ReptileRefuge-stealing photos and Care Sheets

We have found many caresheet and photo's on this site that were ours, ones I wrote for others or other people's we recognize that are not authorized to be reproduced or copyright acknowledged

If you have caresheets, articles or photo's online, you might want to check out this site and make sure they have not stolen any of yours.

Some have been requested to be removed or acknowledged by the site owner, and he has changed or removed some, but appears he is just taking them again from someone else site.

http://www.reptilerefuge.com/forum/index.php
then scroll down to the caresheets.

The site owner is
Registrant:
Justin Rutledge
14501 White Tail Ave.
Amarillo, Texas 79124
United States

I talked with the kid running the site yesterday after Cheri brought to my attention the issue. He quickly added a link to the caresheets that I brought to his attention.

There is even a thread on his forum about copyrights and there seems to be some confusion on his end concerning what makes a work copyrighted and what is considered public works. Hopefully with the discussion on his site he'll be able to identify who owns what (he said the photos he got off a google search and he was unsure of their orgins) and post credit.

If you see something that's on there of yours let him and I'm sure he'll fix it. I don't think he's the next kin of Satan just uninformed.

He still does not seem to get it, when someone request him to remove them and explain why, he is removing them, but then taking one from another's site to replace it without acknowledgment... and that is AFTER many people have told him he is violating copyright laws using unauthorized photos and articles.

Also, mere acknowledgement is not a valid substitution for permission in the eyes of the legal system.

Even if you credit the original author, if you do not have their permission, that is illegal. He has been informed of this, yet when he removes articles that are requested, he replaces them with other articles that have been stolen from elsewhere.

He's certainly NOT uninformed, and NOBODY has the right to grant permission EXCEPT the copyright owner.

Those that requested their work removed, has been, but I think everything on that site is someone elses work and he does not know at this point were he took them from.

At first he may not have known what he was doing was wrong, although it is hard for me to imagine that somewho who has as much experience online and with the reptiles community does not know taking and using others photo, articles and signing them as regards <nick> did not know better

Im curious about this subject. Lets say I put together a web site and use photos or care sheets I found on the web, which did not have any type of copyright or trademark indenification on them. I use these photos and/or care sheets for informational purposes only. I don't claim I wrote the care sheets. I don't claim I own the animals pictures in the photos.Is that Illegal?

Technically it is.

More to the point, common courtesy would say that you

1. request to use someonelse's work

2. provide a link or at the very least provide credit where it's due.

I agree with you on 1 and 2 but I disagree that the scenario I layed out would be illegal.

Originally Posted by Ophis

did not have any type of copyright or trademark indenification on them.

Whether the identification was there or not, as soon as a document or a photograph is created it is automatically copyrighted to the creator.

As I said, giving credit or links is not a legally valid substitution for permission.

Ugh, I've dealt with him. He was banned from SsnakesS.com for spamming other members with links to his forum. Any polite requests to stop and to abide the signature rule (4 lines max) were met with outright rudeness.