Copyrights and Legal Notices.
Users can come here to find out how KM presents opportunities for the "Authors", or Owners, of buildings depicted on KM. This page represents a document serving notice to certain interests in each Kootenay community.
Here you see a real town in the Kootenays,
except it’s not the real town but just a picture of it.
It’s “virtual”, but that does not mean that the designers of the buildings lose their rights under the law. Since Kootenay Mall's mission is to promote their local interests, they too must be represented. Kootenay Mall provides a means of doing that, and unique opportunities for more.
There are several practical issues that make the obvious one, Copyrights, a bit cloudy.
Firstly, it is not always clear who the copyrights for a building belong to. For example, if the architect was not an employee of the property owner, then the rights belong to the architect, and not the property owner.
Secondly, KM is designed to promote either their business, or the businesses within each building. In protecting their rights, property owners may hamper the businesses they benefit from. Rather than contravening those rights, KM creates new, easily recognized opportunities to enhance them.
Just to clear things up a bit,
Although this town is often just this sunny, there is no disco crosswalk sign.
Maybe there should be but the point is that on Kootenay Mall, your city will not be modified to suit any special interests. That can only change in very specific cases.
The virtual spaces represented by the images on KM
are also subject to copyright, owned entirely by the parent company. The images are subject to copyright as well. At stake is the extent to which an image of a building contibutes to that space. The ultimate test will be the question of whether the virtual space is dependent upon the specific image.
Since any image could be used, the answer is "not in the least".
And that creates a rather opportunistic marketplace for 'Virtual Estate'. It means, technically, that anyone who pays enough could remodel the cities on KM any way they like. They could put a Macy's Day Parade balloon where your business is, or delete your building as a way to compete with you.
While I woudn't let that happen, the question must be asked: Would other websites who follow this model do so?
The answer is Yes. In fact, we need only look at the growth of bitcoin to see it. Or look at current restrictive real estate clauses used by grocery chains: That's exactly what would happen.
With KM, your town, city or village retains its primary value, Character, and small local business is where that comes from.
What all of that means is that the balance of interests lies in cooperation.
Kootenay Mall asks for permission to use the images of certain buildings. That permission comes with rights, priveledges, and in some cases royalties which are specific to KM. Permission represents opportunities that don't exist elsewhere.
Without that permission, a picture of a building is replaced with another picture; that's all.
Familiarity is the value offered by the buildings in these images.
That makes it worth asking for permission to use them, but not worth paying for. Familiarity is what makes it worth giving permission, but not worth demanding payment. The real values of these images lies in maximizing the online traffic of each virtual property on KM.
However
The real issue is the creation of a market for virtual property. KM is a potentially game-changing opportunity for small businesses and also the real estate owners in each small town.
By using Kootenay Mall, every small business and property owner is creating new value within their community- Value that is usually claimed by a large company somewhere else.
It is time that local businesses, and property owners, had a chance to compete.
Kootenay Mall offers a way to do that.
This internal direction banner above leads to KM Sales pages at present,
But, as you can see, there is plenty of room for tasteful advertising Without the chaos of distractions, lists and visual 'noise'. Just like the Kootenays, KM is easy on the eyes.
