us, but please do not send it to the entire list. "Thank you for your cooperation, "Pieter Stouten, SHOGI-L owner "pieter.stouten dupontmerck com" You will notice that I did not say anything about this. However, it is obvious that Mr. Stouten objects to a posting which I know for a fact many members of this list found to be interesting and wrote me privately to say so. More than that, Mr. Stouten will not even allow dissent from his rulings. I recognize that moderators serve a necessary and important function to stop people from insulting each other and to stop people from posting daily nonsense and garbage as they often will if there is no proper moderation. However, Mr. Stouten is the first moderator I have known who will not even allow the posting of dissent from his rulings. Moreover, everybody involved at Ishi Press finds disturbing the lack of international moral support for our situation. We published our first go book in 1968, 30 years ago. Until a few years ago, we were the only significant publisher in this field, with the exception of Charles Tuttle & Co. which published go and shogi books only conjunction with their series of books on other aspects of Japanese culture. Most of these past 30 years have involved a very difficult struggle to survive, especially since there was no known or proven market for the books we were publishing. Finally, when we started to be a little bit successful at least to the point of getting our nose barely above the water, somebody comes in and steals our entire work product and pirates all of the books which we have published over the past thirty years. Why does nobody out there get outraged about this? Why is Mr. Stouten not allowing me to say anything about this? I believe that Mr. Stouten should step aside and allow a more qualified person to be the moderator. Sam Sloan At 02:25 PM 5/24/98 -0400, Pieter Stouten wrote: >On 98/05/24 at 11:14 -0400, you wrote: > >>Fraudulent "Ishi Press" web site >> >Sam, this is only very slightly related to shogi. Most of it is just an >assault on the "fake" Ishi Press, and although strictly speaking not >ad-hominem, it does not belong on SHOGI-L. I have warned you several times >before. One more such a mail and I will delete you from SHOGI-L. I'd rather >not do this, but if necessary I will also terminate the automatic >subscription mechanism to SHOGI-L, and replace it by one where I will have >to approve every subscription request. I hope it does not come to that. > >I thank you for your cooperation, > >Pieter Stouten, SHOGI-L owner >pieter.stouten dupontmerck com > >