Bad Guy V.I.I.P.E.R.--THIEVES!!

[TrulyRare]

I would like to note that I was a member of a forum (FreedomReptiles.com which has since shut down) where Chris posted the original herping picture. I also remember when he first started offering the stickers on the same forum. I am behind Chris 100% on this matter.

As of am I. I also seen this posted on other forums other than Freedom.

I'm behind you as well Chris. I know Chris is like..me...he's to honest. He's so honest he will tell you what he thinks, no matter what. LOL.

 

[Khaman]

They were not available at the Richmond Show as members had bought them before then.

All 7 stickers were sold by September. We had no intensions of ordering any more.

Then how is it that several people that were at the show saw them for sale there? Why as of 7:30 CST are they still for sale on your web site?

 

[VIIPER2008]

Scott. They saw a piece of pexi-glass with all of our stickers on it. We did not have any. It just had not been removed. I have asked my webmaster to remove them from the website. As of 8:41pm EST they are gone.

 

[jayefbe]

Then how is it that several people that were at the show saw them for sale there? Why as of 7:30 CST are they still for sale on your web site?

That was my question as well. If you only made 7 (or 10) why did people see them for sell at a show? AND where did you get only 7 (or 10) stickers made? The places I know of have a minimum order of much more than that.

 

[VIIPER2008]

Joshua. The only one people saw was the one stuck on the pexi-glass. We didn't have any for sale.
Steve Puckett at Custom Graphics in Virginia Beach prints them for us to order. Small quanities cost much more. I have names of my snakes on my car.

 

[King_of_Colubrids]

I have recieved apologies from VIIPER as an orgnaization both publicly and privately. They have done what they can(including temp. suspension of Amanda Warren, the perpetrator from the group) to try and resolve this with me.

The image and the sales link have both been removed from the website.

This is the latest correspendance between myself and the group VIIPER:

Status: Message successfully sent

To: 'Venom Fairy' <[email protected]>

Cc:

Subject: Re: Hi there



Absolutely. I am at faunaclassifieds.com right now making it as right as I can. I can't edit the original title of the thread, but I have made it clear on my site and at cornsnakes.com that your organization is not resposible, and that your organization did nothing wrong.

I have the name of the individual responsible, and that is good. I have already changed my website.

Thanks for all your help, and the compliment!

Chris

http://KingofColubrids.com
Captive Bred King and Corn Snakes

On Mon Nov 24 17:36 , 'Venom Fairy' <[email protected]> sent:



Thank you, and can you please reprimand the group on the Fauna as well. We will take necessary actions for the member, who in fact has decided to ignore us so will be removed promptly.

Thank you sweety! I love your website by the way.


On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 8:30 PM, King of Colubrids <[email protected]> wrote:

No problem whatsoever. I will remove the name of V.I.I.P.E.R. as a group, as I really do not feel the group did anything wrong. It is certainly not your fault that she misrepresented herself.

I do hope you understand why, at the time, I had no alternative but to post the name of the group. As I said to Bobby Jenkins, I have no intention of unnecessarily sullying the name of your organization. However, it was my only option for recourse at the imte.

I will remove the name of your group from the Blog post-haste.

Thanks-Chris
http://KingofColubrids.com
Captive Bred King and Corn Snakes

On Mon Nov 24 17:10 , 'Venom Fairy' <[email protected]> sent:



Hi there Chris,

This is Priscilla the President of Richmond VIIPER. Well hun I had no idea that Amanda had stole the logo but I will remove the sticker for sale on the website and we will let the members know that it was stolen, and Amanda shall be removed from VIIPER on a temporary suspension. However, for legal reasons please remove our name in bad standing from your blog. You may bad mouth Amanda Warren but please do not bad mouth the club, as there are a hundred or more members that did not deserve that type of publicity.

If you have any questions or further concerns you can reach me at [Phone number removed for privacy reasons]
Thank you,
Priscilla McArthur

Let's be clear...I do not blame VIIPER. The group as an entity did nothing wrong. They were misled by Amanda Warren, the individual responsible for stealing the graphic, and later denying it.

Amanda Warren is the culprit, not VIIPER.

 

[JudyC]

I don't think Mr. Jenkins needs to be grilled here. What I wonder is why Ms. Amanda Warren is so silent? She's been watching the thread all evening, so has had ample time to either defend herself or apologize. It appears she would rather let someone else take the heat for her, but hopefully it's really just a case of a very carefully considered apology that is taking her time.

 

[jayefbe]

Joshua. The only one people saw was the one stuck on the pexi-glass. We didn't have any for sale.
Steve Puckett at Custom Graphics in Virginia Beach prints them for us to order. Small quanities cost much more. I have names of my snakes on my car.

Thanks for the explanation. I wasn't trying to grill you, just thought that particular point needed some clarification.

 

[King_of_Colubrids]

Joshua. The only one people saw was the one stuck on the pexi-glass. We didn't have any for sale.
Steve Puckett at Custom Graphics in Virginia Beach prints them for us to order. Small quanities cost much more. I have names of my snakes on my car.

If you would be so kind, please inform this individual that the artwork used for the stickers was stolen and not authorized. This will prevent him from making any more stickers or any other materials using this graphic at anyone else's request. It will also inform him of Amanda Warren's less-than-ethical "designing techniques".

Thanks.

 

[Rextiles]

I too will attest that Chris came up with this sticker earlier this year as his own product. I can't believe someone would be so ignorant and petty to steal someone else's idea/product like that!

There are however some very interesting issues I'd like to point out.

Amanda stated this:

There were all of 10 stickers made up. They where all sold and we are not having any more made up, we didn't plan to have any more done before this came to light, and with out a question will not have them done now. Say what you want Chris, I can't change th fact that we sold 10 stickers and I'm not sure how I can made this right to you.

Bobby Jenkins email reply to Chris Morrrison:

I have contacted our Secretary that worked with the vinyl graphics designer that had the 7 stickers made. ... As I said before, we only had 7 made and they were sold to club members with no profit made or intended.

And Bobby reaffirmed that statement here:

All 7 stickers were sold by September. We had no intensions of ordering any more.

So, which is it? 10 or 7? Considering that you stated in your email to Chris that Amanda was the one "that worked with the vinyl graphics designer that had the 7 stickers made" leads me to believe that she is the one that is more aware of exactly how many of these stickers were actually made, otherwise there would be no inconsistency with your statements.

What I would like to know is, who's money was spent to order and purchase these stickers in the first place and who received and pocketed the money from the sales? It's totally irrelevant whether or not a profit was made from these sales as you like to point out. The fact is, these can be considered as lost sales to Chris who rightfully owns the design regardless of your intentions or profits or losses on this.

If you are having a hard time grasping this concept, all I need to do is point out the illegality of, let's say, sharing mp3's over the internet. Do the file sharers profit from sharing mp3's with other parties that have no intention on paying for them? No. Do the courts care when that mp3 file sharer or the network he was using to share those files is brought to court for theft of intellectual material and states that he nor the network wasn't doing it for monetary gain? No.

I think it's pretty clear where you, your organization and Amanda stand in all of this, guilty whether by complicity or not. The fact that these were sold through your organization, I'm willing to bet that the money used was from your organization and also that the money regained by sales went back into your organization, clearly shows some type of complicity all the same.

I think the only reasonable resolve to this is to post on your web site's "shop" page Chris' sticker design with a statement such as "For all of those that purchased these stickers from us, we would like to kindly point out that we inadvertently used this design which rightfully belongs to Chris Morrison at www.kingofcolubrids.com. Any future purchases or enquiries should be made through Chris Morrison's web site and we are sincerely apologetic about any wrongdoing on our behalf. Thank you for your continued support and thanks to Chris Morrison for his understanding in all of this."

With all of that said, I would also like to point out this:

We are still in mourning of a beloved member that was killed by her retic just last month. If there is a time that herpers need to unite is now.

What does this have to do with anything about the stickers? In fact, I find it rather sickening that you would use the tragic death of anybody, let alone a member of your organization, as a deflection for sympathetic reasons for your organization in regards to this IP theft. I am fully aware of the story of Amanda Black and deeply sorry for her families loss. But I don't think that it was appropriate nor respectful for you to bring up her tragedy within the midst of all of this.

Just my 2 cents in the matter.

 

[TrulyRare]

That's awesome Chris. I'm glad that this has been resolved.

 

[Rextiles]

Interesting. I got negged on my karma with this remark:

Wow! Thank you so much for the show of support!

All because I brought up were valid arguments and in support of someone who I believed to be in the right? Yeah, that's very mature of whomever did this but obviously this only goes to show to me the true integrity now of this organization or just some of it's members that are a part of it. I was willing to give VIIPER the benefit of the doubt overall until now. I can only wonder and yet somehow assume who did this considering that I only mentioned 2 names in my reply and only 1 of them has been semi-actively responding other than Amanda. Grow up and counter my arguments here on the forum instead of trying to punish me in the dark and behind my back with silly karma negs, as if I'm that petty to care about silly karma points

 

[King_of_Colubrids]

Wait...that "karma" was from me! It was SUPPOSED to be POSITIVE Karma, not negative! I had NO IDEA that I was giving you negative karma. I thought that I was adding TO your reputation for standing up and supporting me. Instead...I must have hit the wrong button or something...

I am REALLY sorry. I completely intended to provide POSITIVE karma for your last post, not negative.

 

[Rextiles]

Wait...that "karma" was from me! It was SUPPOSED to be POSITIVE Karma, not negative! I had NO IDEA that I was giving you negative karma. I thought that I was adding TO your reputation for standing up and supporting me. Instead...I must have hit the wrong button or something...

I am REALLY sorry. I completely intended to provide POSITIVE karma for your last post, not negative.

Doh! My sincere apologies Chris. Perhaps I am confused about the whole karma system at this point. Perhaps I was negged recently without even knowing about it as it doesn't seem to appear for very long in my user cp. My assumption was solely based upon the fact that it used to say that my karma was something like between 50-149 points and now it only shows "an unknown quantity". I naturally assumed that when I started I only had the unknown quantity factor, then it got built up from some other thread responses and now I'm back where I started.

I kindly rescind my ignorant and assumptive remarks now that I know the facts!

 

[JudyC]

Troy, if the karma box was gray alongside the comment (which it would have been regardless of if it was intended pos or neg because the giver has no "karma-power" yet)...then that simply means no points were given or taken away...for the reason already mentioned.

You sort of jumped to a pretty nasty conclusion really fast there.

 

[Mooing Tricycle]

Troy, if the karma box was gray alongside the comment (which it would have been regardless of if it was intended pos or neg because the giver has no "karma-power" yet)...then that simply means no points were given or taken away...for the reason already mentioned.

You sort of jumped to a pretty nasty conclusion really fast there.

Meh. An understandable one. It happens. Especially when you are sort of unfamiliar with the karma system, and the recent changes that rich executed on the site.

 

[King_of_Colubrids]

Well...I was just informed that there were 17 stickers left that were just thrown out. I've also been informed that she won't be suspended.

So...what's the deal, guys? How many stickers were really made? When were they really sold? I got one president telling me Amanda Warren will be suspended, and the other going behind her trying to clean up her mess, and still skirting around an admission of guilt.

Someone needs to stand up and talk about what's going on. I stood up to my end of the bargain, and I removed your group's name from my site in a negative light. And then I found out that not only are there lies being told about how MANY stickers were made, but also about the repercussions this individual will recieve for STEALING MY PROPERTY. Try to remember that what has transpired here is ILLEGAL, not simply bad form.

Here's the latest series of emails from VIIPER:

From: 'Venom Fairy' <[email protected]> Sent: Mon Nov 24 20:15

To: [email protected] Priority: Normal

Subject: Re: Hi there Type: Embeded HTML/Text


Also, supposivley the 'smart ass' our Vice President in Hampton Roads doesn't want to suspend her. I think they need to but it's all officers decisions supposively.

I can't take back her name but I wouldn't take any personal actions because we have relinquished (thrown away) all remaining stickers and removed them from our website.


On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 11:08 PM, Venom Fairy <[email protected]> wrote:

No problem, and I will see to it that this doesn't happen again. I was not as big of a part of the organization when the stickers were made anyways. I made the VIIPER logo itself and I could understand being upset if someone stole my work.

We still have about 14 of those stickers left and we will come up with the money to relinquish to the debt from those rather than sell the remainder. We will toss them just to make sure nobody else thinks it was VIIPERS.

- Priscilla



On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 8:47 PM, King of Colubrids <[email protected]> wrote:

Absolutely. I am at faunaclassifieds.com right now making it as right as I can. I can't edit the original title of the thread, but I have made it clear on my site and at cornsnakes.com that your organization is not resposible, and that your organization did nothing wrong.

I have the name of the individual responsible, and that is good. I have already changed my website.

Thanks for all your help, and the compliment!


Chris

http://KingofColubrids.com
Captive Bred King and Corn Snakes


On Mon Nov 24 17:36 , 'Venom Fairy' <[email protected]> sent:


Thank you, and can you please reprimand the group on the Fauna as well. We will take necessary actions for the member, who in fact has decided to ignore us so will be removed promptly.

Thank you sweety! I love your website by the way.

 

[TERRor]

I absolutely can't stand lawyers but in this Chris case you definitely need to get one. Show him all the emails and this post and you've got a slam dunk case. They've admitted it was stolen.

 

[awva]

Well for starters, I have not replied until I was able to get my facts. To start there where a total of 10 stickers made one was put on the board that was at the show, 2 where stolen and the rest had been sold, they where sold mostly in Sept, and I know we did sell at least 1 maybe 2 at the show, that's where we sold out of them. Venumfairy has no say over what happens in the Hampton Roads area, story over there. I e-mailed Bobby a picture of the sticker that you had posted on CS to see if he liked the idea, I had told him I had been working on an idea like it. I found out that Bobby e-mailed it to the guy that made the stickers, I did tell the guy I wanted to go along the same idea frame but different, I never saw a draft of it or anything, I only saw the end product. So will repaet I did not steal the design, showed it to Bobby even asked if the group should order some and he didn't want to pay the $8.50 for them, he wanted the group to have there own. Those are the facts folks and that's that. I am done on this issue, and will not be back to post more about it.

 

[Gecko_Den]

You are full of it.....

First you never saw his design, then you say you sent Bobby a picture of Chris' sticker. Looks like you are trying to pass blame on to Bobby, but it looks to me like you are both liars....

I e-mailed Bobby a picture of the sticker that you had posted on CS to see if he liked the idea, I had told him I had been working on an idea like it. I found out that Bobby e-mailed it to the guy that made the stickers, I did tell the guy I wanted to go along the same idea frame but different, I never saw a draft of it or anything, I only saw the end product. So will repaet I did not steal the design, showed it to Bobby even asked if the group should order some and he didn't want to pay the $8.50 for them, he wanted the group to have there own. Those are the facts folks and that's that. I am done on this issue, and will not be back to post more about it.

We did not steal his idea I was the one that came up with the idea back in March of this year, the group had 10 made and that's all, we sold them at cost as I thought it was something fun and cute to do, we have not had any more made and now plan not to either. I had no idea there was anything like it out there already. I have already told the web master to remove it from the site as we have been out of them for a while, and seeing how I am now being blasted and labled a Bad guy before I was even asked about where I got the idea, it's not worth it to me to keep going with them I will do a totally different design and copyright it next time. The fact that I have had the idea since march and had the design here at my home since then just didn't have them made until later in the year to make sure there would be an interest in them, we had them made and sold them at cost. Like I said we had only 10 made. We are a small group only in the state of VA and only in the Richmond and Hampton roads area. We have rescued a few snakes and taken in ones of the deployed miltary. we get together to talk about snakes and educate the public about why they should know about what they are buying in a reptile before they do it and give advice about how to care for them the correct why, but I guess that makes us bad people and love how we get blasted for trying to help the herps and keep them from just being turned loose or killed.

Amanda
Viiper Sec.