Charles,

Thank you for taking the time to address this issue. I think everyone involved shares the same goal: preserving the history of casino gaming and respecting the tremendous effort that collectors have contributed over the years. Based on the fact you barred me from accessing the guide weeks ago your statement that it "has recently come to your attention" is misleading readers.

That said, I believe it's important that we distinguish between concerns over copying and what U.S. copyright law actually protects.

Copyright does not protect facts. Casino names, locations, chip denominations, colors, manufacturers, mold names, issue dates, catalog numbers, and historical information are factual information. Those facts belong to history and cannot be owned by any individual or organization. Different reference guides may independently collect, organize, and present the same factual information.

Likewise, copyright does not grant exclusive rights over the existence or appearance of a historical artifact. A casino chip is a real-world object with historical significance. Multiple museums, libraries, archives, collectors, and researchers may document that same artifact for educational, research, and historical purposes.

For decades, museums, historical societies, universities, auction houses, libraries, and reference publications have displayed images of historical objects as part of documenting history. Those images are not displayed simply for decoration; they serve to identify, educate, preserve, compare, catalog, and provide historical context. That distinction is an important part of copyright law and is recognized in fair use analysis.

The law also recognizes that uses involving scholarship, research, education, commentary, historical reference, and preservation are fundamentally different from simply reproducing creative works for commercial exploitation. Whether any particular use qualifies is always fact-specific, but the existence of historical or documentary use is an important consideration.

There is also an important distinction between a club's Code of Ethics and federal copyright law. The CCA is certainly free to establish ethical standards for its members, but those standards are separate from the legal principles that govern copyright. A disagreement over ethics does not automatically establish copyright infringement.

I hope the CCA's review carefully considers all of these issues before reaching conclusions. Copyright law is intentionally nuanced because it seeks to balance two important goals: protecting creative works while also ensuring that history, education, research, and factual information remain available to the public.

Ultimately, I believe every collector benefits from having multiple high-quality historical references. Different organizations can preserve the same history, organize it differently, contribute new research, correct errors, and expand our collective understanding of casino and gaming artifacts. Healthy scholarship and historical preservation should be encouraged, as they strengthen the hobby and ensure that this history is not lost for future generations.

I showed this project to many board members at the convention and explained exactly what the purpose was in creating a better guide accessible to the hobby for free without the fear that it was written in some ancient proprietary code that only one person controlled and could destroy when they got angry things weren't going their way (yep I've heard those stories). At any rate if the board or whoever wants to expel me from the club they have every right to do so. On creation of our guide we took many steps with our legal team to make sure we complied with all laws. My suggestion is that if you don't like our site, don't visit it or support it, easy as pie. We have built what i thing is the greatest reference too our hobby has ever had written in simple code and will hand off to generations of collectors for years to come.