One of our SHARKHUNTERS attorneys, PAUL LAWTON (4628-1996) tells us that some new laws might be appearing on the books that cover Internet fraud and copyright infringement.

One of these laws (or groups of laws) will probably not be too difficult to enact. As our Members know, there are two guys in New England (Michaud and Brooks) who can find a lost U-boat in the Sea of Tranquility if you pay them enough money. For those who don't know, the Sea of Tranquility is on the moon - but they could find a boat there, if the money is right. They even have a web site, filled with pure baloney, so anyone dumb enough, can send money to them for a share in the money they will get from the sale of all the gold, silver and diamonds they find or. these U-boats not to mention all that mercury ballast All total baloneyl There is no gold, silver or diamonds and certainly no mercury ballast - and no phantom U-boats All that exists is a scheme to bilk unsuspecting investors out of their money- One of the U-boats they `fonnd' was never built R another ivas sunk (confirmed) a thousand or so miles out to sea The law PAUL and other attorneys are working on will carry the same fraud penalties for defrauding anyone over the Internet, an area that has so far been immune to prosecution

The other law or set of laws is one we'd like to see put in place immediately PAUL refers to a certain internet site that purports to be an expert on the U-boats and their history but PAUL is convinced that this is all just a lot of copyrighted library books that are scanned and just stuck on this site without any consideration given to fact or not, and not to any copyright infringements either. As to the accuracy of this site, many of U-boat veterans in our Membership have had nothing but scorn for the site stating that it is nothing but error on top of error. As to the legality or illegality of copying a copyrighted work and using it on one's own page and copyrighting it then as their own seems pretty wrong to us as just private individuals, but the lawyers are going to enact special laws that cover exactly that kind of activity_

It is interesting that the Internet has opened a whole new world of possibilities, and now we see a whole new world to possibly misuse all these possibilities. As we have said over and over again, there is no oversight on any Internet site and so no guarantee that what you are reading is accurate or even close to correct. As our U-boaters in Membership are quick to point out - it is filled with errors and they should know.

PAUL has written an extensive piece on the two guys in New England who can find missing U-boats in places where none ever existed and as space permits, we will run his piece on these guys. Just remember what we have said all along about the Internet; Check your information, double check your information and then triple check your information. Otherwise, you are likely to end up with a lot of folklore and romance stories disguised as fact.