Watchprojects.com has now reached the 100th blog entry.
The Independent Watchprojects.com was launched to target a market niche, but judging by the growing number of small independent brands and their popularity on forums, the genre is increasing in popularity.
I would like to express special thanks to TLex of OceanicTime, for consenting to let us link back to some of the scoops he gets in the diving watch niche thanks to his close ties with independent diving watch developers. His blog is a must in your bookmarks list.
Coverage
We have been mentioned on Businessmontres.com, at paragraph #2 on the page 24 février 2010 – LE ZAPPING DU MERCREDI. Businessmontres is the world’s only ads-free newsletter about watches, which gives freelance journalist Gregory Pons an editorial freedom of speech rarely seen in the horological press.
There have been talks about the pertinence of our content on a couple of forums, like on XtremeMeanTime and WatchFreeks.com, and we are honoured to have several sites linking to us, amongst which Watch-Band-Center.com, a strap retail business based in Germany. Watch Band Center.com features an extensive choice of fine straps from reputable brands at very competitive price, which makes it the perfect supplier of straps for pimping your watch.
Changes in media files policy
Regular visitors might have noticed that images have gone missing in some of the earlier posts. When I started this blog, I tried as often as possible to hyperlink to the original Web sites and hotlink to the original pictures. Sadly, most Website administrators care little about the need for persistent URLs, so most of these pictures have either been moved or removed.
Considering that most of the images I publish on this blog have originally been released by the brands for the promotion of their products, I will assume that reproduction is authorized and save copies on my server, which will be the ones included in all future entries.
I will gradually try to do the same work with past entries.
Fine-tuning of opinion regarding intellectual property
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Watchproject.com is not intended to be apologetic of copyright infrigement. On the contrary, out intent is to draw the line between what can be or cannot be done in the gray area of homages and look-alikes. When I set out to launch this blog, my personal research on intellectual property had shown that designs did fall into the public domain after 25 years. As of today, it would mean that any watch design that was granted IP protection before Summer 1985 would now be in the public domain.
However, a forum discussion with a lawyer helped me understand that in some countries like France, registered models can fall under the protection of regular copyrights after the mandatory 25 years. In consequence, independent watch developers must pay close attention to differentiating their designs from one that might still be under copyright protection.
Anyway, I will keep posting on novelties and new brands.
Best regards,
Francis J.
