Image Ownership & Solemn Thoughts

Post by **daiv** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 6:54 pm

Well one person who I don't know sent me an e-mail and pointed out that a Fotolog.com user had a bunch of CactiGuide.com pics on his site. I took a look and sure enough there were many CactiGuide and other photos listed as though they were his own. He even listed his camera in the credits. There was no mention of where the pics came from at all. I also noticed that he had other people's images in his site and didn't even bother removing the watermark.

So I e-mailed him and asked if he knew they were CactiGuide.com images. I said it would be nice if you would give proper credit to the source of those images.

To my surprise this person more or less spit in my face (via e-mail) and said something to the effect of "you think you are the owner of the cactus world" or something like that. That really caught me off guard.

Anyway, I sent a note to Fotolog.com and I think others did too as the account is now inactive.

But in the end it just bums me out. If the guy would have just asked to use the images I would have been totally fine with it and just ask that he list CactiGuide.com as the source.

I'm not sure why I am sharing this.... I guess to say that I really appreciate how everyone here is so respectful of each other. It's really neat to have such a diverse group of friends to share the hobby with.

Thank you to a fine bunch of cactophiles from around the world! I've greatly enjoyed these past 4 years!

Post by **CoronaCactus** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 8:10 pm

wow, that dude sure was nice

Reminds me of when a friend of mine found pics of my car on somebodies website claiming it was theirs. After an onslaught of emails calling him out, he finally removed it.

Life is full of idiots. (and most of them have internet access...)

I guess for myself (since i do like to post alot of pics) i never really thought of protecting them (except with JAlbum you can prevent right click/save as) Maybe i'll think about adding some sort of watermark or something... but it probably won't help -print screen still captures it.

hob · Post by **hob** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 8:14 pm

daiv wrote:
I'm not sure why I am sharing this.... I guess to say that I really appreciate how everyone here is so respectful of each other. It's really neat to have such a diverse group of friends to share the hobby with.

Thank you to a fine bunch of cactophiles from around the world! I've greatly enjoyed these past 4 years!

thanks for drawing this to my attention, i take great pride in having my images reproduced by cactiguide, having said that if they are reproduced somewhere else i would at least like to be credited with having taken the images..............having said that, all of my images published on this website were freely given with no copy write interests intended to cactiguide.com.......... however should they be published elsewhere i will expect to be consulted re publication and copy write........all images taken by me ........are hereby protected from re-use by other than cactiguide.com if i see my images re-produced elsewhere i will take legal action to prevent said images from being reproduced elsewhere.

it really saddens me to have to take this action but if i feel my images are being misused i will take legal action.

TimN · Post by **TimN** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 9:24 pm

Ha, my evil plan of taking pictures so crappy nobody would want to steal them is working perfectly....

peterb · Post by **peterb** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 10:18 pm

Daiv, sorry you had to deal with that. It's a strange new world on the internet, with a lot of blurring of intellectual property ideas. Folks don't understand that if they aren't polite, they could get in very real legal trouble. And to prevent that? All they'd have to do is ask for permission to republish.

peterb

John C · Post by **John C** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 10:20 pm

That's just wrong when people do that.

As Darryl said, "Life is full of idiots. (and most of them have internet access...) "

Very true!

TimN wrote:Ha, my evil plan of taking pictures so crappy nobody would want to steal them is working perfectly....

That works!

Post by **daiv** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 12:15 am

Hob,
While I've given permission to others to use MY images from the site, it has always been only the images that I took. I list credits as clearly as possible (as you guys know) for other images and have told people that those are images I don't have permission to share.

Legal action isn't really necessary with the web as ISPs are pretty good about helping on this. In my case - Fotolog.com just shut the account down.

It isn't like I have profits tied up in this like a business or an author, but it is more the principle of the thing. Anyway, I think this guy was the exception and not the rule so there is some hope in that.

Daiv

hob · Post by **hob** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 3:39 pm

yeah i guess iv'e calmed down a bit now

a friend of mine looked up something on google a while ago only to find an article with one of their images illustrating the article without permission to use the image

emails were ignored but the article was withdrawn after a while.

Post by **daiv** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 5:30 pm

And again, I'll bet your friend would have been flattered if they asked first and put his name down by the pic in the article and would have said, YES!

Ocotillo · Post by **Ocotillo** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 7:03 pm

That's too bad, Daiv.

It seems like sitting down at a keyboard is closely akin to getting behind the wheel of a car.

People that are usually nice can display a level of rudeness over the internet that they would never dream of doing in a normal social setting.

Post by **CoronaCactus** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 7:55 pm

Ocotillo wrote:People that are usually nice can display a level of rudeness over the internet that they would never dream of doing in a normal social setting.

True that!
Mostly because they know you can't punch them through a computer monitor!

Post by **daiv** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 1:02 pm

CoronaCactus wrote: True that!
Mostly because they know you can't punch them through a computer monitor!

I think you're on to something... you ought to invent the "Internet Punch Box". An automated arm that socks it to ya if you get out of line.

John C · Post by **John C** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 3:03 pm

daiv wrote:
CoronaCactus wrote: True that!
Mostly because they know you can't punch them through a computer monitor!
I think you're on to something... you ought to invent the "Internet Punch Box". An automated arm that socks it to ya if you get out of line.

You should do that!!!!!!!

Loph · Post by **Loph** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 6:44 pm

thats too bad Daiv. happens though. on my site i have a simple PSD image i use. i just make it sort of transparent with my name and website url. i just copy and press paste on every image before saving, very fast and stops most copying.

i think sharing images is fine, but credit is due....or even if no credit is given, dont claim to be the owner of someone else -whatevers-...just aint right.

Post by **daiv** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 12:02 am

Loph, that is good advice. Funny thing is, this guy had them copied with watermark and everything!

Image Ownership & Solemn Thoughts

Image Ownership & Solemn Thoughts

Re: Image Ownership & Solemn Thoughts