A little touchy over at Reptile Haven's site

[E2MacPets]

Counterpoint

Hi Rich. My name is Megan Davis. Ritchie Luna gave me your email address in hopes that you would be able to help me. I am writing to you regarding the post mentioned in the subject line. Two of my pictures (the second and the fourth pictures) were posted by Mark Berger without my permission and I would like them removed from the thread.

 

[ReticEd]

Webslave,
Yes, this is your site and you will do as youwish, BUT...

All it would have taken was a look at the posts by Brett and the bergs and it would be easily determined that the pics did not belong to the bergs and they didn't have permission to post them in any form.
they even stated that they came from Bretts site.

Does the BOI and fauna not recognize small legalities such as intelectual property anymore?

It really doesn't matter who lets a webmaster know that property like that was used without authorization, especially considering that several posts do state that they used someone elses pics AND that they did not have permission.
I do not know who actually removed them, I assume the bergs did, as it seems to be the case from the posts.

But, in any event, if they were not removed by the poster of the thread, then the others that have access to the edit functions of this forum, moderators and admin (you) would have needed to.

You know the legalities in the copywrite laws I assume.

We at Reptilehaven/RTB have extended the courtesy of doing the same in the past, and will do the same courtesy in the future, granted that a member does not have permission for a pic etc.

We hope the courtesy can be shown here if needed in the future.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[JuliusSqueezer]

Thanks Eddie

That's the diplomatic version of exactly what I was trying to say...but I'm a little pissed at the way Rich handled ( or actually DIDN'T handle) the situation so I checked my tact at the door.

 

[E2MacPets]

I feel that the mistake by Rich was only not checking this thread.

Megan Davis is not the owner of these photos from anything we've seen here. That she is the model in some of the photos does not give us any knowledge of proper ownership and use of said photos.

Rich was not wrong to question her authenticity in regards to her claims of ownership. I feel his reply to her was in keeping with his policy of erring on the side of caution that favors not censoring or editing posts without due cause.

He was wrong to not look further and read deeper into the thread, however. The photos should have been taken down regardless of who claimed ownership, since it was made clear that they were someone elses work posted without permission.

 

[Clay Davenport]

To be specific, Mark said

Folks... I didn't come up with these pics from just anywhere. This is just a sampling of Brett's quality work.

Then Brett said

Oh...and yah. I am a professional photographer and I own the copyrights to all and any photos on my site or in my albums online and you do need my permission to use them anywhere for anything...but I see no harm and no foul here and your attempt to "make fun" seems pretty weak so I will grant you permission to leave the photos in this thread but ask next time.

Brett, as the admitted copyright owner granted permission, albeit after the fact, to use those photos in this thread. Brett claimed ownership of the photos, and allowed them to remain in this thread. By his own words, Megan simply didn't have a say in it, she is not the owner of the pictures.
Brett giving permission to use pictures he owns relieves Rich of any requirement to remove them regardless of what the person in the picture wants.
Megan gets upset and Brett wants to change his tune. Next time you might want to ask her first before you decide what you choose to do with your own property.

 

[Darin Chappell]

So, Someone emails Rich and says, "Please take down my pictures, which are being used by another person without my permission."

Now, Rich doesn't know this person, and it's his busiest time of the year (shipping 4,000 hatchlings WILL keep you hopping!), but he takes a few moments to respond asking the person to simply register and post that the pictures are indeed her property before he COMPLIES with her request.

He then gets an email telling him that it is not worth her time to register on HIS site so the HE could do HER a favor! ("Wow" is all I have to say about that!).

Then He tells her, "Fine, but don't ask me to help again in this issue," and now he's a big jerk about this all?

Someone said that Rich was wrong for not looking through the whole thread to see what was being said here by those who posted the pics wrongly. I'm sorry, but hat is simply ridiculous. This lady, nice as I'm sure she is, asked Rich to do something for her. He told her what he needed to get that done. Did she email back with the proof you wanted Rich to dig up? No, she said "it's not worth my time!" Fair enough, but why is it worth Rich's time more than it was worth hers???

Another thing, it really doesn't matter what Rich asked her to do to get the pics of his site. It's HIS site people! He didn't ask her to do anything that was unethical, immoral, or in any way difficult. He simply wanted a public claim to be made on the pics so that he could point to it when someone else complained about his deletion of them. Is that so hard to understand? You don't think so, you're entitled to your opinion, but you still don't get to have your way on HIS site! Griping about it also gets you nowhere.

Finally, if the picture theft had you so infuriated (which I can understand), why not just go onto your site and rename the pics in question. Then they wouldn't have shown up here at all. Too hard...too much trouble...but Righ is supposed to read all of this trash? C'mon!

Brett emails Rich and says it's all true what he's heard about him? If his fiance had decided it was worth her time to register (about a minute and a half, BTW) and make the post Rich asked her to do, would those things still be true of him after he had deleted those pics LIKE HE SAID HE WOULD DO?????

This is just lame, people. I have no problem with your site eliminating vulgarities. In fact, as a minister, I applaud it. I also think that you have every right to keep your intellectual and real property secure for your own use. But Rich is a bad guy because he didn't want to skip rope to your rythym, when it's HIS rope? Really????

 

[Darin Chappell]

Excellant points, Clay! Sorry I forgot about that post. I would have liked to have been the one to bring that back to light.

BTW . . .for those who thought Rich was a heel for not just complying with her request with no real proof of ownership, THAT post is exactly why him asking her to register and post her request was the prudent thing to do!

 

[WebSlave]

Just a quick post before I get back to feeding my animals.

Brett, get your mirror fixed please. It is making you look a lot bigger and more important to yourself than you are in real life to other people.

You are also not the center of the universe, just in case it hasn't dawned on you at this point of your lifetime.

I am incredulous that you believe that everyone should jump at the mere snap of your fingers, placing you immediately at the top of their priority list. Or is it the snap of your fiance's fingers that is making YOU jump? Seems you did change your tune midstream there from some outside influence.

I handled this exactly in the manner that it warranted from my perspective.

 

[JuliusSqueezer]

I never saw the point in posting the pics but they didn't offend ME. I am proud of my work and although the intention was to make fun or provoke me...I just didn't get it and stated that I didn't care. I really didn't and still don't. It did however offend the people who's faces were in the photos so in a later post, I demanded they be removed...and they were. All this crap between megan and Rich happened while it was being handled otherwise. While I own the rights to the photos and also have the right to grant permission for their use... I also have the right to take the permission away unless a written contract selling the rights is made. This was not the case.

So, what have we learned from this episode of Springer?

I have no tact and I can be a jerk.
Rich is an A-hole.
the Bergers practice poor husbandry.
You can't cuss on RTB.
Using other people's photos without permission is a crime.
and Megan has sexy toes

Who cares? It's all been said...sometimes more than once. Some of us will try hard to fix ourselves. Others won't. That's life.

 

[Clay Davenport]

At the very least you will need to post within that thread claiming your ownership of those photos. I just cannot go and delete something someone else posted without evidence that my actions were proper and warranted. You could be absolutely anyone sending this email to me. I hope you can see that there has to be some method of accountability for my actions in something like this.

Interesting attitude from someone asking for my help in this situation.
Suit yourself.
But please don't bother me again, if that is the way you want it, as I will have nothing to do with your situation concerning Mr. Berger.

Megan requests that "her" photos be removed. Rich returns with an obviously civil reply requiring one small action on her part to lend some credibility to her claim of ownership before he does what she asks. She refuses, and Rich, considering the lack of justification does not delete the pictures.
If the manner in which Rich responded classifies him, in your opinion, as an "unprofessional a-hole" then I would suggest you stay off the internet and remain indoors, because you are obviously too easily offended by anyone not skilled in the art of treading on eggshells.

Rich refused to edit a post based on the fact he didn't have any proof whatsoever that Megan owned the pictures, which she didn't, or even if it was her in the pictures at all. As the copyright owner it was your job to contact Rich in the first place, not hers. Rich's actions were completely warranted. Megan was involving herself in a copyright situation where she has no grounds to claim anything.
I could pick out a dozen pictures from the forums and email Rich claiming they were mine and demanding they be removed. Should he, on that claim alone, go about editing dozens of posts? Of course not. Megan is not so special that her claims should be acted on without any further evidence when others wouldn't be.
It was already established in the thread that you owned the pictures. If you as the copyright owner had taken it up with Rich instead of Megan, as is the normal method of resolving such issues, the evidence would have already been in place.

 

[HerpVenue]

I have no tact and I can be a jerk.
Rich is an A-hole.
the Bergers practice poor husbandry.
You can't cuss on RTB.
Using other people's photos without permission is a crime.
and Megan has sexy toes

and lets not forget
Mario will twist this into a "fauna against the world" battle.
Ken Reptile Haven attacker (according to mario)
and Ritchie is just being himself (showing mario's actions)

posted by Mario on his site
While we attempt to keep things Family Friendly, we also know it is impossible to ensure every little word is bleeped out. However Fauna makes it known that they will operate on their own rules and attacks any site the operates within the law but against their own belief system. They are attacking other sites for protecting our kids. You can view threaded=24891 to view this for yourself. But this isn’t the first time this has been a issue on fauna. They have also attacked KS for following the law and moderating accordingly to the laws governing child protection on the web in the past as well. Their was a huge discussion about this because they were unable to link to sites containing information that was inappropriate to children. And they were attacked for following the law. But it just shows what Fauna will do to attack their competitors whenever possible.

okay, now for my thoughts.
While maybe Rich could have been nicer.
All the other parties had to do was to register and post that the picture was hers. then I am sure Rich would have complied. But then again.....I was thinking it is good he did not erase it. Because after all the pictures did not really belong to her like she claimed. ALL rights tot he pictures where claimed by someone else.

While it is true I could have hit the edit button at anytime. There were a couple things that stopped me

1. I just don't like editing other people's post. But will do it as a last resort.

2. ANOTHER person claimed ALL rights to the pictures. But yet, someone else is asking me to delete it.

This is a misunderstanding that ALL parties including myself could have handled a little better

 

[ReticEd]

Webslave....
No, you didn't handle it properly...

#1. The pictures were reported to you to NOT be the posters property.

It does NOT matter WHO reports them as being stolen as the laws do NOT state anywhere that the owner has to be the one to complain.

Example -
I am driving down the street and I see someone carting armloads of corns out of your shop.

I call the police and they say that since I am not the owner of the shop, they will do nothing???

#2. A public retraction was made by the actual owner in a post.
Again, it does NOT legally matter who reports the crime.


#3. The only pictures that anyone complained about were the pics that contained human likeness, Donnie Smith and Bretts fiance.

The bergs admitted they took the pics, so it can well be safely assumed that the bergs, did NOT have the proper release forms from the two models involved.

#4. Ritchie... man.. you frequent both sites enough to know who Bretts fiance is and that the Bergs didn't own the pics.
A simple PM or post to webslave could have vouched for who the complainer was, afterall, she mailed you first..

They are engaged.. not quite as legally permanent as the actual marriage BUT as men have known for eons..

What is hers is hers and what is mine is hers....


All in all, it was handled somewhat poorly by the admins and mods..
The pics should have been removed at the first complaint since it was already established that the poster did not own the pics.
Once again, nowhere does the law state that the actual owner has to be the one to report the crime.
Maybe the webslave is getting a little too big for his britches due to all the attempts to sue etc etc..
But somehow, I think wipo woulda nailed both this site and the Bergs for intellectual property theft in this case.

 

[Darin Chappell]

If you call the police about spotting some looting going on, they don't reject your request to come find out what is oing on because you're not the shop owner. That's true. But there are two things wrong with your analogy.

First, they also would not come out and arrest the "suspects" merely on your say-so. Why? Because they might be carting stuff out of the shop to protect it AFTER the actual burglary had taken place, under the owner's supervision. Just because some calls the cops and makes a complaint, that doesn't mean they snap to and make an arrest. But Rich should have takent he pictures off just because Megan said so?

Second, the cops would make an arrest, after they had investigated the situation and found someone to be culpable. However, THAT IS NOT RICH'S RESPONSIBILITY! If Megan wanted those pictures removed, all she had to do was to register so that Rich could do as she asked without taking the brunt of the actions on himself. Could he have read through the whole mess? Sure, but if he did, he would have seen that the pictures were posted and then permission was given to leave them up. When permission was LATER rescinded, the pics were removed by the original poster. If that isn't could enough for you, use the legal means you have to bring ramifications upon the poster, not Rich. It wasn't his responsibility to blindly take sides in the matter, especially when it wasn't important enough to megan to register on a site from which SHE WANTED HELP!

This is really silly. The pics are gone. You guys have made your own decisions about Rich. Rich can take care of himself. I'm done, I guess. The whole thing is just stupid.

 

[Darin Chappell]

WOW! Really, really bad typos and/or senior moments going on in that last post. Sorry everyone!

Shouldn't be typing on the BOI until AFTER the third cup of Joe . . .

 

[ReticEd]

Gee Chappell..
I seem to have left out obvious unspoken details...

I am driving by a place that has all the windows busted out, the door and frame are in the middle of the street and there is what appears to be a state DOT truck rammed through the wall.

I do believe the PD would respond no matter WHO reported it.

If it was an open door and the people were not abehaving hurriedly and suspiciously, then yes, maybe the PD would be slow to respond...

Sorry to ruin it for you but not every call to the PD is an inside job like was supposedly done in the NG case....

And yes, a retraction on partial permission was given.
Fortunately the poster edited his own post.
If not AND the webslave did nothing, then yes, it very well could have turned into a bit more of a legal issue than it was to begin with.

But it was resolved.

Now go crank up the bean grinder.

 

[WebSlave]

No, I am under no compulsion to delete anything anyone posts on my site. Especially when the request is from someone just coming out of the blue demanding that I do so with absolutely no proof of their assumed right to tell me to do so.

From the beginning, I was paying pretty much no attention to this thread, since from all appearances it was nothing more than a tempest in a teakettle. The photos weren't particularly noteworthy, certainly not something I would even give more than a passing glance anyway. If they had been attached and uploaded to my server, I would have deleted them anyway just for being a waste of my server's bandwidth.

But hey Brett, I understand. It's pretty unsettling for a young guy like you to have your girlfriend demand you DO SOMETHING, or else, now isn't it?

And just for the record, Eddie, the original poster of the message with those photographs did NOT edit the message. The links were changed at the source.

 

[JungleHabitats]

... just a thought

Ok im no web programmer nor did i stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night BUT i know there are ways to stop what was done by "stealing the photos" its as simple as having the web designer "right click" protect the pages of your website that way there would never be ANY way they or anyone else could ever steal your photos! Now i have to agree that Rich's choice was founded IMHO to have the owner request this removal.
If i was to tell you that the picture on your wall was mine would you give it to me w/o any definite proof?
regardles im not jumping a bandwagon that i have no idea where it is heading just thought i would toss out the Idea that there was a simple fix to have your photos "protected" from any future misuse

 

[JuliusSqueezer]

Rich...

You say that like you have experience with women. Somehow I doubt that.

 

[ReticEd]

And just for the record, Eddie, the original poster of the message with those photographs did NOT edit the message. The links were changed at the source.

My bad on that part...

But since you were aware of the thread and that the pics were not the posters properties, then it is clear to everyone here that it is OK for you to violate the laws on intelectual property by having taken NO actions prior to the Url change on the pics..

Double standard if you ask me...

Steal from everyone else, just don't steal from me, quoteth the webslave..

By the way...not to get too picky here.. BUT..

In all the webslave posts on the BOI forum.. you violated your own rules by not posting your full name on every post in that forum...
coughDoubleStandardCough...

And JungleH..
Right click protect does absolutely no good... Trust me..
Look at your browsers tool bar, in it are the means to view the source code.. AND there are many photo proggies that can capture any right click protected web pages images or text.

Edited to say-

You can even get a lot from a right click protected site with the keyboard short cuts.. ctrl + c for example.
Highlight the object or text and hit ctrl + c.. TADAAAH! you have just saved something from a right click protected page..

 

[JungleHabitats]

i stand a testament...

Ok im no web programmer nor did i stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night

IMHO this will officially do it for me ... as stated above i am not or did neither of the two .. lol