Tim Worstall

Getting Up Yourself

I agree rather that I was a little cheeky here, asking for free copies of copyrighted standards papers.

However, I’ve just received this email which I think to be hilarious.

Dear Mr Worstall,

I would like to ask you to please remove from your blog all
mention and link to the ASD-STAN website. (in reference with the page http://timworstall.typepad.com/timworstall/2006/04/folks_who_has_t.html
which I came across).

I am afraid that you have been misinformed. EN standards are
published by CEN, the European Committee for Standardisation, and are
afterwards distributed through its Members, the National Standardisation Bodies.
ASD-STAN is an industry-led standards development organisation which develops
Aerospace standards, prEN and then submits those documents to CEN for transformation
into EN standards. ETSI is also involved in this process through a
subcontracting agreement with ASD-STAN.

Therefore, you can get copies of EN standards with the CEN
Members, (e.g. BSi for the UK)
and those documents are restricted of use and rightly protected by copyrights.

I sincerely hope that you will agree to remove our address
from your website and that perhaps I have shed more light with the information
I just provided to you. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have
further questions.

Best Regards,

Elyse Truchon Van Hove

Assistant, ASD-STAN

Phone:  +32 2 775 8126
Fax:  +32
2 775 8131

Avenue de Tervuren, 270, 2nd floor
1150Brussels, Belgium

I must remove their address from my website? I could understand their telling me I’m a naughty boy for trying to get a freebie, but WTF? Remove all mention and link to their website?

How does anyone get that far up themselves to ask for that?

In

8 responses

  1. Andrew Ian Dodge Avatar
    Andrew Ian Dodge

    Nope, just being a typical bully boy bearaucrat.

    Reply
  2. Tom Paine Avatar
    Tom Paine

    I hold no brief for bureaucrats, but if she was a native English speaker, she could probably have asked you for a correction more elegantly and with a trace of humour which would have led to success. It’s hard not to sound pompous when writing officially in a second (quite possibly fourth, in her case) language.

    Reply
  3. dearieme Avatar
    dearieme

    “with the information I just provided to you”: sounds to me as if her second or fourth language is American – that past tense is a give-away, ain’t it?

    Reply
  4. dearieme Avatar
    dearieme

    On second thoughts, half-American. Full American would presumably be “with the information I just provided you”.

    Reply
  5. JuliaM Avatar
    JuliaM

    “I would like to ask you to please remove from your blog all mention…”
    She doesn’t ‘get’ the web, does she….? Rather reminds me of the email Tim Blair got recently from the Bird Society in Australia, demanding he explain why they’d had so many hits referring from his site after he linked them in a post he did. 😉

    Reply
  6. Harry Hutton Avatar
    Harry Hutton

    You are in seriously deep legal trouble, Worstall.

    Reply
  7. The Remittance Man Avatar
    The Remittance Man

    I haven’t a clue what this is all about, but I think I’ll post the link on my own site. Just to see what sort of reaction I get.
    Bad, RM! Bad, bad RM!

    Reply
  8. ASD-STAN Avatar
    ASD-STAN

    Dear Mr Worstall’s Readers,
    Please refer to the rectifications I’ve posted in the orginally message.
    http://timworstall.typepad.com/timworstall/2006/04/folks_who_has_t.html#comment-78274484
    I am sorry that Mr Worstall did not want to rectify the post himself on the basis of the information I’ve provided him.
    As I’ve explained in a second email (which he didn’t post), I meant no disrespect and I am sorry that you felt threathened by my request. My main concern is to have a least information as accurate as possible.
    EN and prEN standards are protected by copyright and restricted of use and therefore I still believe it was improper to incite others to get free of charge copies.
    EVH.

    Reply

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