Re: Murphy to cop plea on federal charges

[Jeff Hecht <jeff@jeffhecht.com>]

We all have an understandable tendency to trust people whom we have worked with 
before or who have been doing reputable-seeming work. Murphy had done 
respectable work with the Leonardo hadrosaur mummy, and had been involved with 
a museum for many years. He had seemed legitimate before; do you question 
somebody every time you work with them? They got blindsided. 

At 7:04 AM -0400 3/20/09, MKIRKALDY@aol.com wrote:
>The company that was going to make the molds and  casts was the Black Hills 
>Institute of Geological  Research.
>
>Mary
>
>In a message dated 3/20/2009 2:06:16 A.M. Eastern  Daylight Time, 
>drakeducaine@yahoo.com writes:
>
>< Who or what company  made those molds? Technically Mary's right, for 
>everyone to have their butts  covered the molding/casting operation should be 
>asking 
>questions. However, there  are a lot of businesses out there that cater to 
>molding and casting for artists,  garage model kits, etc., rather than the 
>sciences and more specifically fossils.  In this case these businesses might 
>not 
>have the knowledge to ID a species  beyond what the client tells them it is, 
>or 
>even know to get proper  documentation for the specimen and sort out issues 
>such as casting and  reproduction rights. I've seen artists have their work 
>reproduced without  permission and sold for profit by a third party.. 
>Certainly 
>doesn't make it  right (or LEGAL), but unfortunately it happens! Fortunately, 
>the businesses that  specialize in paleo-replicas (at least here in North 
>America) are well known and  can be judged by the paleo community for the 
>quality of 
>their work in all  aspects.>
>


-- 
Jeff Hecht, science & technology writer
jeff@jeffhecht.com or jhecht@nasw.org
525 Auburn St., Auburndale, MA 02466 USA
tel. 617-965-3834  http://www.jeffhecht.com